New FreeNAS, Want to Host Printer/Scanner

[Dlauth]

I am wondering what it takes to host a printer/scanner on freenas?

I have been reading a few writeups but they seem to be focusing on older versions of FreeNAS.

Is there a better solution now in order to host a printer and scanner?

 

[Dlauth]

Im sure someone is hosting a printer/scanner off of their FreeNAS

 

[cyberjock]

One or two people have. I've asked if they could either write a guide or provide me with some basic theory so I could write a guide. Neither responded.

 

[Dlauth]

Im not a dev, but a better solution would be a plugin for FreeNAS.

 

[cyberjock]

Im not a dev, but a better solution would be a plugin for FreeNAS.

Not really. Scanning/printing is handled as part of Samba. No reason to have a plugin for something that is already part of FreeNAS, right?

 

[Dlauth]

It would make the setup easier I would think.

 

[anodos]

Not really. Scanning/printing is handled as part of Samba. No reason to have a plugin for something that is already part of FreeNAS, right?

I believe samba only shares the printer (not scanner). Scanning would be handled by sane or hplip / hpijs (I think). There's not an easy way to use a scanner attached to a Unix box from a windows client. I think most people use "twainsane" which is somewhat flakey on modern windows. Anyways, i believe samba printing requires cups.

I set up something like this once as an experiment in a jail on vanilla freebsd. It was a few years and a kid ago, and so everything is fuzzy. I vaguely remember lots of fiddling with the host OS, which isn't ideal on freenas.

In short, do yourself a favor and get a printer with a network card that can scan to CIFS shares or buy a network print server dohickey. :D

 

[Ericloewe]

Every half-decent printer these days does networking, so it's definitely the preferred option if you don't have simple needs and a preexisting printer that's worth keeping.

 

[jgreco]

Generally speaking, having your clients talking directly to the printer may not be desirable unless you're a very small office or a home user. CUPS is extremely nice and useful, and provides a lot of administration and management functionality. It is, unfortunately, a bit of a bear to get set up correctly (complete with filters etc).

 

[DataKeeper]

Admittedly I'm pretty new to FreeNAS and while I've used BSDi for years I've never bothered with printers on it. That said, I have used Debian Linux for over a decade to run a print server with CUPS and the web-based GUI. With FreeNAS I'd guess one could setup a jail, install CUPS and a light web server to manage it via port 631. We have 6 printers in our house which are all networked but I've found that since we have several devices we print from it was easier to use CUPS. I can even setup CUPS for iPads and iPhones to print to without worrying about AirPrint compatibility. I think 1 printer is AirPrint compatible yet with CUPS I'm able to print to any of them. That did take an evening and a few drinks and cursing to get working though if I remember correctly. :D

If one only has a FreeNAS box I guess they could use it as such. Personally I'd rather install it on a different system or better yet, a small dedicated Linux installation on an ESXi server. A mean a small 20-30GB install would do most.

I'll agree with jgreco though, CUPS can be a bear to setup if one needs beyond basics. We have 2 Brother B&W & 1 color laser printer, 2 cheap Epson XP-300 print/scanners and a Canon Pixma PRO9500MkII photo printer setup through CUPS.

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

You could buy yourself a cheap Pi and make it a CUPS printserver very easy. You can use it to admin USB as well as network printers. I had one laying around and used it like that for a while. I now got rid of all printers, since we don't need one anymore nowadays :)

 

[Rilo Ravestein]

Asl, check this.

 

[Zyt]

Hello, I'd like to ask a question about a problem regarding the topic that I have.

I'm running an older version of FreeNAS, and I can't find the guides on how to install a printer / print server on freenas 9.2.1.9. When I plug in the printer, boot the system and enter the network and share center in Windows, I can see the printer but it says it's offline.

Does it mean that I need to turn on some function, or is there a software I'm missing?

I tried to install hplip, but I can't extract the files as user, and when I do so as root, the file is extracted, but the auto installation meets an error and terminates. How can I execute installation files, once they are extracted?

 

[Mirfster]

Hello, I'd like to ask a question about a problem regarding the topic that I have.

I'm running an older version of FreeNAS, and I can't find the guides on how to install a printer / print server on freenas 9.2.1.9. When I plug in the printer, boot the system and enter the network and share center in Windows, I can see the printer but it says it's offline.

Does it mean that I need to turn on some function, or is there a software I'm missing?

I tried to install hplip, but I can't extract the files as user, and when I do so as root, the file is extracted, but the auto installation meets an error and terminates. How can I execute installation files, once they are extracted?

