Deploying printers with munki

[Keith Mitnick]

I was wondering how others are deploying printers with munki.

If anyone can share a how to guide that's current or provide any insight, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks.

Keith

[Kris Lou]

https://github.com/munki/munki/wiki/Managing-Printers-With-Munki

Basically, a payload-free pkg that runs lpadmin, with lots and lots of variations.  But the above should summarize it.

Kris Lou
kl...@themusiclink.net

Keith

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[Stephen Hudak]

If you support multiple OS versions, you might want to use the generic driver. I've come across a few that weren't titled the same and the printers wouldn't install.

Sent from my iPhone

[Adam M. Anklewicz]

I’ve had iffy problems with generic print drives, so I’d suggest if that’s the case have a minimum OS  and maximum OS for the payload free package.

I use Munki for printers, and I made one pkginfo file and just modify it for other printers. 

Here’s an example of one of mine for a HP P3015DN printer. https://github.com/aanklewicz/nopkg/blob/master/SC%20Main%20Office%20Printer%201.0.plist

--
Adam M. Anklewicz

ad...@anklewicz.com
http://www.neverhadtofight.com

[Vaughn Miller]

I use the nopkg method and it works well.  I use this tool to help create the pkginfo files : https://github.com/binkleybloom/Printer_pkginfo_Wizard

Vaughn Miller

Lafayette College

[Keith Mitnick]

I appreciate all the responses.  I will give them a try.

Please keep them coming.

Thanks

Keith

[Gregory Neagle]

On Apr 16, 2015, at 8:23 AM, Keith Mitnick <keith....@gmail.com> wrote:

I appreciate all the responses.  I will give them a try.

Please keep them coming.

But maybe not _here_, as this is a place to discuss Munki itself. 

[Erik Gomez]

Perhaps it's time to make munki-discuss?

Sent from my iPhone

[Josh Malone]

There is the macenterprise list - http://www.macenterprise.org/mailing-list

Also, if you do IRC, there is ##osx-server on Freenode

A quick google search turns up http://macosx.com/ and reminds me about
https://www.afp548.com/

-Josh

[Keith Mitnick]

Greg,

Is deploying printers via Munki not a topic for this list or is this list only to report issues with Munki?

Keith

[Gregory Neagle]

This list exists to discuss Munki itself. Discussions on “how do I accomplish task ‘foo’ using Munki” are fine, but I think "deploying printers via Munki” has been covered over and over, and there is even a Wiki page or two on the topic. 

-Greg

[Mike Pullen]

OK, I've been ignoring, for several months, a dilemma I have deploying printers via Munki. It seems I'm missing something fundamental:

I have several printer-driver install packages that cover all of the makes and models of printers in our school district. At this point, all printer drivers install to all Macs.

I have dozens of nopkg packages that install individual printers script-wise. These work great, as long as the appropriate printer drivers are installed before these run. (Printer assignments are handled via conditional items; this works great and isn't part of this question!) The dilemma is, at deploy time, sometimes these run before the driver packages run so the printers don't install correctly (they use default bland "generic printer" drivers that don't work.)

It's not feasible to manually add each printer driver package as Requires to each printer package. It could be feasible to add an "all Sharp printer drivers" Requires to printers that need Sharp drivers, but, I don't have an "all Sharp printer drivers" package: I have several Sharp printer drivers packages because Sharp provides their drivers in "model groups."

Am I missing a way to group together several packages that can be defined as a Required for an individual package? I'd prefer not to literally repackage the printer drivers together, as, then, updating one driver package is more complicated. I can and do nest manifests, but-- manifests can't be Requires for packages, and manifests don't have Requires. Right?

tl;dr: Is it possible to next packages, to combine several packages into one "meta" package that can be used as a Requires for other packages? I can image a nopkg kind of thing that lists other packages as Requires, but am not seeing how to do that. 

 

Thanks,

Mike

[Erik Gomez]

Yes these are great places as well. I'm of the mindset that munki admins should have a place where they can discuss things at length beyond just configuration and configuration issues.

