Install the Application Server component (Standard Install option) on your nominated system. This system will be responsible for providing PaperCut NG's web based interface and storing data. In most cases this system will not host any printers and is dedicated to the roll of hosting the PaperCut Application Server. It may be one of the nodes in the cluster; however a separate system outside the cluster is generally recommended. An existing domain controller, member server or file server will suffice.

The Print Provider component needs to be separately installed on each node involved in the print spooler cluster. This is done by selecting the Secondary Print Server option in the installer. Follow the secondary server set up notes as detailed in Chapter 14, Configuring Secondary Print Servers and Locally Attached Printers . Take care to define the correct name or IP address of the nominated application server set up in step 1.

By default the Print Provider component is installed under the management of the node. To hand over management to the cluster, the service start-up type needs to be set to manual. On each node navigate to Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Services, locate the PaperCut Print Provider service. Stop the service and set the start-up type to Manual. Repeat for each node in the cluster.

Figure 21.1. Stopping the service and setting to Manual startup

To ensure the state of jobs currently active (e.g. held in a hold/release queue) are not lost during a failover event, PaperCut NG is able to save job state in a shared drive/directory. If a shared disk resource is available and can be added to the cluster resource, PaperCut NG can use this to host a shared spool directory to ensure no active job state is lost.

Perform operations to verify that:

On large networks it is common to distribute load by hosting print spooler services under two or more virtual servers. For example, two virtual servers may each host half of the organization's printers and hence sharing the load. This is sometimes referred to as Active/Active clustering - all be it not an entirely correct term, as the print spooler is still running in Active/Passive.

Virtual servers cannot share the same service on any given node. For this reason if the virtual servers share nodes, you'll need to manually install the PaperCut Print Provider service a second time under a different name. This can be done via the command line as follows:

   cd C:\Program Files\PaperCut NG\providers\print\win
   pc-print.exe PCPrintProvider2 /install
                    

The argument proceeding /install is the unique name to assign to the service. The recommended procedure is to suffix the standard service name with a sequential number.

On one of the cluster's nodes, install the PaperCut Application Server component by selecting the Standard Install option in the installer. Follow the setup wizard and complete the process of importing all users into the system.

The system needs to be configured to use an external database as this database will be shared between both instances of the application server. Convert the system over to the required external database by following the procedure detailed in Chapter 19, Deployment on an External Database (RDBMS). The database may be hosted on another system, or inside a cluster. As per the external database setup notes, reference the database server by IP address by entering the appropriate connection string in the server.properties file.

Repeat steps 1 and 2 on the second cluster node.

By default the PaperCut Application Server component is installed under the management of the node. It needs to be managed inside the cluster, so the service's start-up type should be set to manual. On each node navigate to Control Panel → Administrative Tools → Services locate the PaperCut Application Server. Stop the service and set its start-up type to Manual. Repeat this on both nodes.

The PaperCut Application Server should be designated to run inside its own cluster group. Create a new cluster group containing the two nodes. Add an IP Resource and a Network Name resource. Give the network name resource an appropriate title such as PCAppSrv.

The need for a new cluster group is not hard and fast. It is however recommended as it gives the most flexibility in terms of load balancing and minimizes the potential for conflicts.

Right-click on the cluster group and select Bring online. Wait until the application server has started, then verify that you can access the system by pointing a web browser to :

    http://[Virtual Server Name]:9191/admin 
                    

Login, and perform some tasks such as basic user management and User/Group Synchronization to verify the system works as expected.

Interface the PaperCut Print Provider layer with the clustered spooler service by following the same setup notes as described for Mode 1. The exception being that the IP address of the application server will be the IP address assigned to the Virtual Server assigned in step 5.

The client and release station programs are located in the directories:

These directories contain configuration files that instruct the client to the whereabouts of the server. The IP address and the server name in the following set of files will need to be updated to the Virtual Server's details (Name and IP address):

Edit the files using Notepad or equivalent and repeat this for each node. Also see the section called “Client/Workstation Configuration”.

Mode 2 setup is about as complex as it gets! Take some time to verify all is working and that PaperCut NG is tracking printing on all printers and all virtual servers.

It is possible to split the two application layers (Resources) into two separate Cluster Groups:

Separating these resources into to groups allows you to set up different node affinities so the two groups usually run on separate physical nodes during normal operation. The advantage is that the load is spread further across the systems and a failure in one group will not necessarily fail-over the other.

To make this change after setting up the single group Mode 2 configuration: