Communicating with YDL CUPS server from OS X

[Alan Somers]

Let me answer my own questions for the benefit of anyone else trying this.

>  I have a PowerCenter running YDL that I want to use as a print server.
>  I want to use CUPS on the server and be able to print to it from an
>  iBook running OS X.  I have two printers I want to serve up.  One is
>  connected to the USB port of the PowerCenter and the other to a
>  JetDirect 300X print server.
>
>  Once I have the printers set up in CUPS on the PowerCenter, is there
>  anything special I have to do on the server side for the iBook to be
>  able to print to them?

No.  However, during the process, I did find out how automatic 
discovery works in OS X printer sharing: it uses the browsing 
capability of CUPS!  All I had to do was go into cupsd.conf on the 
PowerCenter and modify it in 3 places.

The first change was to set the ServerName parameter to the name I 
had in my iBook's NetInfo database because it conflicted with the 
host name I had defined in the PowerCenter's configuration (I don't 
use a DNS yet for addressing locally networked machines).  This step 
is unnecessary if you can address the server by the same 
fully-qualified name that it addresses itself.

The second change was to specify a value for the BrowseAddress 
parameter, which defines the network that CUPS broadcasts browsing 
packets to.  I set it to only broadcast to the local subnet 
(192.168.1.255 in my case), just in case.

I had also previously added the iBook as an authorized client in the 
<Location /> block, which I found out through experimentation is 
required.  I have since changed it to authorize all machines on the 
network.

Then, I just restarted the CUPS daemon on the PowerCenter to use the 
new configuration.

>  Also (and I realize this is a little off-topic in that it has nothing
>  to do with YDL), what parameters do I use in the OS X Print Center on
>  the iBook to be able to print to the CUPS server on the PowerCenter?

This was the really cool part: I had to do *absolutely nothing* to 
print from the iBook to the printers I defined on the PowerCenter!  I 
didn't even have to add the printers within Print Center; they 
automatically appeared in the printer list and their configuration 
was available in the Print dialog.