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This page will instruct you about the way to set-up your computer to use the various printers available at CSIM. The table below summarize the printers available and the name that can be used to access them:

Manufacturer Model Name
HP LaserJet P4015x \\banyan\magnum
HP Color Laser Jet Pro MFP M479fdw \\banyan\big
\\banyan\big_colour
Ricoh IM C2000 \\banyan\ricoh
\\banyan\ricoh_colour

Note that all three printers support jobs submitted PCL and PostScript as well as plain ASCII.

Note: only the printers \\banyan\big_colour and  \\banyan\ricoh_colour will allow you to print in full colour, the other only supports black and white.

If you are using Ubuntu, you can jump to the bottom of this page.

Adding a printer to Microsoft Windows

The solution below has been tested with Windows 7 and Windows 10. The graphical interface may vary but the procedure is the same.

Because CSIM implements printing quota, you cannot access the printers directly, you must go through the printer server.

Note for Windows 10: if you have an error when trying to access to \\banyan, try replacing any instance of \\banyan by \\192.41.170.5.

1. Disconnect any drive that is mapped to SAMBA or banyan.
The way Windows manages the credential to access shared resources is not flexible, it is better to start from a clean slat.
Run Windows Explorer (⊞ Win+E) and find any Network Location of the for (\\banyan) or (\\SAMBA).
Right click on each network drive and choose Disconnect
 2. Restart your computer.
Do not skip this step, you may be facing problem later on.
 
3. Connect to CSIM  network.
The printers are only available in CSIM, you won't be able to use them unless you connect to our network.
You can either connect to the LAN with an Ethernet cable or use the WiFi AIT-CSIM.
4. Map SAMBA drives to your computer.
Run Windows Explorer and click Map Network Drive.
Select the drive letter to be H: (like Home) and the Folder to be \\banyan\your_user_account.
You may choose to select the box Reconnect at logon, so the drive H: will always available when you are in CSIM (remember that the drive H: has nightly back-up, it is convenient to save important documents).
When you click Finish, a window will ask you for your account and password at CSIM. You must select the box Remember my credentials.
Map another drive on the letter J: with the folder \\banyan\application
In the case you change your CSIM password, you may have to disconnect and reconnect the drive H:
5.  Start adding the printer in Windows 7.
Click on Add a printer and select Add a local printer.
Although the printer reside on the network we will access it like a local printer, on a networked port.
5.a Start adding a printer in Windows 10.
Open the Settings menu Printers & scanners.
Click on Add a printer or scanner.
 5.b Wait for the line The printer that I want isn't listed
and click on it.
5.c  Select Add a local printer or network printer with manual settings.
Click on Next.
The rest of the procedure is the same although the theme of the menus may differ.
6.  Create the local port for the printer.
Click on Create a new port and select Local Port.
When asked for the port name, enter \\banyan\printer_name, for example \\banyan\magnum or \\banyan\ricoh. Be careful to type the correct name.
In the case you want to install more that one driver for a printer, for instance if you want to have the choice between PostScript and PCL, you can Use and existing port and select the same port name \\banyan\printer_name.
Note: in some case, the local port may already exist. You can use printmanagement.msc to remove it (go to Print servers/Computer Name/Ports and delete the port). In any case, you must make sure that the user associated to the local port is the Samba user. You may want to reboot your computer at each step of the modification.
7.  Choose the printer driver.
Select the Manufacturer and the the Printer type from the list.
If the printer does not exist, you can select Have Disk... and browse to the J: drive. It should have the drivers available in \\banyan\applications\DRIVERS.
For the printer HP Color Laser Jet Pro MFP M479fdw, the driver does not exist in Windows, use the driver from \\banyan\applications\DRIVERS\HP M479.
 8. Choose a name for the printer.
This is the name that will show in any software, when you have to select a printer.
You may want to enter a name that is meaningful including the printer model and the printing language it supports
9.  Do not share the printer.
Unless you are really sure that you know what you are doing, you should not share the printer.
Remember there are printing quota, if you share the printer, the quota will be deducted on your account.
10.  Print a test page.
While it is not absolutely necessary, the test page help making sure that the printer has been installed successfully.
If the test page does not print, do not try the troubleshooting option, it is hopeless.
11. Configure the printer preferences.
Now that the printer is added to your computer, you need to configure the printing options like the type of paper (A4) or the duplexing. The options vary depending on the printer make and model:

Note: if you don't configure the correct printing options, you will get incorrect results with your print jobs.

