This parameter may be used to override the compiled-in default printcap name used by the server (usually /etc/printcap). See the discussion of the [printers] section above for reasons why you might want to do this. To use the CUPS printing interface set printcap name = cups . This should be supplemented by an addtional setting printing = cups in the [global] section. printcap name = cups will use the "dummy" printcap created by CUPS, as specified in your CUPS configuration file. On System V systems that use lpstat to list available printers you can use printcap name = lpstat to automatically obtain lists of available printers. This is the default for systems that define SYSV at configure time in Samba (this includes most System V based systems). If printcap name is set to lpstat on these systems then Samba will launch lpstat -v and attempt to parse the output to obtain a printer list. A minimal printcap file would look something like this: print1|My Printer 1 print2|My Printer 2 print3|My Printer 3 print4|My Printer 4 print5|My Printer 5 where the '|' separates aliases of a printer. The fact that the second alias has a space in it gives a hint to Samba that it's a comment. Under AIX the default printcap name is /etc/qconfig. Samba will assume the file is in AIX qconfig format if the string qconfig appears in the printcap filename. Default: printcap name = /etc/printcap Example: printcap name = /etc/myprintcap