Printing Remotely

I'd like to be able to print to my home networked printers from outside my LAN. I have a dynamic IP from my ISP and I've made an account with dyndns.org to facilitate a static IP. My router does accommodate DDNS and I've set that up but I don't know what to do next. I know this is a wireless group but part of my solution will involve wireless networking. Can someone point me to a tutorial or procedure to set up my home network and laptop to allow printing remotely? Thank you.

Reply to
jh
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On Wed, 5 Nov 2008 21:38:30 -0500, "jh" wrote in :

As I'm sure you know, this questions about remote printing has nothing to do with wireless networking.

Have you tried searching both the Web and Groups with Google? e.g.,

Reply to
John Navas

Don't be a fruit loop. Of course I've searched google. Thanks.

Reply to
jh

On Wed, 5 Nov 2008 23:52:23 -0500, "jh" wrote in :

You took the words right out of my mouth.

You must not have tried very hard.

Good luck.

Reply to
John Navas

Read about Internet Printing Protocol (IPP):

Presumably, your unspecified model router, unspecified printers, and unspecified operating systems all support IPP.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Yes. I had looked at IPP via the wikipedia link. I couldn't figure out how to implement that protocol with my XP Media and Vista lap tops, printing to my HP 2600N laser and C7280 inkjet printers when away from my home network which uses a Zyxel X550 router to facilitate the DSL signal from my ISP. Thanks and I'll look more into IPP but I get the feeling that its something the OS uses when printing remotely all on its own and not something I optionally invoke as part of the solution I'm looking to create. Another problem I have is testing. I wonder if there is a way to test the remote printing capabilities aside from packing my laptop and driving to Starbucks each time I want to try it out.

Reply to
jch

Thanks. Yes, I'm looking into VPN and that seems to be the only way to set this up. What ports do I open up to print to my HP laserjet printer remotely? I'll want this to work with XP Media and Vista laptops I currently own. One problem is testing. Is there a way to test out a VPN while within the very network I want to communicate remotely with? While I'm still fumbling around with this I don't want to have to drive to Starbucks or some other wifi hotspot every time to log into another network just to find that what I've done so far is not working :)

Reply to
jch

Well.... I was wrong above. I'm learning more about IPP and certainly it is something I as a user would invoke and is a different solution all together than VPN for remote printing. I'll pursue both options; IPP and VPN. At least for me it would be convenient to print remotely to my home printers and I believe that through either IPP or VPN I should be able to do this.

Reply to
jch

two easy ways to set up remote printing would be the following:

remote desktop to the home printer and then print to the printer at the remote site. (similar to vpn)

print all your documents to a local PDF printer on the local machine and then print them out on the printer when your connected to the home network,

just some easy thoughts,

Bob Smith Robert Smith Consulting

Reply to
Bob Smith

As I'm sure you realise, your question isn't topical here. Just because you couldn't get an answer from Google doesn't mean its suddenly magically topical.

I'd suggest searching google more thoroughly (I found stuff), and finding a better group to ask in.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

Thats /a/ VPN port but not THE port.

The partial answers you're getting go a long way to explaining why you should ask in a group where this is topical.

By the way, setting up a VPN is massive overkill.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

If you have insight into printing remotely I'd appreciate hearing it. And if you know of a better group to ask in then please say what that is. Thanks.

Reply to
jch

Thanks. It's that nasty 'remote desktop to the home printer' part that I'm having trouble figuring out. As somone else suggested, I'm lookin in to IPP but not sure if that is going to work for me. Do you have something set up to print remotely? If so, how have you accomplished this?

Thanks and yes I thought about this and similar such options but I really should be able to print real-time over the internet.

Reply to
jch

Both of those have IPP printing clients. Get it working first on your local LAN. Then, setup port forwarding in your Zyxel router for TCP port 631 and IPP should work through the router. However, get it working on your LAN first.

That's a Jetdirect network interface. Point your web browser to the HP 2600N IP address and enable IPP.

I found this for a Brother printer. It looks much simpler than the HP explanation:

It's for W2K but should be applicable to XP. Vista is its own curse so you're on your own with that.

That will be more difficult. That's a USB interface which means you unspecified model computer and either XP or Vista will need to support the server part of IPP. I know that the various Windoze servers (2000, 2003) support IPP server printing, but I'm not so sure about the various Windoze desktops. I'm too lazy too search the MS web pile for details. Let me know if you can't find anything.

Port forward port TCP port 631.

Huh? Never mind. Don't explain.

Plug, configure, print, swear, repeat. I don't see the problem.

Yes, when you configure your IP address for IPP printer on the clients, first use the local LAN IP for the 2600N printer. That will be the local LAN test.

Then, configure another printer using the IP address that your ISP assigns. That may change, but it only has to stay put long enough to conduct the test. You can also use your dynamic DNS assigned IP address. Some routers won't allow you to do that, but I think the Zyxel might:

Otherwise, break into the neighbors wireless LAN or have a double mocha latte.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

It would be a good solution, but only if his Zyxel x550 router supported a VPN termination (not just VPN pass through). It doesn't:

More than you ever wanted to know about VPN's:

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

#########

One solution could be to set up vpn access to your lan, set up the printer accross the vpn link. When your out connect to the net, make the link via vpn to your network, then print.

If your running xp follow the instructios to set up vpn

Reply to
Trespasser

To use remote desktop you would have to have WinXP pro at the remote location, or a hacked copy of winXP home. Few people realize that all versions of XP had at one time 6 concurrent RDT connections available, but before it was released winXP home had RDT removed . RDT can be done real easy if you know what the IP address of the home computer is. You enable RDT on the home computer, open port 3389 in your router and be sure that you have the home printer installed on both computers. You connect to your home computer from the computer in your control with the RDT client and when you print you be sure you print to the remote printer from within the file->print setup->choose a printer. It's that easy. I've got quite a few clients using RDT from home to the office.

The other easy way if you don't need the printed matter to show up at home is just use adobe pdf. I probably print 60-70% of the items I print locally to pdf just to save paper and it's so easy to save a pdf to a file and then keep them organized for later printing and refrerence. I've been doing this since acrobat 5. I really like the new features of Acrobat 9 extended. It's real easy to type on the saved pdf and highlite, etc. It's just the cost of adobe acrobat that stops people from doing this.

Hope this helps,

Bob

Robert Smith Consulting

Reply to
Bob Smith

The vpn port is 1723.

You need to set your printer as a shared printer on one of your pc's, create a 'dail-in' connection (use the wizard in xp) and create another account for yourself that is allowed vpn access on the same machine. The reason for doing this is that should your connection get compromised you are not going to give anyone full access to your own account.

On the mobile machine you will be taking with you (presumably laptop)..... you should now create a vpn network connection that you can connect to. Once connected, use the add printer wizard or browse for a printer on your new vpn connection.

Its fairly simple to do, but I cant help with vista ....... I dont use vista (imho its s**te)

Reply to
Trespasser

Even if I did, it wouldn't be topical here and I find that answering offtopic questions simply encourages people to ask more of 'em.

No idea I'm afraid, or I'd have pointed you at it. One of the unix or windows groups most likely.

Either that or STFW. I did, and found about a dozen highly relevant links. I should point out that if you're doing it without a router and a printserver then you're simply making work for yourself. IPP compatible printservers are pretty cheap (mine was about £30) and pretty much any retail router can do port forwarding.

I should also say that if you find the instructions on the web too complex to follow, then this probably isn't something you should be trying. A certain level of technical expertise is necessary.

Reply to
Mark McIntyre

What make/model router?

Reply to
Bill Kearney

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