Linux printing

General information

• The printing system at ETH is known as "PIA", Print service of Informatikdienste for All

• General information about PIA provided by Informatikdienste (ID)

• Overview of personal print jobs and costs

Available print servers

There are different print servers providing print queues for different geographical locations:

• pia01.ethz.ch for ETH center buildings

• pia02.ethz.ch for ETH Hönggerberg

Stored credentials (see below) will contain the name of the print server.

Available printers

• Printers are named and labelled following the scheme "p-building-floor-room", as for example "p-etf-d-104"
• The pull printing queue is named "card-ethz". It allows releasing a print job on any printer fitted with a card reader by holding a ETH card to the sensor labelled "ETH CARD".
• Printers in buildings ETF, ETL, ETZ and HIA are available from Linux clients managed by ISG.EE

Storing credentials for authenticated printing

In order to track usage and manage costs every print job needs to be submitted with personal ETH network credentials. The following process describes storing your credentials for automatic submission with every print job.

1. Open a console

2. Enter system-config-printer to open "Print Settings"

3. Double-click the printer card-ethz

4. 

5. In the appearing window "Printer Properties" press the button Print Test Page

6. 

7. Enter your username including the domain d\

8. Tick the check box labelled Remember password to store your credentials

9. Confirm the dialog by pressing the button OK

10. In case of wrong credentials the dialog will simply reappear without warning about the fact

11. 

12. Press Print Test Page again, now the dialog asking for credentials should not reappear

Verifying stored credentials

1. Open a console

2. Enter seahorse to open "Passwords and Keys"

3. Verify any entry similar to the one below in your keyring named "Login"

4. 

Setting the default printer

1. Open a console

2. Enter system-config-printer to open "Print Settings"

3. Find the desired printer by entering parts of its name into the Filter field

4. Double-click the printer you want to set as the default printer

5. 

6. Close the appearing "Printer Properties" window by pressing the button Cancel

7. 

8. Now the "Set As Default" menu entry used below will be available
9. Right-click the printer you want to set as the default printer

10. Select the menu entry Set As Default

11. 

12. Check Set as my personal printer and confirm by pressing Ok

13. 

14. The default printer is now marked with a heart

15. 

Troubleshooting

Problem: I've printed something, but it didn't come out of the printer.

Solution I: First, you can check your local printer queue. Start system-config-printer in your console and right-click -> View Print Queue on the printer/queue you've selected previously. If your job's hanging here, try right-click -> Release. If the desired jobs isn't listed in the queue, check https://www.vppspy.ethz.ch (VPP) or https://www.print.ethz.ch (PIA) for errors regarding your print-job. If you can't find any problem, please contact ISG.EE Support <support@ee.ethz.ch>.

Solution II: There is another option, why the printing system isn't working properly. If the first printer in your print dialog isn't "card-ethz", you might have set an environment variable called "CUPS_SERVER" on the value "ipp2vpp.ee.ethz.ch". Please check your .bashrc / .profile and delete the corresponding line.

Problem: After sending the print job, the printer flashes a red LED and says: Paper size and type missmatched

Solution: The Paper type "Recycled" isn't recognized correctly. Use the type "Plain/Recycled".

Problem: I've changed my NETHZ password. How can I change the password in the keyring?

Solution: After a change of your NETHZ password, you have to re-enter your password on your next print-out. The safest way to do so, is following the "Initial steps to save the password for PIA printers" again.

Problem: I've started `system-config-printer` but no printers are available.

Solution: This probably means the cups service has crashed and can't recover itself. Restart your computer or contact ISG.EE support <support@ee.ethz.ch>

Problem: The tick in the check box of the password saving dialog disappears every time i press it. (probably XFCE)

Solution: This is only a visual error. Press the check box once, and it will save the password.

Problem: Printouts out of the firefox PDF preview look messed up

Solution: The firefox PDF preview is not compatible with our system. Please download the pdf and print it using a PDF viewer. (e.g evince)

Problem: The Application (e.g Firefox) crashes when I try to save the password in the keyring.

Solution: Please follow the Initial steps to save the password for PIA printers.

Problem: After I filled in the authentication popup, there appears another popup that makes the whole display darker and asks about a password for the Gnome Keyring. My NETHZ password doesn’t work!

Solution: open a console and type the command “seahorse”. A Gnome Keyring management tool appears. delete the “Login “ keyring in the top left corner and log out of your current session. After another login, the authentication process should work.

Problem: Print jobs take very long to process/ print out.

Solution: If you are using the embedded Firefox pdfviewer, please download the file and open it with the native document viewer. (evince)