Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)
  • OT: linux help – network printer
  • dan1980
    Free Member

    I wonder if anyone could suggest things to try to get an SUSE 11.4 machine to see the printer (HP colour laserjet) on our network.

    Machine will have a 130.88.x.x IP, printer has a 10.99.x.x IP

    Windows machines in the same office can connect to the printer and all works fine.

    Linux machine can’t see it, have tried CUPS, HPLIP setup wizard and YASTs own printer setup. Have turned off firewall to check that it’s not that causing a problem. I can’t even ping the IP address of the printer for some reason (Can ping other IPs. Windows machines can ping the printer fine too)

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    Are the windows machines on the same subnet (might be in the same office, not necessarily the same subnet)

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    That’s an unusual address for a printer – doesn’t that mean it’s on the public internet?

    Check the SUSE machine has a sensible default route (should begin with 0.0.0.0). e.g.


    % route -n
    0.0.0.0 10.177.128.1 0.0.0.0 UG 100 0 0 eth0

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    dan1980
    Free Member

    The IP address for the printer was given to me by IT, but they won’t help support the linux machine that’s failing to connect, as it isn’t an approved distribution (!)

    The route seems to be OK, and all the machines in the office are on the same subnet

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    Sorry, I mean that your machine is on the public internet.

    That’s not going to work well.

    EDIT: what’s the subnet that the working windows machines are on? i.e. which subnet are all the machine on?

    I’d be suspicious that whatever is the router between your linux machine (130.88.xxx) and the printer (10.xx) is probably dropping the traffic.

    When you say you turned the firewall off, was that on the linux machine, or a real firewall box (e.g. cisco) somewhere?

    dan1980
    Free Member

    The 4 PCs in the office are all 130.88.237.xxx and the subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, so I think that means that they’re all on the same subnet?

    The linux machine is the only one that can’t find the printer. The 3 other windows machines don’t have a problem.

    I’ve tried turning the firewall setting off in SUSE , as when I tried to connect and it couldn’t find the printer it produced a message suggesting it couldn’t route through the firewall.

    oldnpastit
    Full Member

    Can you ping the linux machine’s default gateway (10.177.128.1 in the example above) ?

    Somewhere there must be a router that’s routing between your 10.99.0.0/16 subnet to your 130.88.237.0/24 subnet. It’s possible that router has some rules of its own to prevent public internet/dmz machines getting to your private LAN (10.99.x.x.). e.g. it may have a fixed list of “trusted” IPs.

    somouk
    Free Member

    Sounds like a fundamental networking issue somewhere to me.

    Work through it logically pinging everything in the middle. Take a peak at the local routing table as well, the windows machines may have a static route in for that address you need to add.

    If it’s nothing local then ping the default gateway for your subnet, does that return?

    If it does then try pinging the default gateway for the printer IP subnet.

    It might be worth mentioning that Ping isn’t often a good use for testing as it will return even if there are some routing issues or maybe a router could be blocking ping. :/

    The post above makes a good point that the route may have an ACL list on it stopping you from accessing it as your internal addresses are a little screwy. Either that or you’re plugging into a VLAN that doesn’t have the correct route map applied.

    dan1980
    Free Member

    Cheers, will have a play tomorrow and see how much further I can get things.

    Thanks for your help

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    Manchester Uni? Surely you have a computing bod there who’s not under the “approved distribution” thumb? Ours are not meant to touch certain distros but one chap in the IT room will with a nod and a wink if addressed directly!

    Either way, if you can’t ping it, but can from other machines on the same subnet, something is being blocked either by your machine or on purpose by the uni net admin.

    dan1980
    Free Member

    “Fixed” the problem by sharing the printer from one of the windows PCs and using SAMBA/CUPs to configure it.

    It does the job 😀

Viewing 11 posts - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

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