I rarely do this, but I’m hoping I can tap this network for some ideas on coming up with a solution to a problem we can’t seem to solve here at my school. We have two wireless laptop carts that teachers sign out for student use. For a variety of reasons, we don’t want to give students access to the full list of printer options on campus, but for some reason, we can’t seem to find a way to allow them to print to a wirelessly networked printer resting on the cart that would be moving between access points and changing channels. There is no access point on the cart.
Thanks for any ideas you might have.
Will,
I initially tried that too and had a lot of problems getting that to work with the ethernet interface.
I do this now very easily. I have two mobile carts full of wireless laptops. On each cart there is an HP Laserjet 1310n printer. I actually don’t use the network interface at all on the printer. I have a USB cable running from the printer into an HP ew2400 wireless print server. When I plug the cart in, the wireless print server now automatically connects to the wireless access points around school (yes, they are on different channels).
Works flawlessly now.
To add to Brian’s great idea…
I haven’t been a network admin in a few years, so I am not totally sure on some of this. Back in the days, however, Novel policies for individual computers could restrict them to printing only on assigned printers using Novel Distributed Print Services (NDPS). I would think that Active Directory would have something similar? You could then do a computer based policy that would override a user policy to force printing to the printer located on that cart. Using the wireless print server, or attaching the printer to a master/teacher computer on the cart should make it accessible when the cart is in use.
I also know that the Apple Airport Expresses allow a USB printer to be plugged into it and then all the wireless computers can print to that. Smiliar idea as Brian.