How can I see System Settings on another machine?

[Timothy Murphy]

I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
Is that possible?

[Rick Stevens]

On 05/20/2016 10:35 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
> Is that possible?

If you set up the CentOS 7 box with a shared display accessible by
TigerVNC or Remmina or RDP or some other remote display mechanism.

You might try accessing the CUPS daemon via

http://your-centos7-box:631

Not quite the same, but you can see what the print subsystem is doing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    [e-mail] -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 226437340           Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
-  Animal testing is futile.  They always get nervous and give the   -
-                             wrong answers                          -
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Samuel Sieb]

On 05/20/2016 10:35 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
> Is that possible?

What is "System Settings"?  The easiest way is to install 
system-config-printer on the server and run it over ssh -X.  I use that 
often.  You could also run the settings application (e.g. 
gnome-control-center) over ssh, but I find system-config-printer to be 
much more useful.

[Timothy Murphy]

Rick Stevens wrote:
> On 05/20/2016 10:35 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> > I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> > from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
> > Is that possible?
> If you set up the CentOS 7 box with a shared display accessible by
> TigerVNC or Remmina or RDP or some other remote display mechanism.

Thanks for your response.

But do I really need to install software of this kind
to see System Settings?
I was hoping I could use ssh in some way.
Eg I can ssh into the CentOS box and run firefox or kmail.
> You might try accessing the CUPS daemon via
>
> http://your-centos7-box:631
>
> Not quite the same, but you can see what the print subsystem is doing.

I have been doing that.
But as far as I can see, CUPS does not offer any way of seeing toner level.

[William Oliver]

The only way I figured out how to do it was with vnc and a virtual desktop.

billo

On Fri, 20 May 2016, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
> Is that possible?

[Rick Stevens]

On 05/20/2016 11:11 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Rick Stevens wrote:
> > On 05/20/2016 10:35 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> > > I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> > > from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
> > > Is that possible?
> > If you set up the CentOS 7 box with a shared display accessible by
> > TigerVNC or Remmina or RDP or some other remote display mechanism.
>
> Thanks for your response.
>
> But do I really need to install software of this kind
> to see System Settings?
> I was hoping I could use ssh in some way.
> Eg I can ssh into the CentOS box and run firefox or kmail.

If you're talking about remote viewing of a desktop, yes you have
to install that stuff, and looking at "System Settings" assumes the
desktop. If you're talking about a simple X client, yes, you can use
"ssh -X" to do X forwarding of the client's output to your local
display.

You could just add the vnc module to your X display on the server and
use remmina or tigerVNC viewer to look at it. Add a file, 
"/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-libvnc.conf" to your server containing these lines:

Section "Module"
     Load "vnc"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
     Identifier "Screen0"
     DefaultDepth 16
     Option "SecurityTypes" "VncAuth"
     Option "PasswordFile" "/root/.vnc/passwd"
EndSection

Save it and then run "vncpasswd" as the root user to establish a
password needed to access the remote display. Restart X on the server.

On your local machine, use a VNC client to access the server's port
5900. When prompted for a password, put in the password when you ran
"vncpasswd" and you should see the server's desktop on your local
display.

I've done this before and it works. I haven't done it in a while as
I've been using TeamViewer and TeamViewer's server and the VNC module
don't like each other--use one or the other.
> > You might try accessing the CUPS daemon via
> >
> > http://your-centos7-box:631
> >
> > Not quite the same, but you can see what the print subsystem is doing.
>
> I have been doing that.
> But as far as I can see, CUPS does not offer any way of seeing toner level.

No, it doesn't. CUPS manages the spooling and job system, not the
printer driver innards.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    [e-mail] -
- AIM/Skype: therps2        ICQ: 226437340           Yahoo: origrps2 -
-                                                                    -
-  If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, -
-          in five years there'd be a shortage of sand.              -
-                                              -- Milton Friedman    -
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Fri, 2016-05-20 at 11:04 -0700, Samuel Sieb wrote:
> On 05/20/2016 10:35 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> > I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> > from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
> > Is that possible?
>
> What is "System Settings"?  The easiest way is to install 
> system-config-printer on the server and run it over ssh -X.  I use
> that often.  You could also run the settings application (e.g. 
> gnome-control-center) over ssh, but I find system-config-printer to
> be much more useful.

