networking - How to connect computers to a network printer behind a router?

06
2014-04
  • kokbira

    General question:

    How to connect computers to an IP printer behind a router?

    Particular question:

    How to connect C-1 and C-2 to PRI?

    What? Where?

                [ISP]
              |
              | -> IPs:200.X.X.X/other configs:DC
              |
            [R-1]
              |
              | -> IPs:10.1.X.X locked by MAC,M:255.0.0.0,G:10.1.0.1
   |¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|
   |                    |
 [PRI] IP:10.1.7.7    [R-2] IP: 10.1.0.1,MAC:A
                        |
                        | -> IPs:192.168.1.X,M:255.255.255.0,G:192.168.1.1
            |¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|
            |                      |
          [C-1] IP:192.168.1.2   [C-2] IP:192.168.1.3,MAC:A

Glossary and details:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- IP: IP.
- IPs: Some IP range.
- M: Mask.
- G: Gateway.
- MAC:A: A MAC address that I will not inform you :)
- DC: Don't care.

- ISP: Internet Service Provider (not so much details about it on that case).
- R-1: A real router or some concatenated so IP range bellow that block is 10.1.X.X
       and above is ISP. The provided IPs are provided by MAC. As all available
       addresses are in use, you must clone an existing one to join with a new
       device (and to disconnect the cloned one).
- PRI: An network printer (some people here call that IP printer).
- R-2: A TP-LINK TL-WR340G, mine wireless router (since my computer does not have
       ethernet input, it is my ethernet-wifi adapter :), admin access, MAC address
       cloned from C-2 (MAC:A). I've to configure 10.0.1.1 and 10.0.1.2 as DNS
       addresses, other wise I cannot connect C-1 and C-2 to Internet.
- C-1: My computer, a CCE XLE-425 (remember: no ethernet input), with Windows 7,
       admin access.
- C-2: another computer with better configs than mine, MAC:A, Windows XP.

    Requirements:

    I want to print, to access Internet and to do it myself (no need to call network admin men in black people).

    Pay attention to MAC clones and DNS info.

    • Answers
  • kokbira

    Done!

    After @MikePennington said something about the "port", I got to R-2 settings. There, I could see Virtual Servers config:

    Virtual Servers config

    On printer driver properties, I could see also that the port used for network connection was 9100:

    port used for network connection

    So it was too easy as configuring ports for game servers on computers with routed connection (hmmm... why I do not thought it before?):

    Configure R-2:
- for C-1:
    - service port: 9100
    - IP address: 192.168.1.2
    - Protocol: ALL
- for C-2:
    - service port: 9101
    - IP address: 192.168.1.3
    - Protocol: ALL

- Configure C-1:
    - none

- Configure C-2:
    - printer TCP/IP RAW port: 9101

- Reboot R-2 (I forget it on first time and did not see any result. In another try,
              I succeeded!)

    • Related Question

    router - How can my Mac print to an HP network printer on another network segment?
  • IronGoofy

    I've got a network comprised of two segments:

    • Segment 1: IP adresses xx.yy.178.n - my main segment which is connected to the internet via DSL
    • Segment 2: IP adresses xx.yy.1.n - WLAN segment used for mobile devices, the router for segment 2 is connected to segment 1 so the mobile devices can connect to the internet as well

    My problem: I've got a network printer in segment 1 (an HP CP1518), my mac is in segment 2 and can't see the printer. If I hook the mac up to segment 1, everything works fine.

    My question: How do I have to set up my routers in order for the mac in segment 2 to "see" the printer? Which tools can I use to figure out if the problem is with the router for segment 1 or segment2? I've played around with opening some ports, but no success so far.

    Any tips are appreciated.


    • Related Answers
  • Majenko

    OS X uses the CUPS system for managing it's printing. The interface you see normally only has a small subset of what CUPS can do.

    If you browse to http://localhost:631 you should get the full CUPS interface where you can do wondrous things, including adding printers using many different protocols and by their IP address etc.

    The CUPS manuals can be found here.

  • IronGoofy

    I've solved the issue, but I'm still not sure what has caused it.

    The solution was to simply delete and re-create the printer using the IPP protocol and the printer's network name. The Mac could see that, and everything was fine.

    I can only assume that the Mac initially used the printers IP address to set up the printer, and that that has probably changed. But that's only a wild guess ...