topic Re: Guest Wireless - Printing in Wireless

Guest Wireless - Printing

rcoote5902_2 — Sun, 04 Jul 2021 02:27:51 GMT

Here's a quick rundown of how I'm set up, before I get to my question:

12 sites

2 4404 WLC's

2 WLAN's - 1 private, 1 public
Active Directory domain

The private network is for domain devices only. It authenticates using 802.1x and client certificates pushed through group policy. The public network is for staff and student owned devices (I work for a public school division), visitors, contractors, temporary employees, etc. Guest access is using web-auth - local for guest accounts, and then radius for users with domain credentials.

The public wlan is on it's own subnet at each site and is ACL'd off from the private network. It is basically internet-only, and is thoughrougly scrutinized by our content filter.

More and more staff are bringing in their own laptops and we have had requests to allow printing from these devices. We currently control printing through AD permissions on our wired network - preventing students from printing to say the high volume color printer in the office, etc.

My question is - what suggestions can anyone offer on how to set up a printer for the guest WLAN, and is there any way to control or regulate access to it?

My initial thought was to provide a printer that was connected to an access port for the guest WLAN's vlan. Guest users should be able to browse to it or add it in the printer control panel. Because it wouldn't be tied to a print server, it wouldn't be served up in a directory. We'd have to provide instruction on how to add it manually. I believe this would work, but would negate any ability to control access to it.

Has anyone set up something similar to this?

Cheers,

Rob

Guest Wireless - Printing

purgrider — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:00:16 GMT

I'm running into the same issue, Rob. Similar setup - web authentication on the guest WLAN.

I tried using the pre-authentication ACL to allow the printers to talk to clients in a walled-garden approach, but that didn't seem to help. I think because the printers were not authenticated while the clients were. Anyway, that's one way that doesn't work in case anyone else attempts it.

Rob, were you ever able to get something in place? If so, can you describe what it looks like?

Thanks.

Tim

Guest Wireless - Printing

mikemurphy — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:04:15 GMT

Hi Tim,

Didi you ever get a reply/solution to this question?

Regards

Mike

Guest Wireless - Printing

purgrider — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:14:42 GMT

Hello Mike,

The best solution that I could come up with, and which has been backed by Cisco Advanced Services, is to create a separate SSID for the printers. It hasn't been fully tested with guest users, though - the network is being stood up hopefully today. I will post back to relay my experiences.

Thanks.

Tim

Re: Guest Wireless - Printing

mikemurphy — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:41:45 GMT

Thanks very much Tim. I’d be interested to know how you get on.

Regards

Mike Murphy

Presales Consultant

Mobile: 07584 481263

Email: mike.murphy@capita.co.uk

Capita IT Services

Clemence House

9 Mellor Road

Cheadle Hulme

Cheadle

Stockport

SK8 5AU

Re: Guest Wireless - Printing

purgrider — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:28:09 GMT

Mike,

I was finally able to implement and test the solution last Friday, September 30. The network aspect worked as expected; no errors or problems there. The only piece that seems a little awkward is that users are required to install the print drivers still. This could be a problem for those users who are not technical or who lack administrative rights on their machine.

So, in theory it will work but we are still seeking solutions that would allow us to offer something a bit more seemless to our guest users.

Tim