Choosing and Deploying Data Security Agents > Printer agent

Printer agent

Applies to

Data Security v7.6.x

In this topic

Overview

Installing the printer agent

Detecting the printer driver

ABBYY FineReader configuration settings for non-English text

Printer agent performance

Overview

The Data Security printer agent is required when you want to monitor what is printed on your organization's network printers.

The printer agent supports the following Windows Server 2003 32-bit environments:

Standard or Enterprise

Standard or Enterprise R2

Standard or Enterprise R2 SP2

In addition, it also supports permit and block actions.

When a user on the network prints a file, it is routed to the Microsoft Windows printer spooler service, where the printer agent intercepts it and sends it to the Data Security policy engine. After analysis of the content, the Data Security system enforces the policy as necessary: either auditing, monitoring or blocking the print job from being printed, in which case the sender (the user who printed the document) receives a notification that the print job was blocked.

The printer agent is capable of identifying the user that submitted the print job, because these credentials are included in the print job.

Websense Data Security generates forensics reports that list the blocked print files along with other blocked transmissions.

You install the printer agent on a Windows print server. It includes optical character recognition (OCR) capabilities. The OCR service (ABBYY FineReader) is required in printer agent installations for better analysis in different printer drivers. Installation without the OCR service is limited and should be performed only after receiving verification from Websense Technical Support that your organization's specific printer driver is supported.

The OCR service enables the recognition and prevention of "corporate-defined" confidential content being printed. The OCR service is required not only to support certain sources, but is also a must when certain printer drivers are used, for example, PCL 6. As a general rule, only standard formats, such as extended meta file (EMF), printer control language (PCL), text (TXT), and postscript (PS) can be received by the printer agent. Nonstandard formats are not supported.

The printer agent is installed using a separate printer agent package (WebsenseDataSecurityPrinterAgent.zip) See Installing the printer agent for instructions.

Installing the printer agent

There are 2 prerequisites for installing the Data Security printer agent:

The computer where you're installing the agent must be inside a domain.

The computer where you're installing the agent must have at least one printer already installed.

If these 2 conditions are not met, the installer doesn't show the option to install the printer agent.

To install the printer agent:

1.	Download WebsenseDataSecurityPrinterAgent.zip package from www.mywebsense.com.

2.	Extract the package to the print spooler machine.

Important  The package must be extracted to the print spooler machine. Installation must take place on the machine itself for Printer agent to function properly.

3.	In the extracted content, open the folder ABBYY\ABBYY FineReader Engine 8.1.

4.	There should be a subfolder named Administrator's Guide (note the apostrophe).

During extraction, that folder's name can become corrupted. If this has happened, rename the folder to Administrator's Guide. Note that in such cases, only the name of the folder is corrupted, the contents are not.

5.	Make sure the DSS-7.6.0-x86.msi installer is in the same folder as the ABBYY and gs folders.

6.	Run the DSS-7.6.0-x86.msi to install Printer agent.

See Installing Data Security Components for instructions. Note that those instructions assume you have reached the Websense Data Security installer by launching the general Websense installer. Skip the portions mentioning the Websense installer and follow the instructions relating to the Data Security installer.

Detecting the printer driver

If you are having difficulty with the recognition and configuring of your printers with the printer agent, you can export the printer registration file to send to Websense Technical Support for analysis. This file indicates printer names and drivers.

To export printer registration files:

1.	Click Start > Run and in the Run dialog, type regedit.

2.	Click OK in the Run dialog. The Registry Editor screen is displayed.

3.	In the Registry Editor screen, navigate to the following directory: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers

4.	Right-click the Printers folder and select Export.

5.	Select the desired directory to save the exported (*.reg) file.

6.	Click Save.

7.	Send the exported (*.reg) file to your local Websense technical support representative.

Alternative detection of printer driver

Alternatively, users may access the following registry key on the print server to detect the printer driver:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\ {Printer Name}\

In the registry key, open the printer driver entry and view the string value.

To access the above registry key, refer to Detecting the printer driver, steps 1 to 3 above.

ABBYY FineReader configuration settings for non-English text

If your printers are used for non-English text, you need to make minor modifications to the following ABBYY FineReader configuration files:

ExportToTXT-Accurate.ini

ExportToTXT-Fast.ini

To modify the ABBYY FineReader configuration files:

1.	Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the following directory:

C:\Program Files\Websense\Data Security\ABBYY\Profiles

2.	Locate the following 2 files: ExportToTXT-Accurate.ini and ExportToTXT-Fast.ini.

3.	Open each of the above .ini files in a text-editing application.

4.	Locate the [RecognizerParams] section. If it does not exist, create a new section with this name.

5.	Add a parameter to the [RecognizerParams] section as follows:

[RecognizerParams]

TextLanguage = English,French

6.	Save the *.ini files.

Printer agent performance

The printer agent has different demand levels, depending on whether it is in Monitoring or Blocking mode, and whether the OCR service is activated or deactivated.

Monitoring mode operates in an asynchronous manner and therefore, does not introduce analysis time overhead to the printing time.

In Blocking mode, the OCR processing adds up to 3 seconds per page depending on the CPU power of the printer server. You can select Blocking or Monitoring in the Edit Printer Agent window, accessed through Settings > Deployment > System Modules. Select the printer agent on the System Modules screen.

Select Monitoring if you want to monitor traffic through the print server but not block it.

Select Blocking if you want to block actions that breach policy.

Choosing and Deploying Data Security Agents > Printer agent