Is there a way in PaperCut to amalgamate printer queues? We have multiple queues for the same printers. This is partly to split the load between servers and also to act as backup queues.

This is a complex area! Organization's with large networks may also wish to consider clustering.

We have no easy way to amalgamate print queues in the web interface. It is something that have been requested before but does not yet have enough votes to push it forward onto the TODO list. There is however the ability to alias at the server-level. This may helpful in this "backup" queue situation. I'll explain, by example, how server aliasing can be useful:

Setup:

• Two print servers (to distribute load and/or act as a backup).
• Both servers have the same set of physical printers installed under matching/identical names.
• This example assumes both servers run Windows, but the concept can equally be applied to Mac and Linux.

Normal Setup in PaperCut NG:

• Each server would report their printers to the central server.
• Printers are prefixed by the server name (server\printer) so we have separate printers for each queue on each server.

Aliased setup in PaperCut NG:

• Aim: Force one server to report itself as the same name as the other server.
• One one of the servers, set the ServerName property in the file:
  C:\Program Files\PaperCut NG\providers\print\win\print-provider.conf
• Now jobs from this server will list under the same name as the other server.
• Jobs will now appear under the one printer in PaperCut. The old queues can be deleted.

keywords: load balance, distributed queues, join

Catagories: Printers