Creating CUPS queues manually

Instead of using the web-based CUPS administration tool to add the ICTprintservice queues to your computer, you can simply add the printer definitions to your CUPS configuration file and restart CUPS. You will need to be the root user to do this so first step is to become root.

Adding the ICTprintservice queue

On most systems the configuration file is /etc/cups/printers.conf but if CUPS has been added to your system at a later date or built locally from source, then the printers.conf file may well be in /usr/local/etc, /usr/local/cups/etc or /opt/cups/etc. Once you have located the file, you need to edit it using your favourite text editor and add the following lines to the end of printers.conf:

<Printer ICTprintservice-mono>
Info HP LaserJet 9040/9050 MFC
Location Mono print queue for College printing system
DeviceURI lpd://ictprintservice.cc.ic.ac.uk/ICTprintservice_mono
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>

This will add the ICTprintservice-mono queue to your CUPS system but note that the new queue will not be your default printer since another printer will have already been set as the default in your existing printers.conf. If you want to make the ICTprintservice printer your default, you need to locate the existing default printer in your printers.conf and then deselect this - look for a line beginning with:

<DefaultPrinter

Here is an example CUPS configuration where a local inkjet printer is currently the default printer and the ICTprintservice printer has just been added:

# Printer configuration file for CUPS v1.1.23
<DefaultPrinter dj870>
Info HP DeskJet 870Cxi
Location Huxley 616
DeviceURI parallel:/dev/lp0
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>
<Printer ICTprintservice-mono>
Info HP LaserJet 9040/9050 MFC
Location Mono print queue for College printing system
DeviceURI lpd://ictprintservice.cc.ic.ac.uk/ICTprintservice_mono
State Idle
Accepting Yes
JobSheets none none
QuotaPeriod 0
PageLimit 0
KLimit 0
</Printer>

In the line that reads <DefaultPrinter dj870> you need to change the words DefaultPrinter to just Printer. Now find the line that reads:

<Printer ICTprintservice-mono>

and change Printer to DefaultPrinter.

Testing the new ICTprintservice queue

Now you need to restart CUPS so that it re-reads its configuration file - on most Linux systems, typing:

/etc/init.d/cups restart

will restart a running CUPS system but if you have a BSD-style Linux distribution such as Slackware, then you can restart CUPS with:

/etc/rc.d/rc.cups restart

Note: in some older versions of Red Hat, Fedora and SuSE Linux, the CUPS control script will be called cupsd rather than cups so you will need to type:

/etc/init.d/cupsd restart

For FreeBSD UNIX systems, CUPS is restarted with:

/usr/local/etc/rc.d/cups.sh restart

Now you can go to the ICTprintservice printer of your choice and if all is well, print the test page.

It didn't work - no documents were waiting for me at the printer

If you are unable to retrieve your print copy, make sure that the username you are logged in as on your computer is a valid college username for which you have the correct, matching ID swipe card. You may have more than one computer account on your system for which only one is linked to your college ID, or you are using a private machine or research cluster whose usernames do not match the college-wide usernames. In that case you will not be able to print to the ICTprintservice printers unless your login account is altered or another one set up with a username that matches your primary college username.