17.12 Migration of Classical Printing to Samba

The basic NT-style printer driver management has not changed considerably in 3.0 over the 2.2.x releases (apart from many small improvements). Here migration should be quite easy, especially if you followed previous advice to stop using deprecated parameters in your setup. For migrations from an existing 2.0.x setup, or if you continued Windows 9x/Me-style printing in your Samba 2.2 installations, it is more of an effort. Please read the appropriate release notes and the HOWTO Collection for Samba-2.2.x. You can follow several paths. Here are possible scenarios for migration:

• You need to study and apply the new Windows NT printer and driver support. Previously used parameters printer driver file , printer driver and printer driver location are no longer supported.

• If you want to take advantage of Windows NT printer driver support, you also need to migrate the Windows 9x/Me drivers to the new setup.

• An existing printers.def file (the one specified in the now removed parameter printer driver file ) will no longer work with Samba-3. In 3.0, smbd attempts to locate a Windows 9x/Me driver files for the printer in [print$] and additional settings in the TDB and only there; if it fails, it will not (as 2.2.x used to do) drop down to using a printers.def (and all associated parameters). The make_printerdef tool is removed and there is no backward compatibility for this.

• You need to install a Windows 9x/Me driver into the [print$] share for a printer on your Samba host. The driver files will be stored in the " WIN40/0 " subdirectory of [print$] , and some other settings and information go into the printing- related TDBs.

• If you want to migrate an existing printers.def file into the new setup, the only current solution is to use the Windows NT APW to install the NT drivers and the 9x/Me drivers. This can be scripted using smbclient and rpcclient. See the Imprints installation client at:

  http://imprints. sourceforge .net/

  for an example. See also the discussion of rpcclient usage in the " CUPS Printing " section.