Configure Network Printer Sharing on elementary OS

A printer connected to one elementary OS computer can be made available to other devices on the same home or office network. This is useful when a USB printer sits beside a desktop in a study, while laptops, tablets, or another Linux machine need to print from elsewhere. The host computer handles the physical connection, queues jobs through CUPS, and presents the printer to approved clients. Learn more about Otthoni Sörfőzés Alapjai Kezdő útmutató.

The arrangement works best when the host has a dependable local address and remains powered on whenever printing is required. A wireless printer may be simpler for a household with several users, but USB sharing remains practical for older models, specialist label printers, and inexpensive inkjets commonly sold through Australian retailers.

Network printing involves more than clicking a sharing checkbox. You need to identify the correct driver, permit access through the firewall, decide whether discovery will use Avahi or a direct IP address, and test both ordinary documents and printer-specific features. Keeping these parts clear makes troubleshooting much easier.

Before changing configuration, check the printer’s connection type, model number, and current IP address if it already has network capability. Also decide who should be able to print. A private household network in Brisbane has different access requirements from a shared flat in Melbourne or a small office in Sydney, particularly when documents contain personal information.

Prepare The Host Computer And Printer

Connect the printer to the elementary OS host with USB and confirm that it works locally before attempting to share it. Open the system settings and use the printer panel to add the device. Depending on the model, elementary OS may detect an appropriate driver automatically through its Ubuntu-based packages. If it offers several entries, select the exact model rather than a generic text-only or PCL option unless the manufacturer recommends otherwise.

Print a test page from the host. Check paper size, orientation, colour mode, duplex settings, and tray selection. Australian printers often default to A4, while some imported models may arrive configured for US Letter. Correcting those defaults on the host prevents every client from inheriting the wrong layout. For a multifunction device, test scanning separately; sharing a printer queue does not automatically share its scanner.

The host should use the trusted home or office network, not a guest Wi-Fi network. Many routers isolate guest devices from one another, so a laptop may be unable to contact a shared queue even though it can browse the web. In an apartment in Sydney or Melbourne, where several nearby networks may appear with similar names, verify that every device is connected to the same private SSID.

If the computer receives a different local address after each reboot, clients can lose the printer. The preferred fix is a DHCP reservation in the router, which assigns the host the same address based on its network adapter. This is usually more reliable than manually entering an address in elementary OS and avoids conflicts with another device.

Enable CUPS Sharing And Discovery

CUPS is the printing system used by elementary OS and most Linux distributions. The graphical printer settings can expose a local queue, but the underlying service controls whether other computers may use it. First make sure the service is running by opening a terminal and entering:

systemctl status cups

If it is inactive, start and enable it with:

sudo systemctl enable --now cups

The CUPS web administration page is available at http://localhost:631. Open the Administration tab and select the options to share printers connected to this system and allow printing from the local network. The wording can vary between CUPS versions, so focus on the functions rather than an identical label. Avoid enabling unrestricted access from every network unless there is a specific reason to do so.

You can also inspect the configuration from the terminal:

lpstat -p -d

This displays available queues and the default printer. To identify the queue name, run:

lpstat -a

A queue might be named after the model, with spaces converted into hyphens or underscores. That name is useful when adding the printer manually on another computer.

Avahi provides multicast DNS, often shown as Bonjour or Zeroconf discovery. Install and enable it if the shared queue does not appear automatically:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install avahi-daemon
sudo systemctl enable --now avahi-daemon

Discovery is convenient, but it is not essential. A direct CUPS address such as ipp://HOSTNAME.local/printers/QUEUE or ipp://192.168.1.25/printers/QUEUE can work when multicast traffic is blocked by the router. Internet Printing Protocol is generally preferable to older SMB printer sharing because it is native to CUPS and easier to secure on a Linux network.

Before making major CUPS changes, create a restore point with Timeshift. A saved system snapshot can make recovery less stressful if a package update or configuration edit affects other desktop services.

Allow The Right Network Traffic

A firewall can make a correctly configured shared queue appear invisible. If elementary OS has UFW enabled, allow CUPS traffic only from the local subnet rather than opening the service to the whole internet. For a common home network using addresses beginning with 192.168.1, a rule may look like this:

sudo ufw allow from 192.168.1.0/24 to any port 631 proto tcp

Replace the subnet with the range used by your router. You can check the host address and network details with:

ip address

Port 631 is used by IPP and CUPS. Avahi discovery also relies on multicast DNS, normally UDP port 5353, and a firewall may need to permit it on the trusted interface. A more restrictive setup can skip discovery and use the host’s fixed IP address, avoiding the need to expose multicast discovery at all.

