Help with Avahi Airprint installation instructions

simonmason

I am following the installation instructions (link below) to install Avahi and get Airprint working on my LAN. Not being a UNIX guy, I am lost at step 4. It seems I have to download a file, edit it, and then run the file on the pfsense machine? How do I go about doing this? Thanks.

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=45964.0

stephenw10

So you've done steps 1-3?
Step 4 is just to run the python script that generates the config file.

Steve

simonmason

Sorry for the delay - I was in Europe for a couple of weeks.

I did steps 1-3. I have the edited file on my windows PC. Presumably I have to ftp the file to my server now but it doesn't look ftp is installed? Is there a way to get the file uploaded through the Admin web interface? Thanks.

stephenw10

There's a file upload facility in Diagnostics: Command Prompt:
Alternatively you can upload via SCP.

Steve

simonmason

Ok, I uploaded the file via SCP after figuring out I had to use the root account and not admin.

I tried to execute the command ./airprint-generate.py and got a permission denied. I put the file in the default directory when I connected - \root. Is there somewhere else I need to put this in order to run the command?

Also, when running the pkg-add I saw a number of messages about files depending on other versions than I had installed. This command installed so many things that I wasn't able to keep up with it to see if it did what was needed for this process. Is there something in particular I should look for to confirm that I installed what is required? Thanks.

stephenw10

You probably need to change the file permissions to make it executable:

chmod 0755 airprint-generate.py

Doing this stuff without knowing what you're doing could easily screw your box completely. Fine if this is a test box but if it's production….. ;)

The guide was written for 2.0 which was based on FreeBSD 8.1. pfSense 2.1 is based on FreeBSD 8.3 and consequently has newer packages. Whatever combination you're installing may or may not work.

Steve

simonmason

I am definitely doing this without knowing what I am doing! It is more to teach myself how this works. However, this is a home installation and by no means mission critical. I cannot find anything on trying to get AirPrint working on pfsense 2.1 - and based on the numerous errors I saw installing the packages I am probably not going to proceed with this at present until I can find out more about this. It's a shame this doesn't work out of the box. I think AirPrint is a pretty basic capability and this is a rather complicated set of tasks to get it working.

stephenw10

Best way to learn in my opinion. :)
So it didn't work then?
The only packages you are adding are gutenprint-cups py26-cups. Neither of those specify a version so the most recent will be installed. The only conflict might be with the pfSense Avahi package which might include older components. What erros are you seeing?

pfSense was never intended to be a print server, others have added the functionality but unless it's added to the project in some official way it's always at risk of becoming outdated.

Steve