Central Printer Management - possible with PMM?

Hi,

We have a print server which has about 20 printers. I'm wondering what the best way is to centrally add those printers to all our macs managed with PMM? We only have Xerox and HP printers, and I can make sure that the drivers from HP and Xerox are deployed on all Macs.

How are you handling this?

 

Hello -

I used the macOS Server product to build a Printer profile (.mobileconfig) that can be added to an SCCM Configuration Item/Baseline using the "Create Parallels Configuration Items drop-down menu/Mac OS X Configuration Profile From File" - against a collection of Macs. The Server is about $20 US and I run it in a Parallels macOS vm. It's not require for Parallels Mac Management but does provide a lot of profile options to create then export out then into SCCM to manage Macs. You add an IP address and it queries the printer and figures out the type of printer and many other settings for easy policy based deployment.

 

I have the server (as you said - it's crucial), but I didn't manage to deploy printers with it. It works well for other profiles, but printers were just ignored in my case. I think this just deploys links to the printers created on the mac os server?

I currently have a shell script in a package together with PPD files. Then I use lpadmin commands to add the printers using the PPD files. Not sure if that's the neatest way, though.

 

In the case of Mac printing the macOS Server is not used/integrated or pointed too as a traditional management server with Parallels Mac Management - I only create Profiles and from then on the policy handles everything - actually nothing to do with a print server. In fact I haven't had the VM running where my macOS Server is since building the profile so there isn't any connective back to the macOS Server itself. Here's the XML from the mobileconfig file -

=========
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"[]>
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.mdm.PmmDemoMac.local.e946b380-b0ee-0134-e52b-001c4229bd38.alacarte</string>
<key>PayloadRemovalDisallowed</key>
<false />
<key>PayloadScope</key>
<string>User</string>
<key>PayloadType</key>
<string>Configuration</string>
<key>PayloadUUID</key>
<string>e946b380-b0ee-0134-e52b-001c4229bd38</string>
<key>PayloadOrganization</key>
<string>PmmDemoMac.local</string>
<key>PayloadVersion</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
<string>HP Printer CP Sales</string>
<key>PayloadContent</key>
<array>
<dict>
<key>PayloadType</key>
<string>com.apple.mcxprinting</string>
<key>PayloadVersion</key>
<integer>1</integer>
<key>PayloadIdentifier</key>
<string>com.apple.mdm.PmmDemoMac.local.e946b380-b0ee-0134-e52b-001c4229bd38.alacarte.printing.30b6aa00-b0f0-0134-e52d-001c4229bd38</string>
<key>PayloadEnabled</key>
<true />
<key>PayloadUUID</key>
<string>30b6aa00-b0f0-0134-e52d-001c4229bd38</string>
<key>PayloadDisplayName</key>
<string>Printing</string>
<key>RequireAdminToAddPrinters</key>
<true />
<key>AllowLocalPrinters</key>
<true />
<key>RequireAdminToPrintLocally</key>
<false />
<key>ShowOnlyManagedPrinters</key>
<false />
<key>PrintFooter</key>
<false />
<key>PrintMACAddress</key>
<false />
<key>FooterFontSize</key>
<string>7</string>
<key>FooterFontName</key>
<string>Helvetica</string>
<key>DefaultPrinter</key>
<dict>
<key>DeviceURI</key>
<string>lpd://10.228.0.118/</string>
<key>DisplayName</key>
<string>10.228.0.118</string>
</dict>
<key>UserPrinterList</key>
<dict>
<key>_10_228_0_118</key>
<dict>
<key>DeviceURI</key>
<string>lpd://10.228.0.118/</string>
<key>DisplayName</key>
<string>10.228.0.118</string>
<key>Location</key>
<string>CP Sales</string>
<key>Model</key>
<string>HP LaserJet 400 M401dne</string>
<key>PrinterLocked</key>
<false />
<key>PPDURL</key>
<string>file://localhost/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/PrintCore.framework/Resources/Generic.ppd</string>
</dict>
</dict>
</dict>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>
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