Do not forward port 631 from the router to the internet. A shared home printer should be reachable only inside the local network. Remote printing is better handled through a VPN, a managed office service, or a secure cloud printing arrangement. Router firmware supplied with NBN connections often includes guest-network and client-isolation options; check those settings if local devices cannot communicate.

Security also matters when several people use the same queue. CUPS can be configured to require authentication for administration, but many home installations allow local printing without a login. That is acceptable only when the Wi-Fi password is controlled and the network is trusted. On a share house network, separate user accounts or a dedicated printer VLAN may be more appropriate.

Australian privacy obligations are relevant in workplaces and community organisations. Under the Privacy Act and the Australian Privacy Principles, personal information should be handled with reasonable care. A shared printer in a reception area can expose payslips, medical letters, school records, or customer details. Place the device where printed pages are collected promptly, and restrict access if it is used for confidential material.

Add The Shared Printer To Client Devices

On a second elementary OS computer, open the printer settings and choose to add a printer. If Avahi is operating correctly, the shared queue may appear under network printers, often with a name that includes the host computer and queue. Select it, allow the system to identify the driver, and print a test page.

If it does not appear, choose an IPP or CUPS printer and enter an address in one of these forms:

ipp://HOSTNAME.local/printers/QUEUE
ipp://192.168.1.25/printers/QUEUE

Use the actual host name, IP address, and queue name. If the .local name fails but the numeric address works, the problem is usually discovery rather than the printer or CUPS itself. A DHCP reservation can then provide a stable address while you decide whether to repair Avahi.

The client may ask for a driver even though the host already has one. Select the same model and driver family where possible. Some printers accept jobs generated by the host queue without requiring an identical driver, while others depend on client-side filtering. If a client offers a generic driver, it may print basic text but lose duplex, colour, borderless, or paper-source controls.

Test from a simple PDF and from a document application. Confirm that the expected queue is selected, then check the host’s queue with:

lpstat -o

A job listed there is reaching the host. If it remains paused, inspect the printer settings for an error state, empty queue, paper mismatch, or USB connection problem. If it never appears, investigate the client address, firewall, and CUPS permissions before reinstalling drivers.

Windows and macOS devices can often connect through IPP as well, although their dialogues use different terminology. For a mixed household, record the queue address and printer model in a small note. This is especially useful when a regional family home near Newcastle or Adelaide has several people managing devices without one person acting as the permanent administrator.

Maintain Reliability And Troubleshoot Sensibly

A shared printer depends on the host computer. If the host is suspended, shut down, disconnected from Wi-Fi, or moved to another network, every client loses access. Adjust power settings so the computer stays awake during expected printing periods, or use a small always-on device if printing is frequent. An older desktop can serve as a print host, but its USB cable and network adapter should remain stable.

When a print job fails, isolate one variable at a time. First print locally from the host. Then check whether the client can reach the host:

ping -c 4 192.168.1.25

Next check whether CUPS responds:

curl http://192.168.1.25:631

A failed ping may indicate network isolation or an incorrect address, while a successful ping with a failed CUPS request points towards the firewall or service configuration. Logs can reveal filter and permission errors:

journalctl -u cups --since today

Clear jobs carefully. cancel -a removes all jobs from the current user’s queue, while the printer settings normally provide a way to cancel a selected job. Repeated duplicate pages are often caused by the application retrying after a delay, so cancel the original queue before sending another copy.

Keep the printer firmware and elementary OS packages reasonably current, but avoid changing several components at once. If a previously working queue breaks after an update, compare the CUPS service status, driver selection, and printer URI before changing the firewall. For a hobby room where someone prints bottle labels, recipes, or equipment notes, a short home brewing guide can even become a useful test document for checking small fonts, graphics, and alignment.

Inkjet owners should print occasionally to reduce the risk of dried heads, while laser printer users should watch toner levels and paper dust. Australian summer heat can affect paper storage, especially in garages or sheds, so keep paper sealed and flat. If a printer is used for business records, retain only the documents and logs required by the organisation’s policy rather than leaving sensitive jobs indefinitely in the queue.

A practical setup is simple: connect and test the printer on the elementary OS host, reserve that computer’s local address, enable CUPS and carefully limited local access, then add clients through IPP. Prefer discovery when it works, but keep the direct queue address as a dependable fallback. Finish by printing a real A4 document from each device and confirming that private pages cannot be collected by the wrong person.