Print over the Web

Last month we talked about setting up the new iFolder feature in NetWare 6, which lets users share files over the Internet. (File Sharing over the Web, PCQuest April 2002, page 100.) This time we’ll look at another neat feature, called the Novell Internet Print Services, which lets users use printers over the Web. 

What it does



Normally, in the NetWare world, the NetWare 32-bit client is required to make use of its print services. With the new print services, however, all you need is a Web browser, making it convenient for a user to find a printer, rather than search for it in the NDS tree, or scrounge through the Network Neighborhood for it. 

As an administrator, you can even create an HTML map of your office and place printers on it according to their physical location. This will make it easy for a user in a large office containing hundreds of printers, to find the printer that’s closest to him. All a user has to do to send a print job is to right click on a printer through a Web browser and download the IPP (IP-Printing) client. This client will also download and install the printer’s drivers on his machine, saving him and you (administrator) the trouble of finding the printer drivers. The IPP client has another benefit. In regular Internet printing, once you give a print job, it can’t be tracked (because of the nature of the Internet); but the IPP client lets you track your print jobs.

The setup



The security for IPP is provided through NDS, so a user can’t send a print job to a printer without the requisite rights. For a pure IPP setup, you’ll need an IPP enabled printer as well. For the existing printers on your network, which aren’t likely to be IPP enabled, you can use IPP through the NDPS (Novell Distributed Print Services). This will take all Internet printing requests and translate them accordingly to the appropriate printer. Let’s look at how to implement an IPP setup.

You can install the iPrint/ NDPS module during your NetWare 6 installation, or do it later, by going to the server’s GUI interface and clicking on Novell>Install. This will ask you for the path for the product that you want to install. Keep your NetWare 6 CD handy, place it in the CD drive and give the path of the CD-ROM volume, which in our case was NetWare 6. This will show you all the components and services offered by the OS. Here, select iPrint/NDPS and click on Next to continue the installation.

After installing the printing components, first set up NDPS, which will handle all the printers on your network. For this, fire up your Web browser from a client and enter the IP address or DNS name of your NetWare server. This will open a Web-based management tool. Click on the Open iPrint option from the left panel of the Web page. Here it will ask you for a user name and password with administrative rights, so enter your admin details. 

An iManage Web page will open. Select the iPrint Management from the list, which will expand to show more options. Here, click on Create Broker, which will ask you to provide a broker name. Give a name and click on the search icon for Resource Management Service. This will open an applet for selecting the volume for iPrint. Select Netware SYS volume and click OK to save the Broker information.

Next you need to create a printer manage for the NDPS server. For this, go back to iPrint Management and click on Create Print Service Manager. Give a suitable name for the Print Manager, and click on the search icon next to Database Volume. Again, select Netware SYS volume and click OK to save the configuration. 

Next you have to load a few NLMs (Network Loadable Module) on the server. For this issue the following commands at the server console: 

Load broker

Load NDPSM printmanager /dnsname=pcqnetware.com

These will load the broker and NDPS management services on the server. Replace the dns name of pcqnetware.com with that of your own.

Next you have to create the printers that can be used over the Web. For this, go back to iPrint Management in the Web browser and select the Create Printer option. Give a name to your printer, along with the Print Manager name you created earlier. Select Gateway type as Novell IPP Gateway (IPP on IP) and click Next to continue. Here you need to give the URL for the printer gateway you are going to set. Give the DNS name or IP of your NetWare server and click on Next to continue. Now choose from a list of printer drivers available for various OSs. Select the printer drivers for your printer. If the driver is not in the list, you can add it from theManage Broker>Resource Management service option.

Finally, you have to fine-tune the NetWare server for iPrint. From the server console, open the NDPSM management console. Here you should see the name of the printer you just created. If the printer is shown in IDLE status, it’s ready to use. Else if it shows an Error Writing message, you’ll need to configure it further. For this, select the printer by pressing Enter and select the Configuration option, and choose Configuration Utility from there. This will pop up a window for selecting the gateway. Select Novell Printer Gateway, and a window will pop up for selecting the printers driver. Select Generic PCL, and provide the port where it’s connected. This option is called the Novell Port handler, and it contains all the port like Local, Manual, Queue-based printers, Remote Printer LPR/TCPIP, Remote Printer IPX. Since we used a network printer with an IP address, we selected Remote printer LPR/TCPIP. You have to provide the IP address for your remote printer. Save the configuration by selecting Accept and Continue and Accept and Exit. Now restart the printer from NDPSM by going to the Printer Status. It should now show the printer in IDLE status.

Client’s configuration



Once the printer has been added to the iPrint Manager, you can access it using a Web browser on any client machine. Just type the IP address or DNS name for the IPrint gateway, which in our case was http://192.169.1.30:631/ ipp. Here, click on the Install iPrint Client option, which will install it on your machine. Once you’ve installed it, click on the Install Printer option from the same Web page. This will create a new printer on your workstation with IPP protocol so that you can take printout across the Internet. Printing to this printer is similar to the way you print on any printer. To test this, open a document, fire the print command, and choose the IPP printer from the list of printers available, and you’re ready to go. You don’t have to worry about where the printer is located any more.

Anil Chopra and Sanjay Majumder