Can't see local network printer from Remote Desktop session overVPN

  • Thread starter Thread starter Philip Herlihy
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Philip Herlihy

Title says it all, I hope.

We have two offices connected by VPN using Netgear FVS114
firewall/routers. We want to print locally from the Remote Desktop
session. Within the remote session, I can ping the network address of
the local printer, and can even connect to its administrative "web"
page, but I can't print to it. I've set up a Standard TCP/IP port
(exactly as I did for the local machine) and I've tried a bewildering
array of "workarounds", including sharing the printer from another local
machine and trying to connect to that - all to no avail.

At the moment I'm considering installing a PDF pseudo-printer, printing
to a local PDF file, saving that to a network share (set up using NET
USE) and then printing again locally - but there has to be a better way!
Anyone here know what it is? I'd sure be grateful!

Phil, London
 
Philip Herlihy said:
Title says it all, I hope.

We have two offices connected by VPN using Netgear FVS114
firewall/routers. We want to print locally from the Remote Desktop
session. Within the remote session, I can ping the network address of
the local printer, and can even connect to its administrative "web"
page, but I can't print to it. I've set up a Standard TCP/IP port
(exactly as I did for the local machine) and I've tried a bewildering
array of "workarounds", including sharing the printer from another local
machine and trying to connect to that - all to no avail.

At the moment I'm considering installing a PDF pseudo-printer, printing
to a local PDF file, saving that to a network share (set up using NET
USE) and then printing again locally - but there has to be a better way!
Anyone here know what it is? I'd sure be grateful!

Phil, London
Click to expand...

Remote Desktop does not support advanced printers such as DOT4
printers - see here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302361

To test if your setup is correct, install the driver for an HP LJ 4L
printer. There is no need to physically connect such a printer. If this
printer is visible then your setup is correct and your real printer is
incompatible with Remote Desktop.
 
Philip said:
Title says it all, I hope.

We have two offices connected by VPN using Netgear FVS114
firewall/routers. We want to print locally from the Remote Desktop
session. Within the remote session, I can ping the network address of
the local printer, and can even connect to its administrative "web"
page, but I can't print to it. I've set up a Standard TCP/IP port
(exactly as I did for the local machine) and I've tried a bewildering
array of "workarounds", including sharing the printer from another local
machine and trying to connect to that - all to no avail.

At the moment I'm considering installing a PDF pseudo-printer, printing
to a local PDF file, saving that to a network share (set up using NET
USE) and then printing again locally - but there has to be a better way!
Anyone here know what it is? I'd sure be grateful!

Phil, London
Click to expand...

If I understand you correctly, you're using remote desktop to connect to
a terminal server at the other end, but you're trying to print directly
from the terminal server to the network printer at your end (by directly
I mean NOT as a terminal services "session printer"). You say you can
ping the network address of your local printer from the terminal server,
so I assume the printer has a network card or a print server (like a
jetdirect). If that's the case, there's no reason it shouldn't work. I
set up remote offices like that all the time (because the session
printers can be so flaky - especially, as Pegasus says, with USB
printers - sometimes they work, sometimes not). Whether it's a shared
printer or directly on the network, if you can print to it using the
local LAN, you should be able to print to it across the tunnel. Do you
get anything? GobbeltyGook? What error is generated? Is the error
generated when you try to install the printer? Or just when you try to
print? Sure you've got the right driver? That's all I can think of. Good
Luck.

....kurt
 
Pegasus said:
Remote Desktop does not support advanced printers such as DOT4
printers - see here:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302361

To test if your setup is correct, install the driver for an HP LJ 4L
printer. There is no need to physically connect such a printer. If this
printer is visible then your setup is correct and your real printer is
incompatible with Remote Desktop.
Click to expand...


Thanks, Pegasus - sorry about the long delay in responding; I've been
swamped with other work.

I tried the registry change mentioned in the link, and can indeed now
see the non-existent HP printer. I can also see printers which are
shared out from this and other machines. I have some more tinkering to
do - I'll let you know if I get something to work.

Phil
 
Kurt said:
If I understand you correctly, you're using remote desktop to connect to
a terminal server at the other end, but you're trying to print directly
from the terminal server to the network printer at your end (by directly
I mean NOT as a terminal services "session printer"). You say you can
ping the network address of your local printer from the terminal server,
so I assume the printer has a network card or a print server (like a
jetdirect). If that's the case, there's no reason it shouldn't work. I
set up remote offices like that all the time (because the session
printers can be so flaky - especially, as Pegasus says, with USB
printers - sometimes they work, sometimes not). Whether it's a shared
printer or directly on the network, if you can print to it using the
local LAN, you should be able to print to it across the tunnel. Do you
get anything? GobbeltyGook? What error is generated? Is the error
generated when you try to install the printer? Or just when you try to
print? Sure you've got the right driver? That's all I can think of. Good
Luck.

...kurt
Click to expand...


Thanks, Kurt. Sorry about the delay in responding - swamped with other
work.

It's very significant that you've made something like this work. At one
point I was seeing jobs appear in the local printer's "active" queue
(visible via the web-based interface on the printer itself) but they
would disappear after a number of minutes without appearing in the
"done" list. I tried changing the TCP timeout setting from 30s to 300s
(thought I had it when I found that) but it made no difference. Perhaps
it is a question of the driver - I'll look again at this and I'll report
back if I get it to work.

Phil
 
Philip said:
Title says it all, I hope.

