[RHEL6] New added printers not being recognized by samba if using "printcap name = /etc/printcap" in smb.conf. How to solve it?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.1
  • samba3.5.6-86 or earlier
  • cups-1.4.2-39 or earlier

Issue

  • Using samba-3.5.6-86.el6 (default package version obtained in RHEL 6.1) as a print server results in new added printer added via cups interface not being recognized by samba if using 'printcap name = /etc/printcap' in smb.conf. How to solve it?

Resolution

In samba-3.5.6-86.el6 there is a bug that causes samba ignore new added printer if you are using the option 'printcap name = /etc/printcap' in smb.conf.
As a workaround you can use 'printcap name = cups' but depending on the number of printers and requests, it can consume more resources like memory and CPU.

To definitely solve this problem you need to update samba package to minimum version samba-3.5.8-92.el6 that contains a fix for this problem and a lot of improvements.

After update samba package you can safely use 'printcap name = /etc/printcap' in smb.conf and all printers added via Cups web interface will be properly recognized.

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