[SOLVED] Networked printer

[Ardonp]

Just started a new IT job in a large corporation. I'm OK with computers but not in this environment.

Problem is that a computer is printing to the CEO's printer, but shouldn't be...
There are several Kiosk computers where employees can login and print their rosters. I believe that all of the kiosks are logged into the same account simultaneously. Everything goes through a print server.

I've looked at the CEO's printer's job history through web management and it shows that a few rogue print jobs are coming from a kiosk, but I don't know which one. Any ideas on how I can find out which computer so that I can change the default printer, short of checking every kiosk terminal physically? (There are lots)

I'm guessing every domain setup is different, but I'm not really familiar with this type of computing.

 

[kanewolf]

You know time stamps from the printer's job history. You will probably have to go look at the print server logs to see where the jobs originated.

But, I will say as an entry level IT person, it might show initiative if you did "walk the campus" to familiarize yourself with all the equipment. Visit all the kiosks and check them.

This will allow you to audit the deployment location in the IT database.

 

[hang-the-9]

There are several options, you can set printer rights on the print server. Since no one should be printing to the CEO printer, it's a good idea to simply turn off rights for everyone except their account and maybe the IT group. This is the "correct" way to do it, and how I would do it.

Another option is if the CEO is the only one that prints to that printer is to change the IP of it, and setup a direct IP local printer on his computer, that way if someone accidentally installs that printer and prints to it, it will just fail. I would only do this if the first option is not doable for some reason. I would do this if you don't have access to the print server setup and whoever setup printing is too dumb or lazy to help you. It would be a quick and dirty way of setting up a personal use network printer. Of course this way you would need to get a static IP to use for the printer, which involves work from the server people anyway to remove the IP from DHCP scope. Which leads you back to option 1, remove general user rights to the printer queue.

You should also have someone that can help on this on the server side, it's not just setting the default printer that is the issue, it's the fact that a system has a personal use printer installed in the first place, and had the ability to do it.

Looking around to see what computer has this printer installed on it would be a lot more work, and not really needed if the print server is setup properly. Once the rights are set, whoever else tries to print simply won't be able to and they will either open a trouble ticket for system not printing or will select another printer to use. Either way will get you the fix. I like doing things the lazy way LOL, make them find you to fix this, not the other way around.

Every IT person at some point has used the "scream test", disable something and see who complains. That will tell you who is using that thing. One time we were sending print jobs to printers were were trying to locate that said "if you read this please contact IT and let us know where this printer is". After a few tries this way without getting a reply, I simply disabled the printer or changed the IP to some junk one. Usually within an hour the helpdesk would get someone complaining their printer is not working and we can track it down. Just keep in mind you would want the approval of someone more senior to do stuff like this, I was the team lead for the campus and knew it won't really cause issues to do this, so decision was mine. If you are new there you should ask a lead/manager on how to do this.

It's pretty basic psychology, if you need to find someone called Smith, instead of calling every single Smith in the book, just post a giant sign saying "Smith, you have $500 waiting for you" and sit back till they find you. People will do something if it benefits them. Since the users don't care if IT knows where the printer is, they ignore the print outs asking for help, but since the users care if the printer works, soon as it does not, we get the info we need.

And now you got about 5 years of real world IT experience in a few paragraphs

 

[Ralston18]

Has anyone looked at the physical printout appearing on the CEO's printer?

Same document multiple times or different documents when the printouts appear?

Could be some clue(s) in the documents. Headers, footers, cover pages, etc..