We have two offices connected by VPN using Netgear FVS114
firewall/routers. We want to print locally from the Remote Desktop
session. Within the remote session, I can ping the network address of
the local printer, and can even connect to its administrative "web"
page, but I can't print to it. I've set up a Standard TCP/IP port
(exactly as I did for the local machine) and I've tried a bewildering
array of "workarounds", including sharing the printer from another local
machine and trying to connect to that - all to no avail.

At the moment I'm considering installing a PDF pseudo-printer, printing
to a local PDF file, saving that to a network share (set up using NET
USE) and then printing again locally - but there has to be a better way!
Anyone here know what it is? I'd sure be grateful!

Phil, London
Click to expand...

An update: I did set up the PDF-based workaround (anyone heard of
"Heath Robinson"?) and it worked after I realised that I had to drill
down into the XP firewalls Exceptions to get file-sharing working
between the two subnets. Users are happy.

I also found out that the printer is apparently designed to reject all
print jobs originating outside its local subnet (defined, of course, by
a subnet mask configured into the printer itself).

I've considered reassigning addresses so that one subnet is 10.0.0.0 (as
now) and the other is 10.0.1.0 (rather than 192.168.168.0), and setting
the subnet to 255.255.0.0 (and I think if I puzzle over the binary
arithmetic I can probably narrow that down a lot, although I'm not sure
how useful that would be), but I'm currently wondering if there's any
reason I shouldn't just set the printer's subnet mask to 0.0.0.0,
effectively disabling the printer's "filtering". Or would I come to
regret that experiment?

Phil, London
 
Philip Herlihy said:
I've considered reassigning addresses so that one subnet is 10.0.0.0 (as now)
and the other is 10.0.1.0 (rather than 192.168.168.0), and setting the subnet
to 255.255.0.0 (and I think if I puzzle over the binary
Click to expand...

You can still do that with the 192.168 block. There is no need to switch to 10.
But I don't think the printer is designed to regect requests from other
subnets,...most likely it doesn't know how to find the other subnets,..so it
can't respond to the print jobs.
The Printer must have a Default Gateway,...and the Default Gateway device
(whatever it is) must "know" how to find the other subnets.

--
Phillip Windell
www.wandtv.com

The views expressed, are my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft, or
anyone else associated with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------
 
Phillip said:
You can still do that with the 192.168 block. There is no need to switch to 10.
But I don't think the printer is designed to regect requests from other
subnets,...most likely it doesn't know how to find the other subnets,..so it
can't respond to the print jobs.
The Printer must have a Default Gateway,...and the Default Gateway device
(whatever it is) must "know" how to find the other subnets.
Click to expand...

I'm surprised by your comments (but there's no real learning unless
there's surprise!). I can't access the printer at the moment (powered
down and some miles away) but I believe it does have a default gateway.
However, that would be the local firewall/router, which most certainly
is aware of both subnets (it implements the VPN). I'd hesitantly
question whether the printer needs to "respond" to print jobs. It must
be aware of the IP address of the transmitting computer, and it has no
trouble responding to a connection to its http interface. I don't get
it. (but if I knew everything, I wouldn't be asking for help!).

Thanks for a thought-provoking reply. I'm still trying to get my head
around it.

Phil
 
Philip Herlihy said:
I'm surprised by your comments (but there's no real learning unless there's
surprise!). I can't access the printer at the moment (powered down and some
miles away) but I believe it does have a default gateway. However, that would
be the local firewall/router, which most certainly is aware of both subnets
(it implements the VPN).
Click to expand...

If that is true, that should be fine,..but verify it is all correct.
I'd hesitantly question whether the printer needs to "respond" to print
jobs.
Click to expand...

All communication requires a "handshake" of some sort. Without that it fails.
At the very least you should be able to ping the printer IP# from the offending
Host and get a positive reply.
Thanks for a thought-provoking reply. I'm still trying to get my head around
it.
Click to expand...

No problem.
Post back as you get more details of what you are dealing with.

--
Phillip Windell
www.wandtv.com

The views expressed, are my own and not those of my employer, or Microsoft, or
anyone else associated with me, including my cats.
-----------------------------------------------------
 
Phillip said:
If that is true, that should be fine,..but verify it is all correct.


All communication requires a "handshake" of some sort. Without that it fails.
At the very least you should be able to ping the printer IP# from the offending
Host and get a positive reply.


No problem.
Post back as you get more details of what you are dealing with.
Click to expand...

That's just it. I can ping the printer from my Remote Desktop session
on a PC in the distant office, and I can connect from there to the
printer's http interface, so handshaking doesn't seem to be a problem.
This works in the mirror situation, as well.

I think I probably will try fooling around with the printer's subnet
mask and see if that makes a difference.

Phil
 
Philip said:
Title says it all, I hope.

We have two offices connected by VPN using Netgear FVS114
firewall/routers. We want to print locally from the Remote Desktop
session. Within the remote session, I can ping the network address of
the local printer, and can even connect to its administrative "web"
page, but I can't print to it. I've set up a Standard TCP/IP port
(exactly as I did for the local machine) and I've tried a bewildering
array of "workarounds", including sharing the printer from another local
machine and trying to connect to that - all to no avail.

At the moment I'm considering installing a PDF pseudo-printer, printing
to a local PDF file, saving that to a network share (set up using NET
USE) and then printing again locally - but there has to be a better way!
Anyone here know what it is? I'd sure be grateful!

Phil, London
Click to expand...

Update. We now have a second network printer, a Xerox to join our
KonicaMinolta. Can print to the Xerox effortlessly from a Remote
Desktop session running at the distant office. Something about the
KonicaMinolta was preventing it working (and still is!). The PDF dodge
works well - used pdf995.

Phil
 
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