On Wed, 2011-06-29 at 20:47 -0700, Yasha Karant wrote:
> Although I have access to true network printing resources, for the
> local 
> printer attached to my local workstation, I do *NOT* want to make my 
> printer accessible over the physical LAN to anyone.  I also do not in 
> general need the MS Win XP guest to print to our true network
> printing 
> resource that is limited to specialized work my ordinary black toner 
> laser printer cannot properly handle.  However, if I can use the 
> internal vboxnet0 "interface" and IP address for printing, this
> scheme 
> will work, and as well as Samba (presumably I can deactivate Samba in 
> this case as Virtualbox shared folders provide access to the file
> system 
> of the Linux host).

I would have thought that opening only port 631 for a specific address
on the main network would be more secure than allowing smb shares.
You can limit access to the printer in the cups web interface.

> What specifics cover exporting the local printer, still accessible as
> as 
> local printer over a physical printer connection (presently, a USB 
> port), over the logical vboxnet0 interface?  Does the Virtualbox 
> "machine" then connect to the IP address of vboxnet0 displayed by the 
> Linux host command ifconfig -a ?  A URL with the specifics will
> suffice. 
If you try setting up a new printer in cups, it will give you examples
of address setups.
As far as the ipaddress goes, it will depend on the routing you have set
up for the guest. The ipaddress of the printer needs to be the same
address you have set for the server machine that has the printer.
I haven't tried it in a virtual environment, but I should imagine that
you could set up the cups print to use an ipaddress that is visible to
the guest.
The vbox guest address should be visible to the SL6 host machine if you
have set the virtual networks correctly.