[sudowork]

I'm on a college campus right now, and we use a Pharos print server to handle printing for all students (myself included). Normally we use Pharos's proprietary Popup client software; however, I prefer to just print straight to the printer. This saves me from typing my username every time (and the Popup client is just slow to start).

In Leopard (10.5), it was pretty easy to set up an IP printer, while specifying the username that owns the print job. In Snow Leopard, however, Apple has changed the way LPR (IP) Printers are handled. They have started to escape certain characters with their URL-encoded equivalents. For example, given the following information:
Username on network: uname
IP of printer: 127.0.0.1 (not realistic, but whatever)
Printer Queue: SomePrinter

In Leopard, you would be able to set the Printer URL to this from System Preferences:
uname@127.0.0.1
(Note that this would be parsed to be lpd://uname@127.0.0.1/SomePrinter)

However, in Snow Leopard, the url is parsed to be lpd://uname%40127.0.0.1/SomePrinter. Note that the @ symbol was parsed to its URL-encoded form of %40. Therefore, it effectively disables printing to this printer from the specified user name.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

I have tried this:
Editing /etc/cups/printers.conf to change it to an @ symbol; however, it does not seem to be updating my Printers. Is there an additional plist file or something that I need to change?

[Art Vandelay]

Why are you adding the username? The OS automatically sends the username when it prints. We use Pharos here and I've only used LPR since I've never felt a need for their client software. On the Pharos release stations, all the jobs have the name of the currently logged in user. The method you're using would create problems for a multi-user Mac.

[sudowork]

Because the username on my laptop is different from the Shibboleth/Pharos integrated username. I resolved this though. The issue as I said, is due to OS X 10.6.0+ parsing the URL into an encoded form. This is done at the GUI and not within CUPS. So my workaround was this:

Edit the URL for the printer in /etc/cups/printers.conf
and then restart the CUPS daemon by killing cupsd

[ghporter]

Pardon the newbishness of this question, but where exactly is the /etc/cups folder located? I can't seem to find it using the GUI-I have no idea where to poke around in the folder structure to ask Terminal to tell me where it is.

I haven't been able to set up network printing through my parallel print server since moving up to SL, and I'd like to see if this is part of the problem.

[ibookuser2]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Pardon the newbishness of this question, but where exactly is the /etc/cups folder located?

It's located at /etc/cups

`cd /etc/cups` in the Terminal will get you there, or press Apple-Shift-G in the Finder to bring up the Go To Folder window, then type /etc/cups to get it in the GUI.

[ghporter]

OK, it's in private/etc/cups. Obviously I knew the /etc/cups part, but how far away from root it was isn't as straightforward for someone that doesn't (anymore) do much from a command prompt/command line. And since it's in /private, you can't navigate to it through the GUI without using "go to folder." Got it.

[Art Vandelay]

Well, you can't get to /private/etc through the GUI either without using the "Go to folder" command unless you've turned on showing invisible items. If you have done that, then you can follow the /etc symlink that would be there too.

[sudowork]

Originally Posted by sudowork 

Because the username on my laptop is different from the Shibboleth/Pharos integrated username. I resolved this though. The issue as I said, is due to OS X 10.6.0+ parsing the URL into an encoded form. This is done at the GUI and not within CUPS. So my workaround was this:

Edit the URL for the printer in /etc/cups/printers.conf
and then restart the CUPS daemon by killing cupsd

By the way, forgot to mention you have to delete the plist. So the complete steps should be:
Edit the URL for the printer in /etc/cups/printers.conf
Remove the plist: /Library/Preferences/org.cups.printers.plist
and then restart the CUPS daemon by killing cupsd

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Art Vandelay 

Well, you can't get to /private/etc through the GUI either without using the "Go to folder" command unless you've turned on showing invisible items. If you have done that, then you can follow the /etc symlink that would be there too.

...Sure, but you gotta know it's going to be in an invisible folder to start with...thus my original question.