Issues setting up Samba printing in a Microsoft environment

Hello, world!

I am having a bit of a hard time trying to share a printer to a local network. I have been following various guides online, and I was able to get to a point where I can see the shared printer from any other computer. All other computers on this network are running Windows 7 64bit, so I wanted to upload the proper drivers for point-and-click printing. It is at this point where I am encountering the issue. I cannot upload the drivers from any of the Windows computers to the samba share. This is the process I am referring to:
https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba_as_a_print_server#Uploading_printer_drivers_for_Point.27n.27Print_driver_installation

From some computers, the “Add” button on the Drivers tab does nothing when I click it. On other systems it was grayed out completely. This seems to be some type of permissions issue, but I am having a hard time figuring out where the issue lies.

The contents of my smb.conf are here:
http://paste.opensuse.org/d14a8e0b

I am very much open to any ideas or suggestions!

Steve

I don’t understand quite what you’re trying to achieve. It appears that you’re trying to share a printer on a Linux print server (ie USB-attached printer attached directly to Linux machine). If this is the case, IPP printing is generally preferred, and easier to configure. Could you be a bit more explicit? It might help others advise more accurately.

Meanwhile, a good guide to read here (for both IPP or samba printing)

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CUPS_printer_sharing#Linux_server_-_Windows_client

Yes, my apologies, I should have clarified better. The printer is attached via USB to an openSUSE workstation. I am trying to share this across a local network running nothing but Windows 7 desktops.

I was trying to avoid using IPP and having to manually enter the printer on each workstation. Having the Windows driver on the Samba share allows it to be loaded into memory on the Windows computers, and utilize a more click-and-print setup.

As which user are you connecting to Samba from the Windows computers? If you do not explicitely provide credentials you will probably connect as user nobody which won’t have write access to the hidden share storing the drivers. Typically root has write access and to have other accounts able to do that, you have to configure those explicitely.

Try adding “root” to the credentials manager in Windows and be sure to remove it after you uploaded the drivers. Or use “net use … /u:root…” before connecting to any share after a reboot should do the trick.