Setting up a linux workstation to use a centrally managed CUPS installation

I always forget to do this every time I setup a new client in my network so I’m writing it down here. I have a print server in my intranet and use CUPS to share my printers out to my linux and windows machines. The mis-config shows up like this to start:

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% lpq
lpq: error - no default destination available.

It usually takes a couple of minutes to remember/figure out what I’m doing wrong here. Then it dawns on me that I need to modify the client.conf file. In order to get a client machine running CUPS to know about a print server I have to modify its client.conf file.

Add this to the file, /etc/cups/client.conf which is usually empty to start:

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ServerName print.bubba.net

Restart cups and you should be all set.

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/etc/init.d/cups reload