Forget about it... Especially since you are running FreeNas with 2GB of Non-ECC Ram and USB hard drives: "Powering down external USB drives"

 

[Zyt]

I've read the documentation and there's written that 32-bit system needs at minimum 2GB RAM when using UFS (which I do), ECC is not mandatory if the data isn't important (it isn't) and I do have a normal drive as well.
There were many guides on how to do it, but they are unavailable now. I'm merely asking for information on how to do this. My hardware is not the topic of this thread.

 

[Mirfster]

My hardware is not the topic of this thread.

Hardware definitely will be of concern.

What others have mention in this thread is running CUPS. In order to run CUPS you will need it to be installed on an OS in a Jail (FreeBSD, Linux, Ubuntu, whichever...).

So, with that said your already severely under-powered system is now supposed to cope with allocating resources to a VM/Jail?

 

[Zyt]

I'll be moving on to another hardware soon. I just want to configure it so that I will not have to set it up from the start. If it works then it's ok. If not, I'll simply wait for the new hardware. I won't know if I won't try.
Besides, what takes up so much space in the memory, when nothing yet happens on the system? I have only the system installed, created a single disk-wide dataset, created a share to a single user, and set up e-mail reports. I do not have zpools, zvols, arrays and external USB disks (I'll use them as off-line backup). I don't have any data there to scrub. I do not use FTP, AD, Media sharing... nothing runs on the system except CIFS for one user and S.M.A.R.T for one disk... what would take so much resurces in that system???

Does anyone have the CUPS package install guide that's been on the server, because when I type pkg install CUPS I get a response, that there's no package management tool installed. How do I install it?

 

[pirateghost]

You know there is a lot of documentation on why freenas needs lots of RAM. The onus is on you to read it and understand it.

 

[Zyt]

Why do you keep focusing on the hardware instead of my question?

I have read this documentation and it says that a lot of ram is needed when using deduplication, active directories, encryption, zpools, zvols, FTP, iSCSI, scrubs, handling many users, video streaming and so on. I will not be using those features on this platform. All I need from freeNAS right now is to share non-critical data, as the critical ones will be stored on external USB drives and provide me a print server. I know that this hardware is not suited for full scale freeNAS. I am more than aware of this fact. The reason why I chose freeNAS is that momentarily I cannot afford expensive dedicated NAS and (up to this point) I thought that I could configure and utilize it the way I see fit. But it seems that everyone around here is so focussed on hardware that they seem to forget that such high grade hardware is used when indeed you plan a large and complicated network, with lots of operations gonig on it and load of data to store, manage and backup. When you are planning to utilise all the features of freeNAS then it is indeed required and critical to have apropriate hardware. I plan to use only two features: print server, or just printer installed and small packages of data to be shared among the computers. That's all.

The NAS sees the printer, recognizes it and shares it in the net for I am able to see it. The only problem I have is that it is disabled meaning that there's something missing in the software. The drivers are installed on the computers, so my bet would go on lack of spoolsv equivalent in freeNAS. Can someone please tell me how it is installed / configured?

 

[pirateghost]

Why do you keep focusing on the hardware instead of my question?

I have read this documentation and it says that a lot of ram is needed when using deduplication, active directories, encryption, zpools, zvols, FTP, iSCSI, scrubs, handling many users, video streaming and so on. I will not be using those features on this platform. All I need from freeNAS right now is to share non-critical data, as the critical ones will be stored on external USB drives and provide me a print server. I know that this hardware is not suited for full scale freeNAS. I am more than aware of this fact. The reason why I chose freeNAS is that momentarily I cannot afford expensive dedicated NAS and (up to this point) I thought that I could configure and utilize it the way I see fit. But it seems that everyone around here is so focussed on hardware that they seem to forget that such high grade hardware is used when indeed you plan a large and complicated network, with lots of operations gonig on it and load of data to store, manage and backup. When you are planning to utilise all the features of freeNAS then it is indeed required and critical to have apropriate hardware. I plan to use only two features: print server, or just printer installed and small packages of data to be shared among the computers. That's all.

The NAS sees the printer, recognizes it and shares it in the net for I am able to see it. The only problem I have is that it is disabled meaning that there's something missing in the software. The drivers are installed on the computers, so my bet would go on lack of spoolsv equivalent in freeNAS. Can someone please tell me how it is installed / configured?

Minimum RAM requirement is 8gb. It has nothing to do with how many users, services, etc.

Put your print server in a jail.