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gorickey · Dec 15, 2003, 10:36 AM

Does anybody know if you can turn off the queue locally within OS X on print jobs (Jaguar and/or Panther)? I believe you could do this under OS 9; however, I can't find where to do this under OS X...

Thanks.

chabig · Dec 15, 2003, 10:56 AM

It's done in the Print Center utility. Your printer will be listed there. Open the printer queue by double-clicking on the printer name (or select Printer -> Show Jobs, or cmd-O) and then click on Stop Jobs.

Chris

gorickey · Dec 15, 2003, 11:03 AM

Originally posted by chabig:
It's done in the Print Center utility. Your printer will be listed there. Open the printer queue by double-clicking on the printer name (or select Printer -> Show Jobs, or cmd-O) and then click on Stop Jobs.

Chris

Thanks, but won't that stop ALL jobs from going to the printer queue? I want the local queue to be stopped; however, the printer queue to still work...

chabig · Dec 15, 2003, 11:24 AM

First of all, I'm sorry for calling it Print Center. In Panther, it's now Printer Setup Utility.

For your real question, let me see if I understand you correctly...You have a printer connected to your Mac and shared with others on your network. You want the printer to be available to network users, but not available to the local user. Is that correct?

If so, try looking at this reference in the CUPS help file. It shows how to deny access to a printer by certain users:

http://127.0.0.1:631/sam.html#4_3_7

It looks pretty straightforward. To deny the local user named 'Peter' from printing, the command to run in the Terminal is

/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p printername -u deny

eter

Chris

gorickey · Dec 15, 2003, 11:44 AM

Well, here's a short story of the issue at hand:

I work in a school district where the kids have their own personal iBooks that have network printers set-up for them already on the image that we supplied for their specific school building. However, when the kids go home they are thinking for whatever reason that they can still hit "Print" within Applications and their stuff will print. Obviously not the case since they aren't in school. So, when they do this a whole bunch of print jobs are sent to the local print queue until they get to school again...so, the printers are FLOODED with sometimes hundreds of jobs in the morning as soon as the school printer is found and recognized.

Of course, all of this can avoided with lessons to tell the kids NOT do this; however, I'd like a no fail way to do this as well if possible.

Make sense?

chabig · Dec 15, 2003, 12:01 PM

Yeah. That's an interesting problem.

I wonder if you could configure a fake printer that simply does nothing and make that the default. Then rename the school's printer to something like "The School Printer."

Then if they just select Print, it won't go anywhere. If they really want to print they'll have to manually select "The School Printer" in the print dialog which will be a constant reminder that the printer is only available at school.

Chris

chabig · Dec 15, 2003, 12:33 PM

I also wonder whether you couldn't write an Applescript so that if the student tries to print outside of normal school hours, a window could pop up saying something like..."This document will not be printed until you are at school. Do not try to print it again. When you return to school, it will automatically print."

Just a thought.

You might have better luck with issues like this if you can find a forum dedicated to school network administrators.

Chris

gorickey · Dec 15, 2003, 01:33 PM

Thanks Chris, I actually like the AppleScript idea alot...I'll dig around and see how that could possibly work...

Thanks again!

Big Mac · Dec 16, 2003, 05:27 AM

I was thinking that different locations could be setup, but then I realized that OS X lacks a universal Location Manager (like the one in classic) and that locations in OS X only apply to network settings. That's really too bad.

gorickey · Dec 16, 2003, 06:02 AM

Originally posted by Big Mac:
I was thinking that different locations could be setup, but then I realized that OS X lacks a universal Location Manager (like the one in classic) and that locations in OS X only apply to network settings. That's really too bad.

No kidding, I wish that feature was brought back and expanded...

chabig · Dec 16, 2003, 08:15 AM

I would guess that's on the list for 10.4. But even if it were, I don't know that it would help in this case, since the students would still have to be trained to switch their location at work and school, and the whole point of this thread is to make everything automatic.

The answer might be simply to charge students fees for each printed page. Or, if they're small kids, make them skip recess if they print the same document too many times. They can be trained.

Chris

gorickey · Dec 16, 2003, 08:26 AM

Originally posted by chabig:
Or, if they're small kids, make them skip recess if they print the same document too many times. They can be trained.

Chris

Yeah, we are talking 4th, 5th, and 6th graders...

Training is indeed needed for sure!

JKT · Dec 16, 2003, 08:38 AM

Originally posted by chabig:
I would guess that's on the list for 10.4. But even if it were, I don't know that it would help in this case, since the students would still have to be trained to switch their location at work and school, and the whole point of this thread is to make everything automatic.

The answer might be simply to charge students fees for each printed page. Or, if they're small kids, make them skip recess if they print the same document too many times. They can be trained.

Chris

Perhaps a new improved version would have the option to auto-switch location. Not sure how that would work, but if it could auto-sense your ethernet location etc...

ntsc · Dec 16, 2003, 09:55 AM

i believe that windows as of around 2k at least has that option for laptops - i think...

point is that it is possible

chabig · Dec 16, 2003, 10:49 AM

OK. Here's another idea...

The command lpq -a lists the print queues of all users and printers. Somebody smarter than me could probably write a shell script that runs all of the time on the computer that's acting as a print server, monitors the queue, and deletes duplicate entries. Entries could be assumed to be duplicates if the title and byte sizes are identical. Or you do one better, and calculate the checksum of each print job to see if they are identical.

Chris

King Bob On The Cob · Dec 16, 2003, 11:22 AM

Originally posted by ntsc:
i believe that windows as of around 2k at least has that option for laptops - i think...

point is that it is possible

Mac OS 9 had this option also, it is just not implemented in OS X

tooki · Dec 16, 2003, 12:02 PM

I suggest you use a print server (such as OS X's own printer sharing) that uses Rendezvous... when the kids go home, the network printer just disappears from the list of available printers!

tooki

gorickey · 12:22 PM

Originally posted by tooki:
I suggest you use a print server (such as OS X's own printer sharing) that uses Rendezvous... when the kids go home, the network printer just disappears from the list of available printers!

tooki

That won't work in our current set-up/situation...however, maybe in the 2nd/3rd phase roll-outs...

*EDIT*

I just tried looking looking into this. I don't think Rendezvous is an option for us on the print server. Anyway, that would prevent us from setting up only specific printers for specific situations (ex. Like certain classrooms printing to only one specific printer, etc)...

ColonelSawtooth · Dec 16, 2003, 05:26 PM

How about a cron job than runs at times when school is not in session and deletes the jobs in the local queue? It's not the most elegant solution, but it may work as an interim fix.

gorickey · Dec 16, 2003, 05:59 PM

Originally posted by ColonelSawtooth:
How about a cron job than runs at times when school is not in session and deletes the jobs in the local queue? It's not the most elegant solution, but it may work as an interim fix.

I'll give that shot...

MountainMac · Dec 16, 2003, 09:20 PM

Originally posted by Big Mac:
I was thinking that different locations could be setup, but then I realized that OS X lacks a universal Location Manager (like the one in classic) and that locations in OS X only apply to network settings. That's really too bad.

I'm not sure how applicable this app is to gorickey's particular situation, but Location X will allow you to change settings other than just network settings as you move from location to location.

MM

gorickey · Dec 16, 2003, 09:44 PM

Originally posted by MountainMac:
I'm not sure how applicable this app is to gorickey's particular situation, but Location X will allow you to change settings other than just network settings as you move from location to location.

MM

Whoa, never seen that before...very cool...

Thanks!