System Settings is a KDE panel.

poc

[Samuel Sieb]

On 05/20/2016 11:11 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Rick Stevens wrote:
> > On 05/20/2016 10:35 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> > > I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> > > from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
> > > Is that possible?
> > If you set up the CentOS 7 box with a shared display accessible by
> > TigerVNC or Remmina or RDP or some other remote display mechanism.
>
> Thanks for your response.
>
> But do I really need to install software of this kind
> to see System Settings?
> I was hoping I could use ssh in some way.
> Eg I can ssh into the CentOS box and run firefox or kmail.

Did you see my previous reply about using system-config-printer over 
ssh?  It handles all the printer management including ink/toner levels.

[William Oliver]

What about this?

https://ssnjara.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/ink-checking-the-ink-level-of-your-...

billo

On Fri, 20 May 2016, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Rick Stevens wrote:
> > On 05/20/2016 10:35 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> > > I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> > > from my Fedora-24beta laptop.
> > > Is that possible?
> > If you set up the CentOS 7 box with a shared display accessible by
> > TigerVNC or Remmina or RDP or some other remote display mechanism.
>
> Thanks for your response.
>
> But do I really need to install software of this kind
> to see System Settings?
> I was hoping I could use ssh in some way.
> Eg I can ssh into the CentOS box and run firefox or kmail.
> > You might try accessing the CUPS daemon via
> >
> > http://your-centos7-box:631
> >
> > Not quite the same, but you can see what the print subsystem is doing.
>
> I have been doing that.
> But as far as I can see, CUPS does not offer any way of seeing toner level.

[Samuel Sieb]

On 05/20/2016 12:41 PM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
> System Settings is a KDE panel.

I suspected that might be the case.  But that is also a generic term 
used for any control panel application.  I sometimes call the Gnome one 
that. :-)

[Tom Horsley]

On Fri, 20 May 2016 15:14:39 -0500 (CDT)
[e-mail] wrote:
> What about this?
>
> https://ssnjara.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/ink-checking-the-ink-level-of-your-...

Yea. I recommend learning how to do admin via CLI because
it tends to stay the same, so once you learn it, it
remains useful. All the system admin GUI tools keep
getting redesigned by "helpful" people who hide or
completely remove features they personally don't use :-).

(Of course CLI changes happen sometimes as well, like
systemd).

[Timothy Murphy]

[e-mail] wrote:
> What about this?
>
> https://ssnjara.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/ink-checking-the-ink-level-of-your-...

Thanks for the suggestion.
I downloaded the "ink" program suggested,
but unfortunately it did not compile,
as it could not find (and neither could I) the file inklevel.h .

[Tim]

On Fri, 2016-05-20 at 18:35 +0100, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> I want to access System Settings=>Printers on my CentOS-7 server
> from my Fedora-24beta laptop.

Alternative, that *may* do what you need, is to browse to the CUPS
server on the other computer.

You may be used to doing http://localhost:631/ to fiddle with CUPS on
your own machine, but simply replace the "localhost" portion with the
hostname or IP of the remote machine.

You *may* have had to preconfigure the remote machine to allow remote
access.  I suspect that it's local-only, by default.

[Timothy Murphy]

Samuel Sieb wrote:
> > But do I really need to install software of this kind
> > to see System Settings?
> > I was hoping I could use ssh in some way.
> > Eg I can ssh into the CentOS box and run firefox or kmail.
>
> Did you see my previous reply about using system-config-printer over
> ssh?  It handles all the printer management including ink/toner levels.

Thank you for your response.

I did try your earlier suggestion.
It did not work at the time,
with the warning
(system-config-printer.py:6506):
  WARNING **: Couldn't connect to accessibility bus:
  Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-FUcik03nBj: Connection refused

However, it worked (with some graphical distortion, eg missing letters)
after I re-installed system-config-printer on the CentOS-7.2 box.

Unfortunately, the reading it gives is completely inaccurate,
as it says the black toner is full, whereas in fact it is completely empty.
It gives a correct reading of the colour toners.