Hello! I recently read this article about changing the ready message on HP printers. In order to do so, one must connect to port 9100 on a HP printer. My printer is USB, and I thought I'd try to figure out how to telnet into it. I setup a usb0 interface by running "ifconfig usb0 10.1.0.1" Wireshark confirms that I usb0 is a usb network interface. (WOOT!) However...

From here, I'm not sure how to:
a. tell if this is even remotely possible
b. find the ip of my printer
c. connect to it by telnet over my usb0 interface

If this is impossible or massively time consuming or not even worth it - please let me know. I'd appreciate any help, as I've never done ANYTHING like this before. I just need a little advice on where to go.

What is the model number of your printer?
At first glance since your printer is connected via USB and not ethernet it is not possible using the method from the article. Depending on what language your printer uses (PCL etc) you might be able to send the commands by just writing to its device.

It's an HP Officejet 4215 all-in-one. Would the device just be lp0 or would it be anything special for my purpose or HP Drivers?

Would I just create a file with all the infos and cat file > [device] it? Would it really be that easy?

Look for /dev/usblp0

A quick look at the specification shows the print language as Lightweight Imaging Device Interface Language (LIDIL) so I would not expect that message trick to work on your printer. I know nothing about the printer language or if it has similar commands used by the printers in the article. So I would say its not worth the effort but others might have more knowledge.

Well, thanks, that's a perfect answer to my question. I'll give it a shot anyway, but you're probably right, it's not worth my time. I've got a friend who has a networked one that I'm almost sure will work who I'll ask if I can use his, I'd just use one of those "net use lpt1" commands or something similar to connect to it, and work from there.

Thanks!