Limiting User Access to a Printer (System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration)

System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration

Limiting User Access to a Printer

You can control which users can access some or all of the available printers. For example, you can prevent some users from printing on a high-quality printer to minimize expense. To restrict user access to printers, you can create allow and deny lists using the lpadmin -u command on the print server. (Solaris Print Manager enables you to create only allow lists.) If you create neither, a printer is available to all users who can access the printer.

An allow list contains the names of users allowed access to the specified printer. A deny list contains the names of users denied access to the specified printer.

The rules for allow and deny lists are:

Allow and Deny List Rule	User Consequence
Do not create allow and deny lists, or if you leave both lists empty	All users can access the printer.
Specify `all` in the allow list	All users can access the printer.
Specify `all` in the deny list	All users, except root and lp (on the server), are denied access to the printer.
Make any entry in the allow list	The deny list is ignored. Only those users who are listed can access the printer.
Create a deny list, but you do not create an allow list or you leave the allow list empty	Users who are listed in the deny list are denied access to the printer.

Because the print server is actually controlling access to the printer, allow and deny lists can only be created on the print server itself. If you create allow and deny lists, the print server will exclusively control user access to printers.

The following table lists the values you can add to an allow or deny list to limit user access to a printer.

Table 5–5 Values for Allow and Deny Lists


Value for `user-list`	Description
`user`	`User` on any system
`all`	All users on all systems
`none`	No user on any system
`system!user`	`User` on `system` only
`!user`	`User` on local system only
`all!user`	`User` on any system
`all!all`	All users on all systems
`system!all`	All users on `system`
`!all`	All users on local system