Mac OS X Lion Server For Dummies®

Setting Up Shared Printing

This section describes how to set up print service in Mac OS XO 10.7 Lion using System Preferences and the CUPS web interface to configure print sharing. This section includes balancing the printers' workload by creating printer pools and by managing printers and print jobs. I describe how to use System Preferences and Workgroup Manager to restrict access to specific printers and to specify which printers show up in a user's list of printers.

Before you start: Setting up your printers for print sharing

Before you configure print services in Mac OS X Server, make sure that your printers are connected to the network or plugged into the server. You also need to set up and configure your printers according to the manufacturer's directions. For network printers, it's a good idea to configure them using a static IP address so that they have a consistent location on the network.

Some printers have print serving or spooling features built in. Turn off these features if you want your users to go through the Mac OS X Server. Using two print queues (one in the printer and one on the Mac OS X Server) can cause users to wait longer before their documents are printed.

Some printers also come with protocols that can advertise the printer over the network, such SMB and Bonjour. You may consider turning off these features in these printers to prevent users from directly accessing the printers and avoiding the server-hosted print queues.

A good idea is to print to the ...