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Description of problem: The "Location" option is defined in cupsd.conf in order to allow users see a description about printer location while browsing printers as described in # man cuspd.conf: Location text Specifies human-readable text describing the location of the printer. Customer is sharing printers via Samba3x (latest version samba3x-3.5.4-0.70.el5_6.1) and browsing printers via Windows Explorer (in Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 clients). The problem is that Cups web interface shows "Location" field correctly and also lpstat : [root@sbclps15 ~]# lpstat -l -p ADNY printer ADNY is idle. enabled since Tue 29 Mar 2011 11:31:02 AM BRT Form mounted: Content types: any Printer types: unknown Description: HP Color LaserJet 4700dn Alerts: none Location: Sede:Imbetiba - Predio:Prédio 111 - Andar:3 - Dep/Ger:TIC/INFRA-TIC/TIC-BC/SITI - Sala:IL Connection: direct On fault: no alert After fault: continue Users allowed: (all) Forms allowed: (none) Banner required Charset sets: (none) Default pitch: Default page size: Default port settings: But Samba3x can not obtain this info: [root@sbclps15 ~]# rpcclient -Uascyyi localhost -c "getprinter 'ADNY'" Enter ascyyi's password: flags:[0x800000] name:[\\LOCALHOST\ADNY] description:[\\LOCALHOST\ADNY,HP Universal Printing PS (v5.1),] comment:[HP Color LaserJet 4700dn] [root@sbclps15 ~]# rpcclient -Uascyyi localhost -c "getprinter 'ADNY' 2" Enter ascyyi's password: servername:[\\LOCALHOST] printername:[\\LOCALHOST\ADNY] sharename:[ADNY] portname:[Samba Printer Port] drivername:[HP Universal Printing PS (v5.1)] comment:[HP Color LaserJet 4700dn] location:[] sepfile:[] printprocessor:[winprint] datatype:[RAW] parameters:[] attributes:[0x3048] priority:[0x1] defaultpriority:[0x1] starttime:[0x0] untiltime:[0x0] status:[0x0] cjobs:[0x0] averageppm:[0x0] Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): samba3x-3.5.4-0.70.el5_6.1 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Add printers in Cups 2. Fill "location" field 3. In windows client machine, browse the shared printer 4. The location field is not displayed anymore Actual results: Windows clients can not see the location of the printers. The organization has more than 1500 printers distributed in various regions and is important to know where the printer is (location: printer in directory, printer in finance room, etc) because users need to identify the printer where the job will be printed. Expected results: Samba obtain this info from Cups and allow windows clients accessing the printers to know the printer location. Additional info: Customer has another print server using samba 3.0.33-3.29.el5_6.2 and doing the same job, with the same Windows clients and the "Location" attribute is showed. Perhaps this was intentional. See this thread: http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/2008-January/137292.html "As a workaround, please set the comment and location string of every printer from your windows client in the printers and faxes section. When samba has both strings in its ntprinter.tdb database, it will no longer ask cups for them." The interesting bit is that the slow down occurred due to samba queries to cups for "comment" and "location" information. These fields may be left empty now per this comment: http://lists.samba.org/archive/samba/2008-January/137306.html For "comment" field, we can use rpcclient to set it: # rpcclient localhost -U Administrator -c 'setprinter test1 "Test printer"' But for "Location" field the only way is set it via windows. But customer has a lot of printers and would be hard to set it one by one via windows. I'm not sure if it is considered a regression ou and RFE. In case of RFE, customer is fine to have the option to set "location" using rpcclient command too (the same as for "comment" field).
Also you can find file blank_location.png attached. It is a print screen from Windows Explorer. In this image you can see that Windows clients can see shared printers but "Location" attribute is empty.
Created attachment 496829 [details] location attribute is blank in windows side while browsing shared printers
Justin also contributted in this case and check that: Our code for 3.5.4 is supposed to pull this information, i'm not sure why it's not making it into ntprinters.tdb. From source3/printing/nt_printing.c: #ifdef HAVE_CUPS if (get_loc_com && (enum printing_types)lp_printing(snum) == PRINT_CUPS ) { /* Pull the location and comment strings from cups if we don't already have one */ if ( !strlen(info->location) || !strlen(info->comment) ) cups_pull_comment_location( info ); } #endif Thanks, Justin
I've handled cases some time ago point to the slowness of cups printing due a lots of printer attributes that need to be loaded. And with a large number of printers the .tdbs gets enormous and evem have to increase tdb hash size to storage all these information. It makes sense reduce the number of attribute to avoid slowness and enormous .tdbs. But "location" field is the key to users decide (and know) where they should print their jobs. I've agreed with customer that at least the possibility to add it via command line is enough (instead of make samba get it automatically again).
If this case is considered an RFE, just let me know and I'll provide RFE template with all required info.
An advisory has been issued which should help the problem described in this bug report. This report is therefore being closed with a resolution of ERRATA. For more information on therefore solution and/or where to find the updated files, please follow the link below. You may reopen this bug report if the solution does not work for you. http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2011-1007.html