Our current lpd/lpr system make it very difficulty to reliably and easily allow the user to set up their own printing, even with documentation, as it requires CSCF intervention (in the form of accounts setting up printing permissions on their PC). It also requires trust in the machine's IP and hostname, as opposed to a userid and password - which still sucks, but it's better than nothing.

We can do samba printing, but an issue in the past has been that CUPS - the preferred printing system for most Linux distributions - seems to want to store the password plaintext in the device URI. Hardly conducive to good security practises.

So what's the best solution? MikePatterson set up a "Wild West" printing solution in one lab, at Fraser's suggestion. After a month, it seems to be working out pretty well. But obviously we can't make this work with a charging solution, and it makes it very difficult to track abuse.

See PrintingProblems for an overall analysis of the current xhier lpr system.