Not everyone uses IRC (or even knows what it is) and while macenterprise is great, it's all encompassing.

Sent from my iPhone

[Erik Gomez]

Why isn't requires an acceptable value? When running munkiimport/makepkginfo you can pass the parameter. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Gregory Neagle]

On Apr 16, 2015, at 1:15 PM, Mike Pullen <mi...@thepullen.net> wrote:

Am I missing a way to group together several packages that can be defined as a Required for an individual package?

The value for “requires” is an array…

-Greg

[A.E. van Bochoven]

I'm not sure what you mean: I have several nopkg printqueue installers as well, and they just have a 'requires' array for the particular driver the installer needs.

-Arjen

[Mike Pullen]

Parsing out which specific Sharp driver package is required for each printer would be a PITA (especially, retroactively across the several-dozen printers we deploy); nice would be a Requires that says "Sharp drivers"-- but that requires a package that is "Sharp drivers", which doesn't exist.

I can meta-package the individual driver packages together if that's the only way, but would prefer not to have to do that if I'm missing a way to nest packages in munki!

I understand that requires is an array and can hold multiple values, but that would still require inserting this array into all of the existing pkginfos.

So, could a nopkg that just has just other packages as Requires work as I'm wishing, to allow "nesting" or "combining" of packages? Can a nopkg create and leave a receipt? (Am not finding a whole lot of info on how nopkgs work...)

Mike

[A.E. van Bochoven]

You can use an installs array to check for something like /var/db/edu.yourinstitution.sharpdrivers-1.0.0

And a post install script that creates that particular file. Or an installs array that lists all the sharp drivers you're referencing in your requires array. Which would be even better.

Sent from my iPhone

[Josh Malone]

I simply install all drivers on all machines. We don't have to terribly many brands and models to support so that might be a difference. I would try a manifest that lists all your printer drivers and include that in all your host manifests.

[Gregory Neagle]

On Apr 16, 2015, at 1:59 PM, Mike Pullen <mi...@thepullen.net> wrote:

Parsing out which specific Sharp driver package is required for each printer would be a PITA (especially, retroactively across the several-dozen printers we deploy); nice would be a Requires that says "Sharp drivers"-- but that requires a package that is "Sharp drivers", which doesn't exist.

I pointed out that the “requires” value is an array.

That means it is a list.

That means it can contain more than one thing.

That means you can put all your Sharp drivers in the “requires” array for a Sharp printer.

What am I missing?

I can meta-package the individual driver packages together if that's the only way, but would prefer not to have to do that if I'm missing a way to nest packages in munki!

I understand that requires is an array and can hold multiple values, but that would still require inserting this array into all of the existing pkginfos.

Why is that a problem? Copy, paste. It’s no harder to copy and paste multiple lines of text than a single line of text.

So, could a nopkg that just has just other packages as Requires work as I'm wishing, to allow "nesting" or "combining" of packages? Can a nopkg create and leave a receipt? (Am not finding a whole lot of info on how nopkgs work…)

Because they don’t do anything at all. It’s all up to you.

[Erik Gomez]

At my old job I created nopkg templates for each printer and if a new model came in I would create a template for it as well.

This allowed me to change a few parameters through find/replace and I would have a nopkg ready to go. 

If you have several (hundred) printers you could take this same approach and create a script to remake all of your nopkg files. As long as the install logic, name and version are the same then the users won't be impacted in any way. 

Sent from my iPhone

[Nick McSpadden]

I agree with Josh malone - we have HP and Xerox printers here of different types, but it doesn't matter, because every single computer gets the HP Driver Download and the Xerox Driver Download from Apple.  Sure, it's probably an unnecessary extra ~800 mb per machine, but the headache it saves me later is worth every byte.

--

Nick McSpadden

Client Systems Manager

Schools of the Sacred Heart, San Francisco

[Erik]

As requested by Greg.

My response is here
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/munki-discuss/Y-UCDS2Is6s