[arch-general] Cups 1.6 printer discovery

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mike cloaked

30 Jul 2012 30 Jul '12

9:23 p.m.

Now that cups 1.6 is in core - I have been struggling to get my laptop to "see" a shared printer attached by usb to another machine on the same network - previously if port 631 was open on all machines in the network then cups seemed to make the printer visible on all local machines. I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups but I have not been able to get my laptop to see the cups shared printer on a desktop elsewhere in the same network - does anyone have a link to the key steps in the config to get this working? I did read that under the new system avahi needs to be running on both server and client - but in my case the "server" machine is linux but not arch and still running cups version <1.6 and is not currently running avahi.... Any advice gratefully received. Thanks -- mike c

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Denis A. Altoé Falqueto

30 Jul 30 Jul

9:31 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 4:23 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...

Now that cups 1.6 is in core - I have been struggling to get my laptop to "see" a shared printer attached by usb to another machine on the same network - previously if port 631 was open on all machines in the network then cups seemed to make the printer visible on all local machines.

I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups but I have not been able to get my laptop to see the cups shared printer on a desktop elsewhere in the same network - does anyone have a link to the key steps in the config to get this working?

I did read that under the new system avahi needs to be running on both server and client - but in my case the "server" machine is linux but not arch and still running cups version <1.6 and is not currently running avahi....

Any advice gratefully received.

An easy advice is not update CUPS on your Arch box until you can update your server. You can use IgnorePkg in /etc/pacman.conf. -- A: Because it obfuscates the reading. Q: Why is top posting so bad? For more information, please read: http://idallen.com/topposting.html ------------------------------------------- Denis A. Altoe Falqueto Linux user #524555 -------------------------------------------

mike cloaked

9:33 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 8:31 PM, Denis A. Altoé Falqueto wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 4:23 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
Now that cups 1.6 is in core - I have been struggling to get my laptop to "see" a shared printer attached by usb to another machine on the same network - previously if port 631 was open on all machines in the network then cups seemed to make the printer visible on all local machines.

I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups but I have not been able to get my laptop to see the cups shared printer on a desktop elsewhere in the same network - does anyone have a link to the key steps in the config to get this working?

I did read that under the new system avahi needs to be running on both server and client - but in my case the "server" machine is linux but not arch and still running cups version <1.6 and is not currently running avahi....

Any advice gratefully received.

An easy advice is not update CUPS on your Arch box until you can update your server. You can use IgnorePkg in /etc/pacman.conf.

Yes that is true but it is nice to be up to the cutting edge - so learning how to work with the new version would be useful - and of course I could simply revert cups to the previous version.... -- mike c

Mantas Mikulėnas

9:46 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:23 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...

Now that cups 1.6 is in core - I have been struggling to get my laptop to "see" a shared printer attached by usb to another machine on the same network - previously if port 631 was open on all machines in the network then cups seemed to make the printer visible on all local machines.

I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups but I have not been able to get my laptop to see the cups shared printer on a desktop elsewhere in the same network - does anyone have a link to the key steps in the config to get this working?

Try "BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd" in cupsd.conf.

...

I did read that under the new system avahi needs to be running on both server and client - but in my case the "server" machine is linux but not arch and still running cups version <1.6 and is not currently running avahi....

So install Avahi? If I remember correctly, older CUPS versions support both CUPS and DNS-SD browsing. -- Mantas Mikulėnas

mike cloaked

9:52 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 8:46 PM, Mantas Mikulėnas wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:23 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
Now that cups 1.6 is in core - I have been struggling to get my laptop to "see" a shared printer attached by usb to another machine on the same network - previously if port 631 was open on all machines in the network then cups seemed to make the printer visible on all local machines.

I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups but I have not been able to get my laptop to see the cups shared printer on a desktop elsewhere in the same network - does anyone have a link to the key steps in the config to get this working?

Try "BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd" in cupsd.conf.

...
I did read that under the new system avahi needs to be running on both server and client - but in my case the "server" machine is linux but not arch and still running cups version <1.6 and is not currently running avahi....

So install Avahi? If I remember correctly, older CUPS versions support both CUPS and DNS-SD browsing.

In fact I already had "BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd" in cupsd.conf in my laptop (client) - and on checking the server machine in fact avahi-daemon was already running - though I may need to change a config somewhere to allow it to broadcast dns-sd? I now have avahi-daemon running in the client laptop also but I don't see any printers visible from the server in the local network - one question I don't know is what port the dns-sd traffic needs - I need to ensure that any required port is not blocked in the firewalls. -- mike c

Mantas Mikulėnas

10:02 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:52 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...

In fact I already had "BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd" in cupsd.conf in my laptop (client) - and on checking the server machine in fact avahi-daemon was already running - though I may need to change a config somewhere to allow it to broadcast dns-sd?