Printing options for HP LaserJet P4015x 

1. Set the hardware properties.
Select the printer HP LaserJet P4015x from the printers control panel and right click to go to the Properties.
Select the tab Device Settings and set the following:
  • Tray 3 to be 500-Sheet Input Tray
  • Duplex Unit to be Installed
  • Printer Memory to be 128MB
Click on Apply when you are done.
2. Set the printer to use duplexing (print on both side) by default.
Select the tab General and click on Preferences...
On the tab Finishing, select the box Print On Both Sides.

Printing options for HP Color Laser Jet Pro M479fdw

1. Set the hardware properties.
Select the printer HP Color Laser Jet Pro M479fdw from the printers control panel and right click to go to the Properties.
Select the tab Device Settings and set the following:
  • Tray 3 to Installed
  • Duplex Unit to Installed
  • Printer auto select, Tray 1, Tray 2, Tray 3 and Manual Feed to A4
Click on Apply when you are done.
2. In the Printing preferences set the following:
  • Paper sizes to A4
  • Print on both sides to Yes, flip over
  • Print in Grayscale set it to Off to print in colour (not in grayscale) of set it to Black Only to print in black&white.

Printing options for Ricoh IM C2000

1. Set the hardware properties.
Select the printer Ricoh IM C2000 from the printers control panel and right click to go to the Properties.
Select the tab Accessories and click on Change Input Tray Settings...
Change the paper size to A4 for Tray 1, Tray 2 and Bypass Tray.
Click on Apply when you are done.
2. Set the printer to use black&white by default.
Select the tab General and click on Preferences...
On the tab One Click Presets, select the box Black and White (2 sided).
Click OK.
Faculty (for others, this setting will do nothing) can print in full colour, but the cost per page is 15 times higher than black&white. It is highly recommended to set the default to black&white.

Adding a printer to Linux or Ubuntu

Because CSM implements printing quota, you must use an authenticated connection to access the printers. This can be done using the Windows printer via SAMBA option. 

In Ubuntu 20.04, click on Additional Printer Settings to access the configuration menu on the right and click Add.

The URL to access the printer must be (note that the space in the printer name is encoded with %20):

smb://SAMBA/BANYAN/big (or smb://SAMBA/BANYAN/big_colour)
smb://SAMBA/BANYAN/magnum

smb://SAMBA/BANYAN/ricoh (or smb://SAMBA/BANYAN/ricoh_colour)

or you can browse to find the correct name.

You must then enter your CSIM username and password.

Next you will have to select the appropriate driver for the printer as follow:

  • for printer big select HP Color Laser Jet Pro M479 (PostScript only)
  • for printer magnum select HP LaserJet p4015x (PostScript only)
  • for printer ricoh select Ricoh IM C2000 PXL (newer PostScript driver is broken)

On all the printers, you can select the A4 paper size and the duplex function.

Note: Ubuntu 20.04 is missing a dependency to make the configuration panel work with Samba printers. You need to manually add the library python3-smbc with the command: sudo apt install python3-smbc

Note: starting with Ubuntu 18.04, the Verify button cannot be used to check that you have provided your username and password correctly. Instead, continue with installing the printer and check afterward with the command: sudo grep DeviceURI /etc/cups/printers.conf
The result should show the new printer with a line like: DeviceURI smb://st101101:password@banyan/magnum where password is your password in cleartext. Hopefully, the file printers.conf is only readable by root.

Note: if you ever changed your password, or if you want to change the name of the printer, you must update your credential by opening the printer's properties and changing the Device URI to enter your new username and password.

 

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