Printing from Pi-Star

General support for the Pi-Star System
Post Reply
KN2TOD
Posts: 264
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2018 6:36 pm

Printing from Pi-Star

Post by KN2TOD »

Anyone been successful in setting up (networked) print services from the command line in Pi-Star?

Most of what I'm seeing as possible solutions involve GUI's and the installation of a lot of other components that may not be necessary for "batch" only printing. Beyond CUPS, any other suggestions?
lx6fb
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:10 pm

Re: Printing from Pi-Star

Post by lx6fb »

KN2TOD wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 9:24 pm Anyone been successful in setting up (networked) print services from the command line in Pi-Star?
Most of what I'm seeing as possible solutions involve GUI's and the installation of a lot of other components that may not be necessary for "batch" only printing. Beyond CUPS, any other suggestions?
Hello, have you found any solution on it? I've tried to install CUPS but pi-star always screwed up the cupsd.conf file I edited. I couldn't even access the cups webpage via 631.

73 de lx6fb.
KN2TOD
Posts: 264
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2018 6:36 pm

Re: Printing from Pi-Star

Post by KN2TOD »

Haven't gotten back to this since I first posted the question - wandered off to other ideas but keep coming back to it from time to time. Now seems like a good time to revisit, now that you ask. Perhaps we can work it out together.

For starters: what version of Pi-Star are you using? And are you trying to configure via a external web browser or are you setting it up internally via the command line and hand-edits of the .conf files?
KN2TOD
Posts: 264
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2018 6:36 pm

Re: Printing from Pi-Star

Post by KN2TOD »

Did you follow the instructions given here? <https://raspberrytips.com/install-printer-raspberry-pi/>

Quick glance, I'd say changes for port 631 need to be made; also may need to add an entry in IPTABLES.
lx6fb
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:10 pm

Re: Printing from Pi-Star

Post by lx6fb »

KN2TOD wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 10:37 pm Did you follow the instructions given here? <https://raspberrytips.com/install-printer-raspberry-pi/>
Quick glance, I'd say changes for port 631 need to be made; also may need to add an entry in IPTABLES.
Yes I followed the instructions and couldn't get the web page running. Port 631 configured ok, hasn't touchedIPTABLES yet.
pi-star version 4.1.5
lx6fb
Posts: 3
Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2021 6:10 pm

Re: Printing from Pi-Star

Post by lx6fb »

KE7FNS wrote: Sat Jan 22, 2022 11:08 pm Same question to both of you, what are you needing to print from a hotspot? And why?
hi, I have only one Raspberry ( Pi 4B) in my hand and I want to hook it up with a icom id-4100 in Access Point mode, to use this setup as a hotspot.
the Raspberry was used as CUPS server (ye I know it's kind of wasting the performance) with raspbian, now it turns to a Pi-star, I'd like the CUPS to run on it instead of buying another raspberry.
KN2TOD
Posts: 264
Joined: Sun Nov 11, 2018 6:36 pm

Re: Printing from Pi-Star

Post by KN2TOD »

Progress!

Not having any prior experience with CUPS, I started with a vanilla system based on the Buster Lite image on
which I installed CUPS and got it working, starting with the web interface at first and then playing with the
command line form. So far, so good.

Built a base Pi-Star system and installed CUPS on it. As expected, was not able to get into the CUPS web
interface. After spending a considerable amount of time pursuing that issue on the Web, decided to switch
gears: instead of trying to get into the Pi-Star CUPS, I turned to trying getting out of it: I cloned the
necessary files from the Buster Lite system to the Pi-Star image (mainly the printer defs and PPD files) and,
after some minor tweaks like adding some IP table and FSTAB entries, was able to print from Pi-Star's command
line same as Buster Lite's.

For the moment, I'm letting this CUPS configuration on Pi-Star stand: rechecking the tweaks, playing with
printer options, and testing the stability and impact on the system in general - in other words, more smoke
testing.

So... if the only goal here is to be able to print from Pi-Star, we're good to go. But if you want Pi-Star to
serve as a "print server" (with a locally attached printer or in tandem with other CUPS servers), we still need
to resolve getting print and web requests into Pi-Star.

While Google is great at guessing what someone is really trying to ask (sic), it can't read minds: after
thinking about the differences between the two setups, I changed the question from (generally speaking) "How to
connect to CUPS web interface" to "How to get CUPS to work with NGINX" - a SWAG on my part but one which finally
led in a meaningfull direction.

In simple terms, it appears that NGINX is set to "filter" all incoming web requests (HTTP and IPP) and that an
exception in its rules needs to be made to pass through traffic for other coexisting web/server based
applications.

Continuing my research.....
Post Reply