Setting Up a Print Server With Raspberry Pi and an Old HP MFP Printer in a Home Network

In this article, let us see how to set up and configure an old HP printer as a Print Server in a home (LAN) network with Raspberry Pi 4.

Print Server With Raspberry Pi

I have an old HP MFP Laser Printer (HP LaserJet M1005 MFP), which requires a connection via USB to take printouts. I also have a WiFi-enabled Printer (Epson), which is reachable from all devices in the home network. To avoid the hassles of connecting via USB, even bulk printing of b&w pages also ended up with the Epson printer.

So, to reduce the load of the WiFi printer, I decided to Network-Enable my HP printer by connecting it to the Raspberry Pi 4 which I was using as a Media Server (Plex Server) that runs 24/7. After enabling Print Server in Raspberry Pi, the old HP printer is now accessible from all devices in the network.

Instaling Print Server

Execute the below commands in the terminal of Raspberry Pi after connecting the printer via USB. These steps are required only for Raspian OS. For Ubuntu 64 bit ARM, the printer drivers are automatically configured and, it doesn’t require any additional steps.

# update repos 
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

#install cups ( Common UNIX Printing System )
sudo apt install cups

# add the user pi to the group lpadmin
sudo usermod -a -G lpadmin pi

#enable remote access for cups
sudo cupsctl --remote-any

Installing HP Printer Drivers

The below commands installs the HP printer-specific drivers. These are generic drivers for legacy HP printers, so these commands would work for most of the legacy HP printers.

#install hp printer driver and ppds 
#ppds = PostScript Printer Description
sudo apt-get install hplip
sudo apt-get install hplip-ppds

#configure hp printer
sudo hp-setup -i

Configuring Printer

Follow the steps by executing the command “sudo hp-setup -i” and, provide the details even if it complains about the validity of the signature of the repo. On successful completion, you would be able to see your printer listed in the available printer section of Raspberry Pi.

Ensure that, the printer is enabled and shared. So that it can be accessed from any device in your network. That’s it, with these steps, you can convert your old printer into a network-enabled printer.