Moving printer definitions from one machine to another

Let us say that you have a print server with 30 defined printers. And you have to move all those printers to another machine, because you want to retire that server. Sounds difficult? Yes. But it isn't.

At least if you have a CentOS 4 or CentOS 3 machine, the printconf command vanished from CentOS 5.

Here's how to do it

Make yourself at home as root on the old server.

Issue the following command:

printconf-tui --Xexport > printers.xml

Now copy the printers.xml to the new machine.

Log on to this machine as root, also.

Do the following:

printconf-tui --Ximport < printers.xml

Now the last thing you have to do is restart cups on the new machine - and you're ready:

service cups restart

You can use this also to back up your printer definitions on one machine. That comes in handy when someone removes printer definitions by accident or if your machine goes down.

Based on a mail from Stephen C. Rigler on the CentOS users mailing list. Also documented in /usr/share/doc/system-config-printer-0.6.116.5/printconf-save-config.html on your machine.

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