Connecting to Print@UCL using Red Hat 9

This guide will explain how to enable your standalone RHEL 9 computer to print to a Print@UCL device.

Please note: You will need to repeat this process every time you change your UCL password.

This guide is aimed at...

• Staff
• Students
• IT Administrators
• SLMS staff
• Researchers

Before you start...

• A UCL card and user ID.
• You will need a computer running a RHEL 8 operating system and connected to the internet. Please note, Ubuntu is the only fully supported Linux OS.  All other versions will be supported on a best efforts basis.
• You will need to have the smbclient, Samba-client, samba-krb5-printing & krb5-worstation packages installed before connecting to the printer.  You will be able to install this using your normal Red Hat distributions package management system.

sudo dnf install samba-client samba-krb5-printing krb5-workstation smbclient

•  The CUPS service activated on your OS

sudo dnf install cups

Instructions

These steps were created on RHEL 9. You may need to enter your root password a number of times during this process.

1. Download the Xerox driver linux-print-driver.ppd and save to your home directory.

2. Open your web browser and type localhost:631 in the address bar.

Fig 1. locahost:631 in web browser

3. Under CUPS for administrators click Adding Printers and Classes

4. Click Add Printer

Fig 2. CUPS Add Printer Window

5. On the Add Printer screen click Windows Printer via SAMBA, click continue

6. In the Connection field type smb://print.ucl.ac.uk/print-ucl, click continue

7. In the Name & Description Field type Print@UCL, click continue

8. Under the Provide a PPD file section browse and select the PPD you downloaded in step 1. Click Add Printer

9. Click Set Default Options

10. You should now see a screen telling you that you have successfully setup Print@UCL and then the queue details will be displayed

Fig 3. print@UCL details window

11. Next you need to tell print queue to request authentication.  You will need to enter your password during this process. Open a terminal window and type the following commands.

12. Stop the cups server:

$ sudo systemctl stop cups

13. Edit the printers.conf file

$ sudo nano /etc/cups/printers.conf

14. Near the top of the file either add (if not present) or edit the AuthInfoRequired line as follows:

AuthInfoRequired username,password

Fig 4. Edit Printer.conf file

15. Save and exit using Ctrl + X
16. Restart the cups server

$ sudo systemctl start cups 

17. Now send a test print. Close all windows and Click on Activities (top left of screen) > Settings > Devices > Printers You should see the Print@UCL printer you just created listed.
18. Click the Cog > Printing Options
19. Click Test Print
20. Close the window by click the X and you should now see 1 job in the print queue.  Click the button that says 1 Job

Fig 5. Print@UCL Authentication window

21. At the top of the print queue there should be a blue Authenticate banner displayed. Click Authenticate.

22. Enter your UCL user ID and password. Note: you need to put ad/ before your user ID.

    Username: ad/<user ID> e.g. “ad/ccaaxxx”
    Password: your normal UCL password (the same one you would use for email)

23. The document will be sent to a Print@UCL printer. Use your UCL ID card to log in to the printer and print it there.

Please Note: Authentication as above is required for every job sent.  It is not possible to save your credentials as you can in other operating systems.