Can your laptop see the server machine itself? Use `avahi-discover`, `avahi-browse --all`, or `mdns-scan`. (With nss-mdns installed, the server can also be accessed via `<hostname>.local`)

...

I now have avahi-daemon running in the client laptop also but I don't see any printers visible from the server in the local network - one question I don't know is what port the dns-sd traffic needs - I need to ensure that any required port is not blocked in the firewalls.

mDNS uses port 5353/udp and also relies on IP multicast (which is core part of IPv6, but sometimes breaks in IPv4). -- Mantas Mikulėnas

mike cloaked

10:48 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:02 PM, Mantas Mikulėnas wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:52 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
In fact I already had "BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd" in cupsd.conf in my laptop (client) - and on checking the server machine in fact avahi-daemon was already running - though I may need to change a config somewhere to allow it to broadcast dns-sd?

Can your laptop see the server machine itself?

Use `avahi-discover`, `avahi-browse --all`, or `mdns-scan`. (With nss-mdns installed, the server can also be accessed via `<hostname>.local`)

...
I now have avahi-daemon running in the client laptop also but I don't see any printers visible from the server in the local network - one question I don't know is what port the dns-sd traffic needs - I need to ensure that any required port is not blocked in the firewalls.

mDNS uses port 5353/udp and also relies on IP multicast (which is core part of IPv6, but sometimes breaks in IPv4).

OK I have avahi-daemon running on both client and server - and have just opened up port 5353 on both machines (mdns) avahi-browse --all now sees the printer and opening a browser on localhost:631 and asking to find new printers now sees the cups shared printer and I can now complete a set of menu options and it has set it up nicely. Now the printer is seen on print options - so this is a great success. I think the main key item was opening port 5353 on the firewall.... Thank you for your help. -- mike c

mike cloaked

10:50 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:48 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:02 PM, Mantas Mikulėnas wrote:

...
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:52 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
In fact I already had "BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd" in cupsd.conf in my laptop (client) - and on checking the server machine in fact avahi-daemon was already running - though I may need to change a config somewhere to allow it to broadcast dns-sd?

Can your laptop see the server machine itself?

Use `avahi-discover`, `avahi-browse --all`, or `mdns-scan`. (With nss-mdns installed, the server can also be accessed via `<hostname>.local`)

...
I now have avahi-daemon running in the client laptop also but I don't see any printers visible from the server in the local network - one question I don't know is what port the dns-sd traffic needs - I need to ensure that any required port is not blocked in the firewalls.

mDNS uses port 5353/udp and also relies on IP multicast (which is core part of IPv6, but sometimes breaks in IPv4).

OK I have avahi-daemon running on both client and server - and have just opened up port 5353 on both machines (mdns)

avahi-browse --all now sees the printer and opening a browser on localhost:631 and asking to find new printers now sees the cups shared printer and I can now complete a set of menu options and it has set it up nicely. Now the printer is seen on print options - so this is a great success.

I think the main key item was opening port 5353 on the firewall....

Thank you for your help.

I did not need to change any of the config in nsswitch.conf and so Mantas was perfectly correct. Mantas - thank you very much for your advice this evening. -- mike c

mike cloaked

10:58 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:50 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...

...
OK I have avahi-daemon running on both client and server - and have just opened up port 5353 on both machines (mdns)

avahi-browse --all now sees the printer and opening a browser on localhost:631 and asking to find new printers now sees the cups shared printer and I can now complete a set of menu options and it has set it up nicely. Now the printer is seen on print options - so this is a great success.

I think the main key item was opening port 5353 on the firewall....

Thank you for your help.

Actually I am not quite there - the printer appears set up but when I tried printing to it nothing came through on the printer! A little more investigation needed now.... -- mike c

mike cloaked

11:34 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:58 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:50 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
...
OK I have avahi-daemon running on both client and server - and have just opened up port 5353 on both machines (mdns)

avahi-browse --all now sees the printer and opening a browser on localhost:631 and asking to find new printers now sees the cups shared printer and I can now complete a set of menu options and it has set it up nicely. Now the printer is seen on print options - so this is a great success.

I think the main key item was opening port 5353 on the firewall....

Thank you for your help.

Actually I am not quite there - the printer appears set up but when I tried printing to it nothing came through on the printer!

A little more investigation needed now.... --

It is strange - I rebooted the client - now the printer is not visible in localost:631 - but if I re-run avahi-browse --all it is there again - and after that I can see the printer in the cups browser management interface. Do you have to set up the printer from scratch each time the machine is booted? Surely it is possible to make the defined printer stick when using dns-sd? However I still have not succeeded in sending a print to the printer once defined. -- mike c

mike cloaked

11:40 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:34 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:58 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:50 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
...
OK I have avahi-daemon running on both client and server - and have just opened up port 5353 on both machines (mdns)

avahi-browse --all now sees the printer and opening a browser on localhost:631 and asking to find new printers now sees the cups shared printer and I can now complete a set of menu options and it has set it up nicely. Now the printer is seen on print options - so this is a great success.

