Deploying Cups printers via MS Group Policy Object

Question

I have Cups installed on a Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 (Stretch) OS. On this server, I've set shared printers which I have to deploy on 80 Windows 7 PCs. I have no problem for installing a printer on a single PC with the address http://cupsserver:631/printers/foo-printer, but I have no idea of how to do that with GPOs. I tried to create a policy with http://cupsserver:631/printers/foo-printer as sharing path of a GPO but when I try to apply the rule on a PC, the Windows event log returns an "invalid printer name" error and doesn't install the printer on the device. What is the procedure to solve my problem ?

Answer 1

Group policy cannot be used to deploy printers that connect over the HTTP protocol. GP requires that the printer be resolveable to an IP addresses, or shared through Windows printer sharing.

Further, the path to the driver specified in group policy cannot use the HTTP protocol. The driver needs to be hosted on an SMB network share.

As a workaround, if you can create your printer connection using a script, you can easily deploy the script via Group Policy.