Click on the Add a new printer link on the module's main page. This will take you to the printer creation form shown in Figure 22.2 (the screenshot is taken from a system using the CUPS print system, so the user interface may not be the same on your Linux machine).

Enter a unique name for the new printer (such as epson or hp_laser) into the Name field. This will be the name by which the printer is specified when using the lpr command or printing from other programs.

Enter a short description into the Description field, such as Office Epson Stylus 740.

If you want every print job to be preceded by a banner page containing the name of the file being printed and the user who printed it, set the Print banner? field to Yes. This is usually a waste of paper unless the printer is being used by a large number of people in a large organization.

To make this the default printer that will be used if no printer name is specified in the lpr command line, set the Default printer? option to Yes. This option is not available for all print systems.

When using some print systems, you can control the maximum size of a job that can be submitted to the printer using the Max print job size field. For a printer on your own personal machine, this should be set to Unlimited, but on a network with many users it may make sense to enter a lower number of 1 KB blocks.

If your system is using the Linux or LPRng print systems, you can enter multiple space-separated aliases for the printer into the Alternate printer names field. To make the printer the default, enter lp as one of the aliases.

If the printer is connected directly to your system, select the Local device option in the Print Destination section and select the parallel or USB port that it is on from the menu next to it.

If the device is not on the list, select Local file instead and enter the device path into its field, such as /dev/ttyS5. You could also enter a filename to which to print, as long as it already exists and is writable by the print server daemon.

If the printer is attached to another system on a network (or is directly connected to the network itself), you must choose a protocol to print to it.

For a printer attached to a UNIX system, select Remote Unix server and enter the hostname of the server and the name of the printer on that server into the fields next to it. For most UNIX systems, the Type can be set to BSD, but if the remote server is running CUPS you can select IPP instead.

For a printer on a Windows system, select Remote Windows server and enter the hostname and printer name into the appropriate fields next to it. If the server requires clients to log in before printing, fill in the User and Password fields with a valid login for the Windows system. If you have multiple workgroups on your network, you may need to fill in the Workgroup field as well.

For some printers that can be plugged directly into the network, you must select the Direct TCP connection option and enter a hostname and port number into the fields next to it.

If the hpnp command is installed on your system, the option Remote HPNP server will be available so that you can print to HP network printers that use that protocol. If selected, you must enter a hostname and port number into the fields next to it.

To have Webmin check if the remote printer can actually be reached using the chosen protocol, click the Check if remote server is up? box.

If the printer supports PostScript, select the None option in the Printer Driver section. You should also select this option when printing to a remote UNIX server, as conversion from PostScript to the correct data format will be done on the server.

For printers that do not support PostScript and are connected directly to your system or accessed over the network using the Direct TCP connection or Remote Windows server options, you must select a printer driver (explained in the next step).

If your printer does not use PostScript and needs a driver, select the CUPS driver option. When using another print system, this option may be labeled Webmin driver or Redhat driver or COAS driver instead. Either way, next to it will be a list of printer models from which you can select the make and model of your printer.

If it does not appear in the list, try selecting the entry with the same manufacturer and closest model number that you can find (for example, if you have a FooTronic 810 and only FooTronic models 800 and 1000 appear, select the model 800).

With print systems, other options such as DPI and paper size may be available under the printer model list. Select those that are appropriate for your printer.

Finally, click the Create button. If anything goes wrong (such as an inability to contact the remote print server or a failure to create the printer), an error message will be displayed. Otherwise, you will be returned to the module's main page which will now list your new printer.

If you are using the CUPS print system and have set a driver for the printer, click on the name of your new printer on the list to go to the printer editing form. At the bottom, below the printer model list, will be an additional set of fields for configuring things like the paper size, print quality, and paper type. Because the fields are dependent on the type of printer chosen, they are not displayed on the printer creation form. Set the paper size, DPI, and so on to whatever is appropriate for your system. The defaults will usually produce fast low-quality output, so if you want to use your printer's photo-quality mode on glossy paper, you will need to change them. When you are done changing the printer-specific options, click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

The newly created printer can now be printed to using the lpr command or any program that supports printing.