Recipe 14.8. Distributed Printing with Classes
14.8.1 Problem
You have a user group that generates a
lot of high-volume printing, and you need an easy way to give users a
group of printers to use, without having to hassle with individual
print queues.
14.8.2 Solution
Use classes to create, in effect, a single printer
queue containing several printers. From the Admin page of the CUPS
web interface, click "Add Class."
Select printers for the class from your installed printers. Users can
now send print jobs to the class, instead of to an individual
printer, and the first available printers will take them. You can add
or remove printers from this menu, and even create subclasses.
You can also do this from the command line. Create a class and
populate it with printers this way:
# lpadmin -p printer1 -p printer2 -p printer3 -c art-dept
To add another printer to this class, use:
# lpadmin -p printer4 -c art-dept
Remove a printer with the -r option:
# lpadmin -p printer4 -r art-dept
To delete the entire class, use:
# lpadmin -x art-dept
14.8.3 Discussion
Obviously, you don't want to group geographically
dispersed printers into the same class—they should be in the
same room. It will get confusing enough, as users
won't know which printers have their print jobs. The
advantage is that if a printer gets jammed or otherwise becomes
unavailable, jobs will still be printed without user intervention.
It's also great for high-volume printing, as idle
printers will automatically take over from busy ones.
14.8.4 See Also
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