terphenyl <terphenyl@hotmail.com> hath wroth:
>At the college where I work,
Hudson Valley Community College?
>there already exists a wireless network.
>I'd like to get a printer in one lab room that will talk to several
>computers hooked to laboratory instrumentation. The proposed way our
>computer guys want to do this is to install a wired drop to a single
>printer, then as students sign on to the network, this printer can
>become available.
Where is this printer connected? It kinda looks like it's attached to
a computah or server, to which you don't have access.
Any particular make and model printer?
>Fine, but if there is a print queue problem, we have to call computer
>services to kill the queue, which chews up lab time, as they have to
>finish some other thngs and then get around to doing it. And, if this
>one printer fails, well, that's it until the repair ticket gets acted
>upon..
Ok, so the IT guys setup a server based print spooler. Great idea if
you're doing lots of printing. The job is spooled on the server, not
on your client machine or in the printer. If IT had setup a print
server, or the unspecified model printer happen to have an internal
print server, it would have been easy enough to just power cycle the
printer or print server to clear the queue, or just flush the queue
locally on your computah.
>Now at home I have "wireless print servers"--little boxes--that accept
>a USB connection to the printer, and find my home network and print
>just fine. If I screw up the print queue (100 instead of 1 copy<g>),
Yes, that's because you have access to the print spooler and the jobs
are spooled locally on your machine. You also have admin rights to
cancel jobs on your print server.
>I can cancel it from the computer accessing the wireless print server,
>and don't have to wait for a technician down at Time-Warner cable to
>kill the job.
Huh? What does Time-Warner cable service have to do with
administering a printer or print spooler? A better description of
what you're working with would be nice.
>Also, if the one printer stops working, I can take an
>older, spare printer, and with the software installed on the computer,
>just swap printers by merely unplgging the non-working one, and
>plugging in the working one into the USB port on wireless print server
>box.
Sure. A variation of that is to setup a printer pool. If one doesn't
print, the next in line take over.
>I'm going to have to talk to our IT guys about this, and I'm just
>trying to get some information about these concerns. For instance,
>the print server boxes I have work on the 192.168.x.x network, but can
>they be assigned to work in an already-established wireless network
>outside those addresses?
There are two "outside" possibilities. One is outside the IP
addresses that are available in your IP block. That's the desireable
way because it means you don't need a static route or gateway to make
it work. The printer would be 192.168.xxx.xxx and be within your
netmask. If they select a printer that is outside this range, you
will not be able to talk to it because of the netmask.
If they select a routeable IP address, then IT will need to setup a
gateway to get to the printer. This can be done but is messy. There's
also no good reason to do it this way.
Keep it inside your netmask at 192.168.xxx.xxx. However, there are
few gotchas. The IP must not overlap any existing DHCP IP address
pools. That's to keep the DHCP server from assigning the IP address
of the printer, to a workstation. If you're running out of IP's,
that's a possible problem.
The other is that the access points probably have "AP isolation"
running, which prevents you from seeing other client machines and
attacking them via wireless. Basically, nothing goes from wireless to
wireless via wireless. That doesn't apply to wired connections, which
is why the shared printer works. If someone has the bright idea of
installing a wireless printer, the "AP isolation" will need to be
modified or abandoned, neither of which are good ideas. The printer
has to therefore be wired.
If by some coincidence, the printer is on a Unix or Linux server, the
"cancel" command will clear the print queue and remove *YOUR* jobs
without trashing anyone elses. Similar commands are available for
Novell, SunOS, OS/X, and various Windoze mutations. I don't want to
detail them all. I'm really curious how Time Warner fits into all
this.
Perhaps it would be easier if you just learned how to identify what
hardware and software you're using and learn how to cancel a print
job? You do work for IT, so this should be easily accessible
information.
>Any help would be appreciated.
Hint: If you have techy questions, it's best to supply:
1. What problem are you trying to solve?
2. What do you have to work with? (hardware, software, versions,
etc).
3. What have you done so far and what happened?
You did so-so on the first and left out everything of importance on
second. The third isn't really relevent for this issue.
--
Jeff Liebermann
jeffl@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Simple wireless printer connection in established wireless network 
Linear Mode
