Setting up Papercut print release system for Linux

Ramsey Public Library Envisionware Print Release System

In December of 2019 an organization was expanding and opening a new location.  This post is part 1 of a 4 part series which will go though the investigationThey offer public printing services and were using a public printing solution from Envisionware called LPTONE.  I did a previous post on this software in 2018 with setting up a release station with the Envisionware LTPONE software.    

However after investigating upgrade options and the cost for adding an additional location and coinop for the release station it was not a cost effective solution since new hardware would be required for both locations and there was just not the budget for it.  Not to mention the difficulty of managing two release systems that were non-centralized.

Ramsey Public Library uses an envisionware print release system, I know from the experience I've had with it; it's ok but it is quite lacking and expanding they system it is currently on to windows server from windows 10 pro would be quite the expense as it would require more then 2 machines with server if we ever got over 30 clients and we were right on the cusp of being.  

ITC 5400 COINOP

The organization had service contracts with Toshiba for managing the maintenance and materials of their printers which also included a ITC 5400 coinop, which was attached to one of the copiers for paid copies; so I investigated if that company had any kind of print management software that could use the same coinop and if the coinop could do double duty for the coping and the printing.  After contacting ITC and verifying that yes indeed the 5400 coinop can do double duty for the printing and coping payment; however they use a 3rd party software for the print management called papercut.

Now Papercut is a centralized print management solution, that works on Linux or Windows and is actually pretty light on system requirements.  At a glance you would think for just managing client side printing the NG version would all that is required however it didn't quite do all that was desired from the printing side so it was decided to go with the MF version.  The project started with a decision to go with a Ubuntu 18 LTS virtual server on Hyper-V to host the papercut MF software.

You can view Papercut's System Requirements I found on Hyper-V these settings work pretty good for a workgroup of of about 40 clients.

Processor: 2 Core

Minimum 4GB of Ram (max of 16GB) Dynamically Assigned

Disk Space: 3GB for Log, 100GB free disk space, between 60 and 500GB recommended.

Here are the CDN links for the papercut software if you want to try it yourself.

Linux:
https://cdn1.papercut.com/web/products/ng-mf/installers/mf/19.x/pcmf-setup-19.1.5.52403.sh

Setting up Papercut on Ubuntu Server 18.03 LTS / 20.04 LTS

There are a couple things you need to know before you can install papercut on Linux.

1. The "ROOT"/Administrator must be called papercut
2. The user must have sudo access for the install

So when you install your username must be papercut, otherwise you will have serious issues with your install, with permissions etc.  

For this install I'm going to use the following credentials:

• username: papercut
• password: papercut

and I am installing open ssh and powershell.

Once we have finished our base install we will need to install the following (for a slimmed  down version):

• Get and install updates
  "sudo apt-get install update"
• Get and install upgrades
  "sudo apt-get install upgrades"
• Install lightdm
  "sudo apt-get install lightdm"
• Install Unity
  "sudo apt-get install unity"
• Install ubuntu desktop
  "sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends ubuntu-desktop"
  "sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager"
  "sudo apt-get install firefox"
  "sudo apt-get install net-tools"

If you don't want a slimmed down version just use "sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop"

• restart
• Install and configure cups
  "sudo apt-get install cups (should be already installed)"
• add the papercut user to the printer admin for cups
  sudo usermod -a -G lpadmin "$USERNAME"
• Install Samba
  "sudo apt-get install samba"
• add the papercut user to the sudoers list
  sudo vi /etc/sudoers
  papercut ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL
• Install papercut
  chmod 777 "PATH TO PAPERCUT".sh
  sudo ./"PAPERCUT INSTALLER"

You can watch a video on the full process on my youtube channel here. https://youtu.be/9re8L6uWc94