Remote access for network printer

Question

I have a network printer (HL-2250DN) that I want to also reach from outside the home network. In the network it is reachable by 192.168.0.103

Now I used a DNS service to map my external IP to a domain name. How can I now access my printer? myprinter.no-ip.org is mapping to my external ip. But how can I forward this to my printer?$

On my router I'm forwarding port 80, 631 and 646 for the IP 192.168.0.103. But still it is not working. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Port 80 is for web servers, port 631 is CUPS' web server, and port 646 has nothing to do with Printing that i'm aware of. i.e., none of these are going to allow you to forward a printer through a firewall.

Try forwarding Port 9100 and mapping the printer as a JetDirect device. Brother's have supported JetDirect for quite some time (I map mine that way).

In Windows, adding is different:

Add Printer -> Local Printer Attached...(Uncheck auto detect) -> Select Create New Port, choose Standard TCP/IP Port -> Enter hostname, Port Name is abstract and can be anything (within reason) -> Select proper printer driver -> Done, Profit. Everything else should be standard options.

As long as you're forwarding 9100, in theory that should work...

If you're trying to get Windows printer sharing to work through NAT and a typical ISP, you're just opening yourself up to leagues of problems.

Just tested this with my Brother 2070 and a friend a couple of hundred miles away, worked great for us with just Port 9100 going through the firewall to the printer. YMMV.

Answer 2

If you try it from home, perhaps ports are forwarded only for external connections? Try forwarding port to some service on your computer (like 139 and 445 for samba shares), and connect to it (\your.router.external.address). If it fails, then you should test your setup from outside. [sorry, not enough rep. to leave comments, so i post this as answer].

Answer 3

Can you ping said ports from the outside? Perhaps it is blocked on the ISP level, or blocked on the level which you connect through (i.e. your remote office's router).

Update: One way you might circumvent ISP or router blocking is to proxy the requests both in your print requestor (i.e. laptop at work that you're trying to print at home from) and in your home, either in your router at home or via a proxy server set up at home. Essentially you would proxy accesses to a given printer name/port to something like print.yourdomain.com:80. Your server on yourdomain.com:80 handles all of the requests on the "print" subdomain and proxies them to the correct printer IP address and port #.

Or you could get a PDF converter and save everything you want to print at home that way, and use a USB key to do the transfer. Any chance your printer has a USB port? :)

Answer 4

Is is possible for you just to use Google Chrome Print?