Wide Area Mobile Print: Quick Test of AirPrint

How to Quickly Test AirPrint with Wide Area Mobile Print on iOS

Issue:

At times, it may be necessary to showcase or evaluate the functionality of native AirPrint from Apple iOS devices using the Wide Area Mobile Print feature, without going through the entire configuration process.

This guide provides a simple method to configure Wide Area Mobile Print with a single iOS device for AirPrint.

Resolution:

This guide assumes a working EveryonePrint server and gateway configuration.

1. Start by configuring a sub domain under Wide Area Mobile Print.

2. Lookup the IP address of the EveryonePrint server hosting the gateway.

3. Join the Apple iOS device on a WiFi network where it can access the EveryonePrint Gateway, and modify the iOS device WiFi networks settings manually.

4. Set the DNS server to the IP address of the EveryonePrint Gateway server and Search domains to the subdomain created in Wide Area Mobile Print.

5. It may be necessary to switch Airplane mode off/on on the iOS device to force it to lookup printers.

6. Then simply go to any App like the "Notes" app and press Print; the printers should now be listed.

If no printers appear, confirm that the Apple iOS device can successfully reach the EveryonePrint with gateway on ports 53, 7910, and 9444, which can be done using, for example, a port scanner iOS App such as iNetTools, as explained in this article.

Note:

When overriding the DNS settings on the mobile device, regular DNS lookup will fail. Therefore, it is necessary to revert back to the original settings after the test. To do this, simply clear the DNS and search domains, and the DHCP server should automatically populate them again.