6.2 Key Features

6.2.1 Multidriver Support

On iPrint Appliance 1.1, you can configure the local and remote renderer to use multiple drivers for different mobile enabled printer agents. The renderer installs the unique drivers associated with various mobile enabled printer agents, on the renderer machine. During the rendering of jobs, the correct printer driver is selected based on the printer agent to which the job is being submitted for rendering.If a printer agent does not have any driver associated with the renderer platform, the renderer uses the default driver for rendering the jobs sent to those printer agents. You can select a default driver when adding a renderer from the Management Console. The Management Console also provides an option to change the default drivers.

For information on how to upload printers to the Driver Store, see Section 5.3, Configuring Printer Drivers.

6.2.2 Secure and Non-secure Communication Support (Remote Renderer)

On iPrint Appliance 1.1, the remote renderer can communicate over secure and non-secure channels with the iPrint Appliance. By default, the iPrint Appliance is set to communicate in both secure and non-secure modes.

Secure Communication Mode: When this mode is used, only the secure remote renderers can communicate with the iPrint Appliance. For information on how to configure the iPrint Appliance and renderer in a secure mode, see Secure Communication Mode.

Non-secure Communication Mode: When this mode is used, both secure and non-secure remote renderers can communicate with the iPrint Appliance. For information on how to configure the iPrint Appliance and renderer in a non-secure mode, see Non-secure Communication Mode.

Non-secure communication mode is desirable in the following scenarios:

  • Experiencing problems with third-party certificates

    The iPrint Appliance handles third-party certificates well when working with secure web tools and authentications from the iPrint Mobile App. However, some third-party certificates can be problematic when registering a remote renderer; in these situations, non-secure communication mode is convenient because certificates are not used for the remote renderer registration.

  • Domain suffix for the iPrint Appliance and the remote renderer does not match

    Secure communication mode requires both the iPrint Appliance and the remote renderer to have matching DNS domain suffixes. For example, iprintserver.company.com and remoterenderer.cityname.company.com will cause the remote renderer registration to fail if the secure communication mode is selected. The non-secure communication mode ignores the DNS suffix matching requirement.

You can verify the mode of the renderer in the Renderers page under the Secure Mode column.

  • If the Secure Mode column displays false, then the renderer is in a non-secure communication mode.

  • If the Secure Mode column displays true, then the renderer is in a secure communication mode.

6.2.3 Automatic Printer Driver Updates

The local and remote renderer on iPrint Appliance 1.1 supports the Automatic Driver Update feature. When a printer driver is updated on the Drive Store, or if the association of a particular printer agent is changed, the driver is automatically updated on the renderer.

Local Renderer: The driver update and driver association changes takes effect only after 1 hour because the value set for driver_update_interval is 1 hour in the iprintmobile.conf file. After the default driver time interval, the first print job is rendered by the old driver and the subsequent jobs are rendered by the new driver.

You can modify the driver_update_interval value in the iprintmobile.conf file.

Remote Renderer: All the jobs submitted for printing is rendered by the driver that is currently associated with the printer. However, the first print job that is sent for printing after the driver association change may take some time to be rendered depending on the size of the driver. This is because the remote renderer installs the driver first and then processes it for rendering.

6.2.4 Printer Rename and Redirection (Remote Renderer)

If a printer is renamed or redirected through the Management Console, the remote renderer automatically updates its configuration to associate the correct printer drivers with the printer.

When you redirect a printer, the printer driver associated with the destination printer is used for rendering.