With the conventional method of setting up a network printer (wired or wireless), the printer joins YOUR network. It receives an IP address on your LAN's subnet, possibly because you assigned it a static address. It then becomes visible to computers on the LAN, and CUPS can usually auto-detect it. If the printer is wireless, you must also give it the SSID and passphrase of your wireless router. Or use the magic WPS button.
With the new Wireless Direct protocol, YOU join the printer's network. The printer acts as a little WiFi access point with its own subnet that includes the printer. For example, your home LAN might be 192.168.2.0 while the printer's LAN is 192.168.223.0. The actual printer is located at 192.168.223.1 on port 9100.
So in order to use the printer, you must run your WiFi connection manager. This raises a crucial issue.
a. If you are using a WiFi-connected laptop, you must drop your current connection and switch to the printer. This assumes that your connection manager can make the change smoothly and you get useful status information. It also means that you cannot print directly from a web page because your Internet connection is lost when you join the printer's LAN.
b. If you have a desktop machine with a WiFi adapter, you CAN keep your Internet connection while using the printer. But in my tests, this works best if your computer has a static IP address on your home network. This is easy to configure using PWF if you make it your primary network manager. [Edit] With PWF v3.4, you can keep your wired eth0 connection on DHCP.
Here is the procedure for setting up an HP ENVY 4500 with Wireless Direct.
1. From the printer's LCD home screen, select Wireless Direct > OK
2. Select Wireless Direct off > OK
3. Select On with Security > OK. The connection will use WPA2 encryption.
4. Select Display Password > OK
5. Note the 8-digit password. Just to be safe, press Reset to generate a new password. Write it down.
6. Select Display Name to see the printer's SSID. Your printer setup is done.
7. Run PWF and scan for WiFi networks as usual. It should find the printer.
8. Create a profile using WPA2 encryption.
9. Connect to that profile. Click the Status button. The ENVY gives me an IP address of 192.168.223.100.
10. From your computer's Network menu, run PeasyPort.
11. Click Speed and set Network Device Speed to Slow.
12. Scan the IP address 192.168.223.1 for port 9100. This is the printer! It might take a couple of tries to locate.
13. If you cannot find the printer, scan the entire subnet 192.168.223.1-254 for port 9100.
14. Install the HPLIP printer driver as usual and run CUPS.
In my tests, CUPS auto-detected the printer but got confused and identified it as 0.0.0.0:9100. In another test, the WiFi connection dropped, possibly due to a conflict with eth0. Keep checking your PWF status to ensure that you are still talking to the printer. In one attempt, I had to reboot the computer AND printer to reset the WiFi. But once I found the correct procedure, it was completely stable.
15. In CUPS, do a manual setup using the AppSocket/JetDirect protocol. I used this URI: socket://192.168.223.1:9100
16. Finish the CUPS setup as usual and print a test page. Then print from an application.
17. If your computer also has a static eth0 interface connected to the Internet, it should still be up. Check with the PWF Info button.
18. Print something from a web page.
You can also do network scanning using Peasyscan. This requires building a configuration file that contains the scanner's network URI.
1. Connect the printer directly by USB.
2. Install the HPLIP scanner driver and verify that it works properly.
3. Run the command: scanimage -L
4. Write down the scanner's exact name, like ENVY_4500_series
5. Using the instructions in Peasyscan, create a configuration file named HP.cfg with a line like:
Code: Select all
<uri>hpaio:/net/ENVY_4500_series?ip=192.168.223.1</uri>7. Make your Wireless Direct connection and scan something. In my tests, it sometimes took a second try to transmit the image cleanly.
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