HELP PLS! Installing Printer from Documentation

User Support
1

I am using the documentation to install a printer onto a standalone VM, but I am confused on step 2 of the process outlined below.

I have only been using Linux for 3 months, Qubes is my first linux distro lol. Can anyone elaborate how I would allow network access from the standalone template I create (debian 10), and connect the VM to the printer? Would this involve me going into the firewall rules in the template and settings a specific IP/port? What firewall rules would I enable to foster this connection? I am using a brother printer for this process if that helps at all.

Step by step guide

1.Start the “Printer Settings” App in a template VM (either via Qubes “Start Menu”, or by launching the system-config-printer in the template).
2.Add/Configure the printer in the same way as one would do on any normal Linux. You may need to allow network access from the template VM to your printer to complete configuration, as normally the template VM is not allowed any network access except to the Qubes proxy for software installation. One can use Qubes Manager to modify firewall rules for particular VMs.
3.Optional: Test the printer by printing a test page. If it works, shut down the template VM.
4.Open an AppVM (make sure it’s based on the template where you just installed the printer, normally all AppVMs are based on the default template), and test if printing works. If it doesn’t then probably the AppVM doesn’t have networking access to the printer  in that case adjust the firewall settings for that AppVM in Qubes Manager. Also, make sure that the AppVM gets restarted after the template was shutdown.
5.Alternatively if you do not want to modify the firewall rules of the template VM (that have security scope) you can simply shut down the template VM without trying to print the test page (which will not work), start or restart an AppVM based on the template and test printing there.

THANKS

2

There is an important difference between a standalone VM and a templateVM here. The documentation assumes that you want to use the printer in a regular appVM (a VM, which is based on one of the templates in Qubes, e.g., fedora-32).

When you are using a standalone VM, the VM is essentially its own template (technically it’s a bit different, but this might help you to think about it).
Whenever a guide tells you to do something in a templateVM and you want a standalone VM instead, conduct the steps in the standalone VM itself.

So in your case, step 2 says that you should make sure that your standalone VM can communicate with your printer. Everything else is not important for your setup.

3

Thanks for the response, I will have to install CUPS driver. So, I would use the Fedora standalone VM terminal and type in
sudo dnf install cups -y

I am using it via USB, so the printer should have to be connected to the printing VM via the “Qubes Devices” manager, to authorize the connection from dom0 to the VM.

If this all goes right, I should be able to configure the printer settings from there?

Thanks again