Printer share for people not on domain

[Matt]

I need to share out a printer so that laptops that are not on the
domain can print to them. How do I do this?? I have been googling for
most of the morning now with no luck.

Thanks.

Matt Atkins

 

[Kurt]

Connect the printer to a non-domain controller, enable the "guest" account.

....kurt

 

[Matt]

OK.. I did that and it works. Is there a way of making it a bit more
secure??

 

[Kurt]

Yes, you can create local accounts on the print server that match the
accounts of the people that need to print, and grant that account only the
necessary permissions to print. If your non-domain computers have known
users, that'll work. But if these are "guest" computers that come and go
with different, unknown users, you'd have to create a new account for every
new user. Also, every time a user changes their password, you'll have to
manually replicate the change on the server.

Another way would be to create a limited account, say "printuser" on the
server, and occasional users would have to connect to the printer each time,
supplying the username/password. Unfortunately, users are not prompted for
credentials when trying to print like they are when attempting to open a
shared file, so if your users aren't savvy enough to install a printer, I
wouldn't do it. It'll be a help desk nightmare.

 

[Grumman-581]

in message

OK.. I did that and it works. Is there a way of making it a bit more
secure??

Does your printer have a TCP/IP port on it? You might be able to just
define it as an IP printer on the network instead of being attached to
another machine... If it doesn't have a TCP/IP port on it, there are devices
that convert from TCP/IP to parallel or serial or whatever your printer
might use... HP has had a "JetDirect" device that did this for quite a few
years... There's probably other companies that make similar devices...

Speaking of IP printers, that brings up another question... If you have a
home network with an IP printer attached to it and are using a VPN to
connect to a company network, are there any methods / products out there
that will allow you to print on your local network IP printer? It seems
that when the VPN is running, you no longer have access to anything on your
local network... Currently, my proposed solution for this is to write a
service that runs on one machine on the network and have that process
periodically poll a particular internet email mailbox and upon encountering
an email message of a particular format, to send the attached file to the
printer... The machine on the VPN would print to a file and then email that
file to the specified internet email address in order to print something...
Not exactly the most elegant solution, but it should work...