To setup a
printer on the network you must
contact the ITS Help Desk for registration. Please have the
printer plugged into a network wallplate and turned on. You
should also view the printer naming guidelines below to decide
on how to name your new printer.
ITS supports three types of printing on campus.
Click on the links below to determine what type of printing is
right for you.
Microsoft printing services
TCP/IP printing
Banner print queues
Printer Naming Guidelines
In order to decrease the number of inaccurate printer names and
reduce the impact of customers during printer moving,
Information Technology Services has now adopted the following
printer naming guidelines. We sincerely hope this makes printing
to a network printer through ITS resources much easier for our
customers.What limitations are there on printer names?
The limit for a printer name for the supported printing
services is 30
characters.
What characters are allowed in printer names?
Since many characters are not allowed on disparate systems for
printer naming and printer setup names will be limited to
alphanumeric characters and the hyphen. Printer names will not
be able to begin with a numeric value.What does ITS
suggest when creating printer names?
We believe that identifying printers easily requires two pieces
of information, the customers identifying group and a defined
name for the printer. Due to our recommendation of limiting the
printer name to 30 characters we suggest this structure:
DEPT-PrinterName.
- The department section can be any university group,
department or college (we suggest this be limited to 5
characters in length although this is not a requirement).
This name can be selected by the customer who purchased the
printer and should try to not coincide with any other
acronyms of departments and groups used on campus.
We suggest using the enrollment information for colleges and
agreed upon acronyms for departments or groups.
- The printer name section can be any printer identifiable
traits, such as the group, function of the printer, printer
model or location. ITS suggests the group and function be
used since the printer model and location can change more
frequently causing changes in printer setups on client
computers. This section should not cause the 30 character
limitation to be exceeded when combined with the department
and delimiting character. For example: DEPT-HelpDesk,
DEPT-HP4050 or DEPT-AD230.
- Printers using Microsoft Print Services or Banner print
queues must follow the naming convention outlined on the
page.
- Additionally, all printer devices will be placed in the
printer.uidaho.edu domain using their DEPT-PrinterName
identifier for the hostname section. For example: ITS-HelpDesk.printer.uidaho.edu.
What are some examples of proper names?
The ITS Help Desk uses a single printer available in the Help
Desk area. The location and model of the printer change and we
would like to have it maintain the same name through these
upgrades and moves. Therefore we will choose to name the
printer: ITS-HelpDesk. Here is a list of the print objects
involved in a normal printer setup:
- Microsoft Print Services Queue Name: ITS-HelpDesk
- Domain Name Services (DNS) Name: ITS-HelpDesk.printer.uidaho.edu
- Banner Print Queue Name: ITS-HelpDesk
Why do we recommend these guidelines?
- Quite often the ITS Help Desk is approached to rename
printers that have been created with a name based on the
building and room number. These changes require altering all
client workstations that print to the old name as well as
notifying all clients to use the new name when printing from
Banner or other resources.
- Many printer names are created for the ease of system
administrators at the time of creation (to make the printer
easier to find). It has been our experience that even though
this may be the initial reason for the printer name MOST of
the printers retain the SAME name regardless of where the
printer is moved to, including moving buildings! The reason
why printer names are NOT usually changed when they move
rooms or buildings is the same as reason #1. We have many
customers contacting the Help Desk that have to find printer
names that have no correlation between the printer name and
the actual physical location of the printer.
- The function or functional location of a printer does
not change as much as the location OR the printer model. For
example, the Help Desk has physically moved 3 times in the
past 5 years and the printer models used as the printer have
change approximately 5 times. If the printer was originally
named ITS-HelpDesk instead of a name based on the room or
model there would have been no printer name changes required
for that entire 5-year period.
- Even though printer names based on building and room
number (if accurate) are easier for system administrators,
or individuals who have worked with the department for
years, most new employees with the university have more of
an idea of the functional name of a location not the actual
room number. For instance all new Help Desk employees know
where the ITS Front Office is but many do not know the room
number is 138-140.
- There have been conflicts of printer names when names
are not updated for printer moves and new printers are added
to the system trying to use the same name.
Sysad NMS setup instructions.
Sysads that have access to NMS to setup their own MAC records
need to follow the guidelines listed here.
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