Printer configuration overview

This section provides an overview of how printing is configured in a ThinLinc cluster.

Fig. 5 Printer configuration overview

CUPS browsing

It is important that the CUPS Browsing feature is turned off on all machines in the cluster, or problems with duplicate thinlocal printers will occur.

CUPS configuration on the master server

In the CUPS configuration on the master server, configure all printers that need to be available. Either use distribution-specific tools, or the built-in administration interface in CUPS which can usually be reached by using a web browser, connecting to port 631 on the machine, i.e. http://tl.example.com:631/.

The nearest and thinlocal queues, used by the nearest printer and the local printer features respectively, are added by ThinLinc setup.

Printers, with one exception (see below) only need to be configured on the master server. Agent servers will use the CUPS daemon (cupsd) on the master server for printing.

CUPS configuration on the agent server(s)

The agent servers in the cluster (the machines hosting user sessions) need a running CUPS daemon (cupsd), but this only needs one printer defined — the thinlocal queue. The thinlocal queue is added by ThinLinc setup when installing the ThinLinc on the agent server.

When using the nearest queue, the CUPS daemon on the agent servers must also have the hostname or IP address of the master server specified. This is done using the “ServerName” parameter in the CUPS configuration file /etc/cups/client.conf.

Note

The CUPS daemon on each agent must listen to requests on the network interface, and allow printer jobs from the master to be submitted to the thinlocal queue.

When a user submits a job to the local printer, i.e. to the thinlocal queue, the printer job will be submitted to the CUPS daemon running on the master server. It will then be respooled to the cupsd on the agent server hosting the session. This is to make central configuration of all other printers possible.