How to install and configure printers on Kali Linux

Supported Hardware’s

1. Local Printers:
2. HP Printer (HPLIP) — — All HP series
3. Canon MP270 series (Canon MP270 series) — All Canon series
4. HP Fax (HPLIP)

Network Printers:

1. Internet Printing Protocol (http)
2. Internet Printing Protocol (ipps)
3. Internet Printing Protocol (ipp)
4. AppSocket/HP JetDirect
5. Internet Printing Protocol (https)
6. LPD/LPR Host or Printer
7. Windows Printer via SAMBA

Install required packages

Install cups, cups-client

apt-get install cups cups-client "foomatic-db"

Add user to lpadmin group

We add the “root” user (or name of your root user) to the lpadmin group which has printing rights.

/usr/sbin/adduser root lpadmin

Result:

Adding user `root' to group `lpadmin' ...
 Adding user root to group lpadmin
 Done.

To check if root user is added to lpadmin group, this lists all groups root is part of:

groups root

Restart cups/Restart kali

sudo service cups restart

or

reboot

If you get service command not found error, its probably because it is not added to the PATH variable, use this to do so:

PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH

Enable cups

sudo systemctl enable cups

This is what you should see:

Synchronizing state of cups.service with SysV service script with /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install.
Executing: /lib/systemd/systemd-sysv-install enable cups

Then run the following command to start cups service:

sudo systemctl start cups

Configuring Printer

1. Open browser and type:
   http://127.0.0.1:631/
2. Navigate to- CUPS for Administrators — Adding Printers and Classes — Add printer.
3. Type your username(system account) and password(system password)
4. Choose your printer

You can check if the printer is configured by navigating to the Printers tab:

You can also check printers in systems settings:

Add cups for printer to startup programs:

1. Go to System Tools>Preferences>Start-up Programs
2. Click on Add
3. Type:
   Name: Cups & printers

sudo /etc/init.d/cups start

or

sudo service cups start

comment: CUPS-standards-based, open source printing system