Hello,

The following text is my initial inquiry and small discussion to my problem that I asked in Fedora Forums. I'm bringing my question to LinuxQuestions.

BEGIN FEDORA FORUMS
jalf86 (Me): Fedora Forums
Hello,

I hope someone could help me. I have a Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN connected to my computer via USB. My computer runs Fedora 38 with Gnome environment. I used CUPS to setup my printer (I did click the "share" checkbox). My computer IP address is xxx.xxx.1.72 and my printer's IP address is xxx.xxx.0.121

I have set-up Fedora 38 with Gnome in virt-manager. I use a bridge type for my virtual NIC. It successfully reaches into the internet and I can share files through one folder. But I cannot connect to my printer. The address of my virtual Fedora is xxx.xxx.124.110. I used CUPS to try and find my printer. I used LDP, sockets, ipp, and https options with the various IP addresses. Nothing I tried worked. I don't know if I'm completely doing this wrong, or if I'm not correctly filling out the fields, or if I need to use something other than CUPS.

Thank you for any help you can give me.

6th January 2024, 11:24 PM #2
hmmsjan : Fedora Forums
hmmsjan is offline Registered User

Hi jalf86,

It's not clear for me how your installation is organized. May be I'm not up to date, but as far I know a printer via USB does not have an IP or is it connected via both USB and ethernet? For printing via USB, the IP address is the address of the CUPS server so your PC self, assuming it's Linux.

The IP address is xxx.xxx.1.72, printers IP is xxx.xxx.0.121, so assuming a /24 mask or 255.255.255.0, they are not in the same subnet. Different network interfaces?

You do not need to xxx.xxx your local addresses if it is 192.168, only your external IP or IPv6 prefixes may be better to hide.

Your system is not really bridged, then your VM IP must be in the same range as the bridge's IP. It suspect it's virbr0, and then masqueraded to the internet.
If it is masqueraded to the internet via xxx.xxx.1.72, is it masqueraded to the printer too?? Otherwise the printer does not know the route to the VM, or firewalld does not have the required forward rules.

I think you have a routing problem, and need networking knowledge to solve it. Bridging the interface where the printer is and the VM will solve the problem, but unfortunately this will not work if the interface is wireless.

jalf86: Fedora Forums

I've suspected my problem is a routing problem. However, I don't have a lot of networking knowledge. I knew enough to follow directions, but that's as far as I could go. I don't know enough to ask the correct questions or the best place to ask questions. Do you have any recommendations of where I should go or book suggestions for the knowledge I need to get to the right networking questions?

END FEDORA FORUMS

I went to the networking forum of LinuxQuestions and their forum faq pointed me to the server forum. So from the above discussion, can anyone help me or point me in a good direction?