Created by Zachary John Susag.
Copyright (C) 2017, 2018 Zachary John Susag
GC-LPI contains the materials needed to get printers on the Grinnell College
network working on a GNU/Linux system. GC-LPI primarily consists of two Shell
scripts: install_papercut and install_grinnell_printer. See below for usage
information.
GC-LPI also provides the necessary files in order to
install PaperCut on the system. All files within
the papercut/ directory are not created by the author (Zachary J. Susag) and
so holds no claim to anything within. Configuration of PaperCut to work with
Grinnell College's print servers was done by staff members
of Grinnell College.
GC-LPI requires CUPS to be installed on GNU/Linux.
GC-LPI requires that the GNU/Linux workstation that GC-LPI is operating
on be connected to the Grinnell College network for connection
purposes. install_papercut will retrieve the files needed to install PaperCut
from Grinnell College servers, which can only be accessed on the LAN.
GC-LPI requires that SAMBA is installed, specifically to use smbclient in
order to get the PaperCut files off of the Grinnell College network.
PaperCut requires that Java be installed.
PaperCut cannot connect to any of the printers unless the workstation is connected to the Grinnell College network. Furthermore, it will not work if a virtual private network (VPN) is in use. In order to print you must disable your VPN (sadly).
The installation process consists of two steps:
- Install the PaperCut software.
- Install any desired printers.
GC-LPI makes installing PaperCut for use on GNU/Linux workstations easy! Simply run the following command while within the cloned repository:
sudo ./install_papercut
The script will automatically copy over the necessary files and configure
PaperCut to work with your system. It will create a new user as PaperCut
requires the script it uses to run to be owned under a separate, papercut,
user.
The script also installs a symbolic link within /usr/bin to the installed
script to make starting PaperCut easier for the user. To start PaperCut, simply
execute papercut from a terminal. I would recommend running PaperCut as a
background process by using the & operator.
GC-LPI will install any printer that you desire on the Grinnell College
network. Within the repository this is a CSV file titled grinnell_printers.csv
with all of the printers on campus alongside with the location of the
printer. With a printer in mind, simply in the name(s) of the printer(s), as
command line arguments to install_grinnell_printer.
For example, if I wanted to install Duerer, I would type
sudo install_grinnell_printer Duerer
You can type in the name of the printer with or without capital letters.
To make sure that everything was installed correctly in a terminal type
echo "Hello, world!" | lpr -P printer
This will send a print job to the printer, printer, with the text "Hello,
world!". Be sure to have PaperCut running before typing the command or the job
will not be submitted to Grinnell College's print servers.
GC-LPI is distributed under the GNU GPLv3 license. Contact susagzac@grinnell.edu with any questions about licensing.
I do not claim to own any part of PaperCut or take credit for it. It is simply necessary for the correct operation of this program and required for student printing at Grinnell College.