how to set up a Raspberry Pi as a wireless print server

we will be using CUPS to create a shared printer, connected locally via usb to a raspberry pi. The Pi will be connected wirelessly to your network.

i will assume that you have a standard install of raspberry pi os already set up on your board. make sure that you have ssh enabled by creating a file called “ssh” in the root of your boot drive. also, it might be easiest to enable wifi by creating a file called “wpa_supplicant.conf” and filling it with the info from the following site:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/configuration/wireless/headless.md

after this is done, we have a few steps to go through:

prepare installation
install CUPS
install printer drivers
install samaba server
install airprint server

1. prepare installation

before we start, we should make sure we are up to date on all our packages with the apt command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Also, we want to go into our router and set up a static dhcp lease. i will leave that to a separate guide.

2. install cups

then, we install cups, it’s very simple:

sudo apt install cups

we’ll need a few more things to get it ready to work. first is adding the default pi user to the permissions group to use the printer. run this:

sudo usermod -a -G lpadmin pi

then, we need to open up the networking so the CUPS server will respond to anything across the network:

sudo cupsctl --remote-any

and that’s it! you might want to reboot the Pi now to make sure we’ll all set before the next step.

3. install printer drivers

the CUPS server runs a webserver for config on port 631, navigate there in a browser, to the static address you put into your router. for me it was:

192.168.1.91:631

from there, we can use the front end to install drivers. to determine what driver you need, you can go to:

https://www.openprinting.org/printers

4. install samba server

5. install airprint server

6. install print drivers on your local windows setup

7. references

https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/raspberry-pi-print-server

https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-print-server/

https://circuitdigest.com/microcontroller-projects/raspberry-pi-print-server

https://medium.com/swlh/setup-a-print-server-using-raspberry-pi-cups-part-1-c8f3d48af047

Steven Kussmaul