How to change the IP address of the iPrint Appliance

Due to network configuration considerations, the IP address of the iPrint Appliance must to change.  Simply changing the IP address within the NIC configuration results in various services (iManager, iPrint, etc) to no longer work.

These steps are not support by Novell engineering.  However, these steps have proven to work in the customer environments in which they have been implemented.  Use these steps at your own risk.  If you open a Service Request with Novell Technical Services, an attempt will be made to guide you through these steps, but we cannot guarantee the solution.

1. Load a new virtual iPrint Appliance server with the new IP address (and possibly new DNS)

The following steps are simplified if the DNS name does not need to change.

2. Complete the new installation, including the initial configuration performed after logging into the Management Console (https://<IPorDNS>:9443).

3. Copy the iPrint Configuration from the original server to the new server by typing the following commands at a terminal session (putty or otherwise):

• scp -Cr <IPofOriginalAppliance>:/var/opt/novell/iprint/resdir/* /var/opt/novell/iprint/resdir/
• provide the root password
• chown -R iprint.iprint /var/opt/novell/iprint/resdir
• rcnovell-idsd restart
• scp <IPofOriginalAppliance>:/var/opt/novell/iprint/print_manager.iPrintAppliance.psm/padbtxt.xml /tmp/padbtxt.xml
• rcnovell-ipsmd stop
• /opt/novell/iprint/bin/ipsmd -x /tmp/padbtxt.xml -u cn=admin,o=iPrintAppliance
• provide the iPrint Appliance admin eDirectory password
• Wait for the printer configuration information to import.  This should take about 10 seconds per 100 printer agents.
• rcnovell-ipsmd start

4. View the original iPrint Appliance management console settings for the following pages:

• Mobile Configuration
• Printers
• LDAP Import

5. Apply those settings to the new iPrint Appliance.

If only the IP address changed, the above steps are sufficient.

Continue with the following steps if the DNS name to which the print manager is bound changed AND printers are installed to desktops:

• Compare the addresses to which the two print managers are bound:
• Type this command on both the original and new iPrint Appliance:
• find /etc/opt/novell/iprint/conf/ipsmd.conf -type f | xargs grep -i "PSMHostAddress"
• Are the addresses which follow PSMHostAddress different? 
• If yes, decide if you want the two to stay different. 
  
• If you decide you want the two address to stay different, then
• configure DNS to resolve the original address to the new IP address.
• This will cause each workstation to auto uninstall and auto reinstall the printers to the workstations.
• If you would like that reinstall to be silent to the end user, change the InformUserOfUpdates to 0 within the /var/opt/novell/iprint/htdocs/iprint.ini
• If you decide you want the original DNS to apply to the new print manager, then
• Update DNS to resolve the original name to the new IP address.
• Using ping, verify the original DNS name resolves to the new IP address.
• Update the ipsmd.conf's PSMHostAddress to use the original DNS.
• Restart the Print Manager
• rcnovell-ipsmd restart
  

Simply changing the IP address of the iPrint appliance server is not recommended, as there are a handful of configuration files which retain the old IP address.  Changing those IP address entries can cause most services to start working, but not all.  eDirectory object names and attributes also retain the old IP address.  Therefore, the steps shown above are preferred.

There are likely methods to change the IP address of the iPrint Appliance.   However, the above listed method has been shown to work in the customer environments which this has been implemented.