Knoppix ( or Linux ) not able to connect to shared printer using anonymous account

One of the biggest problem I have with Knoppix ( or is it Linux ? ) is that in my work place, I am not able to use anonymous account to connect to a shared printer on the microsoft network. It keeps saying permission denied. I am able to access to the shared printer using an obtained username/password but just can't connect using the anonymous account.

In comparison, a Windows machine running inside the virtualbox ( running on the said knoppix machine ) could quite effortlessly connect to shared printer without specifying any username and password.

Hi kl522,

Assuming your Windows System Administrator's are worthy of their titles, there will be no anonymous use of any corporate LAN resources. The corporate LAN will be running Active Directory (that's probably M$ trademark for LDAP or something) so that a single Windows user id and password work everywhere. You log on to Windows on a workstation of some sort and every time a network resource ask for credentials, Windows automatically supplies those you used when you logged on. Otherwise you'd need to enter a user id and a password not just to print but to mount network drives, access e-mail and a host of other corporate services. Depending on how M$ centric they are, some web-based apps will authenticate automatically while others will require you to enter user id and password. I have met some so poorly crafted that you have to use IE because they assume automatic authentication and you can't use Firefox of Chrome because entering user id and password doesn't work.

With Linux you have no such luck. This kind of automatic domain authentication is outside the scope of an OS like Linux so it is up to the individual applications and coverage varies. That's just as well as user Knoppix, no password isn't know to LDAP. I'm sure that the integrated desktop projects such as Gnome and KDE have facilities that move in the right direction. For example, they provide password protected wallets where user ids and password are hidden so the use of passwords in plain text files with restricted access is slowly disappearing. Another example is in KDE you can enter centrally a samba user id and password which allow programs such a Konsqueror to browse the samba neighbourhood easily.

The samba user id and password will usually be your Windows user id and password. Will CUPS know this ? I suspect not. I suspect you can configure CUPS to use a particular user id and password for a given printer but whether you can do this through http:localhost:631 or
not I don't know (try http://localhost:631/help). You might have to fiddle with cupsd.conf with an editor (back up first) but I must confess that man cupsd.conf is for those that know what they are doing. I've seen network paths that included user id and password. A bit ugly but that might work as a last resort.

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Originally Posted by Forester

With Linux you have no such luck. This kind of automatic domain authentication is outside the scope of an OS like Linux so it is up to the individual applications and coverage varies.

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I am not sure if I will buy this explanation or not. If what I said is true, that indeed Linux has a problem using (anonymously) shared printer, basically the shared printer is advertising itself, and shouting very loudly, come, come, come and use me !!! So what's the problem of using it ?

This should be analogous to anonymous http and FTP ( many of them are Unix/Linux origin ). There are so many anonymous FTP and http systems which are sharing resources on the network. Are we not alread using them ?

Hi,

I too have an interest in being able to print from Linux on printers in M$ networks. Whenever I have asked about this (in a number of work contexts now) the (Windows) SA gets a look on their face that says they've just remembered there is something very important they have to do (like rid the African continent of deadly disease) and can't I find some way some other way - like use a VM.

You need to check your assumption. Is the printer you want to use available for anonymous printing ? Have you actually asked your SA if anonymous printing is possible and got the feeling they understand the question ?

To use a machine's resources you generally have to provide credentials ("log on"). Not requiring credentials is not secure. Anonymous ftp is a special case to allow anyone from anywhere to down load files. Anonymous http also: I can browse this forum anonymously but to post a thread, as I am doing now, I have to log on. That's so the forum does not get defaced all the time with adverts for handbags.

I'm sure anonymous printing is possible but I don't see why it would be the default. Your SA could turn it on but without a good reason to I don't see why they would.

When you started the Windows VM did you enter a user name and password ? The log on screen has a domain name ? So, effectively, you logged onto your local Windows domain. You don't need to specify a user name or password to print or read e-mail or all sort of other things because your Windows supplies your log on credentals automatically. That does not make the printing anonymous, just convenient.

This is in the Windows OS so it works for all Windows applications. There's a system call or something. Under the Linux OS there is no system call for this: it is not in the Linux Kernel. There are libraries (libpam) and stuff that do this but not every application uses them (each to his own) and I find I have to supply the user name and password more often.

See http://wiki.debian.org/SystemPrinting#Printer_Sharing. Here it says ...

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When printing to windows printers in an NT domain using SMB the Device URI should read

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smb://username:password@domain/server/printername

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This allows Samba to authenticate against a domain controller for access to the printer queue.

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This might allow you to print without you having to enter a user name and password each time but, hey, the user name and password are there in the URI ... QED.

But it is not that simple because for the above to work you've got to have samba set up correctly and that doesn't happen automatically.

Last place I worked I use subversion. Check-out was anonymous but check-in required authentication. I supplied username and password but only once each time I was forced to change my password. Where I currently work I can't do this. I need to set up samba to use winbind and stuff so that authentication is automatic. In this case, more trouble that it is worth. But next time ....

You need to be able to talk to a SA in general, fundamental, enough terms to understanding how they have set up the printing system so that you can figure out what to do under Linux to use it. The problem I have had is that most (Windows) SA don't have the necessary general and fundamental understanding. All they know is how to navigate a window/menu system and which check boxes to tick but they don't really understand the significance of each check mark.

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Originally Posted by Forester

You need to check your assumption. Is the printer you want to use available for anonymous printing ? Have you actually asked your SA if anonymous printing is possible and got the feeling they understand the question ?

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I am not going to use this thread for the purpose of discussing how to configure SAMBA because I got it working using obtained username/password. And I am pretty certain that whenever I set up a new VM running Windows, I do not need to enter any username/password to access those printers.

At the same time I read somewhere from the internet posts that non-Windows has serious compatibility issue with certain windows shares. I am only seeking to confirm if that is indeed true, or perhaps if anyone here has the same encounters.

Cheers.