ITC-2000 Lab Remote Printer Installation

Objectives

In this lab, you will install a printer. You will find, download, and update the driver and the software for the printer.

Background/Scenario

You have been tasked with configuring printing from a Windows 10 PC directly to a network attached HP Color LaserJet MFP M477fdn printer. In this case the user wants to print directly to the IP address of the printer, taking advantage of the built-in hardware print server in this printer. From the point of view of the PC it will be "directly connected" to the printer and not accessing a "shared printer" (one made available through Windows File and Printer Sharing). This will require finding and installing an appropriate driver for the printer just like a USB connected printer would require.

Required Resources

• An ITCnet account for VPN access (your instructor should have provided you with a username and a temporary password)
• A IHCC Netlab account for remote pod access (your instructor should have provided you with a username and a temporary password)
• A remote lab equipment pod for this course consisting of:
  • Two remote lab PCs which Windows 10 is installed on
  • One OpenWRT router system
• A computer which has the OpenVPN software installed on it
• A reliable broadband internet connection

Instructions

Step 1: Get ITCnet Access Working

• If you are working from off campus you will need to connect to the ITCnet VPN.

Step 2: Sign In to the Netlab System and Make a Pod Reservation

• The ITC Netlab remote lab system can be accessed using a web browser when you are attached to the ITCnet. Simply point your web browser to https://ihcc-netlab.campus.ihitc.net
• Each time you want to work on a lab in Netlab you need to make a reservation to work on your equipment "pod". In some classes pods are shared with other students and in other classes pods are reserved just for you or your team.
• You will want to make a reservation for the "PC Hardware and Software Lab Access (2 Windows PCs with Network Access)" lab which we'll use several times throughout the course.

Step 3: Access PC 1 and Verify Connectivity

• You will need to enter your reservation during the time you have access reserved in order to interact with your remote lab PCs.
• Note the "Topology" tab found in your remote lab setup. Topology diagrams are like maps of networks, they show how all the various components of the network are connected together. In our case you can see that PC 1 and PC 2 are connected to a network switch which is connected to the LAN port of your OpenWRT router. The WAN port of your OpenWRT router is connected to a network shared by others in your class, to the network printer we will use in this lab, and eventually out to the Internet.
• Click on the "PC 1" tab and sign in to PC 1 and sign in if you haven't done so already.
• Open the command prompt on the PC
• Type ping 172.17.110.21 into the prompt and press enter.
• Ensure you get at least one line back that begins with Reply from 172.17.110.21: If not you will need to verify you have working Internet access. Contact your instructor or the lab assistant if you have working Internet access but are unable to successfully get a reply from 172.17.110.21
• Type exit into the prompt and press enter to close the command prompt.

Step 4: Download and Install the Printer Driver

A printer driver is a software program that enables the computer and the printer to communicate with each other. The driver also provides an interface for the user to configure printer options. Typically each printer model will have a unique driver though some manufacturers have "universal" drivers that work with all, or many, of their printers. If you're able to find a driver specific to your printer model that is usually the best choice. Remember that for this lab you will be connecting to an "HP Color LaserJet MFP M477fdn" printer.

• Open a web browser on PC 1 and visit the web site of the manufacturer for this printer.
• Find the driver page under the Support tab, usually drivers are found in the support area of a manufacturer's website.
• Find the software and driver download page for the particular model of printer you will be installing.
• In this case, like in many enterprise businesses we want to do a clean installation of the latest version of the driver only without any extra software so skip past all the big "Install" and "Recommended" options to find the latest version of the "Basic Driver" and download it. Note how much smaller it is than the big package with all the extra software.
• Run the driver file from the Downloads directory to extract the driver files. Before clicking the "OK" button note the location where the files are being unpacked to!
• Navigate to the Control Panel and click "View devices and printer" under the "Hardware and Sound" category.
• Click the "Add a printer" button at the top of the screen.
• On many large enterprise networks your system will not automatically find network printers like it might on a smaller home or small business network. Click the "The printer that I want isn't listed" link at the bottom of the window.
• Because our printer has a built in network card choose "Add a printer using a TCP/IP address or hostname" option and click the Next button.
• In the IP address box enter the IP address of our printer which was pre-configured on the printer itself as a static IP address, "172.17.110.21". Because we want to use the driver we downloaded un-check the box next to "Query the printer and automatically select the driver to use" and then click the Next button.
• Click the "Have Disk..." button so that we can select the driver files we extracted from our downloaded driver package.
• Click the "Browse..." button and navigate to the location where the driver files were unpacked (NOT the file you downloaded, the ones you unpacked from that file and noted the location above).
• Once you have found the correct directory click the "Open" button and then the "OK" button.
• If you found the correct driver file locations you should now see an option in the "Install the printer driver" dialog box that identifies the "MFP M477" printer. Make sure that is selected and click Next to continue.
• Set the printer name to "ITC Office Printer" and click Next
• Allow the printer driver software installation to make changes to your computer
• Skip printing the test page for now (since you won't be able to check it remotely anyway) and click the Finish button
• You should now see a printer named "ITC Office Printer" in your Devices and Printers control panel

Step 5: Check Printer Options

• In the Devices and Printers control panel right-click on the "ITC Office Printer" and choose "Printing preferences"
• Each printer driver and model has different options or features which can be configured. This dialog box shows some of the options which can be set for our HP Color LaserJet MFP M477fdn. If you make changes here in the control panel they will become the default any time the printer is used from this computer. However, you can override the default options by accessing the preferences for the printer from the print dialog in most applications when you choose to print a document in the application.
• Spend a few minutes looking through the tabs and options for this printer. In particular see if you can find the options for:
  • Printing on both sides of the page (also called duplex printing)
  • Printing in grayscale instead of in color
  • Changing the printer paper source tray
  • Saving and recalling shortcuts or presets to these options.
• Close the printer preferences dialog box and Devices and Printers control panel

Step 6: Viewing Printer Status

Most enterprise grade network connected printers have a web server running on the printer itself which can be used to view the status of the printer and change configuration options for the printer over the network.

• Open a web browser on PC 1 and go to the http://172.17.110.21 web site
• Note both the printer status and supplies summary information found on the home page
• Click the "Device Configuration" link on the left side to view the current settings and detailed status of the device. Can you find the number of:
  • Total pages printed
  • Color pages printed
  • Monochrome (black only) pages printed
  • Two sided pages printed
  • Number of printer jams
  • Number of printer mispicks (unable to pick up paper out of the paper tray)
• Click the "Event Log" link on the left side to view a history of problems the printer has had (and what page number in the life of the printer that occurred at).
• With a username and password it would be possible to make changes to the printer configuration using the other tabs of the interface, but we'll leave them as they are.
• Close your web browser when you are done.

Finishing Your Lab

• Once you are done with the lab activity you can shut down both PC 1 and PC 2. Note that you did not use PC 2 in this lab but it is still powered on every time a lab reservation is made. It's always a good habit to properly shutdown a computer using the shutdown command in the operating system before you turn off the power. In Windows this can be done by clicking the Start Menu in the lower left of each PC and choosing the "Power" button followed by "Shutdown". Doing this prevents data corruption which can occur if the power is suddenly removed from a PC.
• However, if you forget to do this in Netlab and you have properly installed the VMware Tools Drivers Netlab will take care of safely shutting down your PCs for you.
• If you still have time remaining in your Netlab reservation it's polite to click on the "Reservation" menu in the upper right corner of your browser and choose "End Reservation Now" which will free your spot on the Netlab system immediately for someone else to use.