I think the main key item was opening port 5353 on the firewall....

Thank you for your help.

Actually I am not quite there - the printer appears set up but when I tried printing to it nothing came through on the printer!

A little more investigation needed now.... --

It is strange - I rebooted the client - now the printer is not visible in localost:631 - but if I re-run avahi-browse --all it is there again - and after that I can see the printer in the cups browser management interface.

Do you have to set up the printer from scratch each time the machine is booted? Surely it is possible to make the defined printer stick when using dns-sd?

However I still have not succeeded in sending a print to the printer once defined.

I get a popup in KDE saying that the printer may not be connected and in the cups management interface I see: processing since Mon 30 Jul 2012 22:38:01 BST "Unable to locate printer "home1.local"." I am now wondering if the fact that the server is cups version cups-1.5.2-9.fc16.x86_64 whereas on the laptop I have the new 1.6 version that maybe the pre 1.6 version on the server is not playing nicely - or if I have some additional config work to do? It is late here and I have to quit for tonight.... I will have to follow up on this tomorrow. -- mike c

mike cloaked

31 Jul 31 Jul

11:53 a.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:40 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:34 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:58 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:50 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
...
OK I have avahi-daemon running on both client and server - and have just opened up port 5353 on both machines (mdns)

avahi-browse --all now sees the printer and opening a browser on localhost:631 and asking to find new printers now sees the cups shared printer and I can now complete a set of menu options and it has set it up nicely. Now the printer is seen on print options - so this is a great success.

I think the main key item was opening port 5353 on the firewall....

Thank you for your help.

Actually I am not quite there - the printer appears set up but when I tried printing to it nothing came through on the printer!

A little more investigation needed now.... --

It is strange - I rebooted the client - now the printer is not visible in localost:631 - but if I re-run avahi-browse --all it is there again - and after that I can see the printer in the cups browser management interface.

Do you have to set up the printer from scratch each time the machine is booted? Surely it is possible to make the defined printer stick when using dns-sd?

However I still have not succeeded in sending a print to the printer once defined.

I get a popup in KDE saying that the printer may not be connected and in the cups management interface I see:

processing since Mon 30 Jul 2012 22:38:01 BST "Unable to locate printer "home1.local"."

I am now wondering if the fact that the server is cups version cups-1.5.2-9.fc16.x86_64 whereas on the laptop I have the new 1.6 version that maybe the pre 1.6 version on the server is not playing nicely - or if I have some additional config work to do?

It is late here and I have to quit for tonight.... I will have to follow up on this tomorrow.

After installing nss-mdns on the server machine and restarting avahi-daemon there, and also adding the appropriate lines to /etc/nsswitch.conf on the client arch laptop I can now set up the printer via dnssd on the laptop, and have made a bit more progress since asking cups to send a test page does indeed start the printer going - however it sends an interminable set of pages full of distorted lines which I can only stop by switching off the printer physically and restarting it! So there is something not quite right with the data sent from the client to the server! So I guess that at this stage the definition of the printer using the splix packages on the client laptop fails to work properly for print files sent via dnssd - despite having splix run the printer perfectly well on the server to which it is attached when sending prints from applications on the server machine! However the server is running Fedora F16 - so I don't know if there is a difference between the splix packages on Fedora and arch, or not, and whether maybe I will have to instead use a proprietary ppd file (which I do have from several years ago used before the splix package was mature enough to run the printer from the server for the past couple of years) Anyway I will now explore that to see if I can define a working printer on arch. (It is a Samsung SCX-4500W if anyone is interested) -- mike c

Andreas Radke

4:48 p.m.

Wow. I could never imagine such a crazy setup just to get a client printing. It has been now for years possible to get the clients printing with only libcups installed and no daemon needed at on the clients. This is all in our wiki! Again: if you know your server's IP or hostname you don't need to run any daemon on the client. Neither cupsd nor avahi! -Andy

Damjan

4:49 p.m.

...

So I guess that at this stage the definition of the printer using the splix packages on the client laptop fails to work properly for print files sent via dnssd -

Files, or better said, print jobs are not sent via dnssd. dnssd is only used for service discovery so that you can avoid setting the remote printer manually. The print jobs are sent via the IPP protocol as ever.

...

However the server is running Fedora F16 - so I don't know if there is a difference between the splix packages on Fedora and arch, or not, and whether maybe I will have to instead use a proprietary ppd file (which I do have from several years ago used before the splix package was mature enough to run the printer from the server for the past couple of years)

Anyway I will now explore that to see if I can define a working printer on arch. (It is a Samsung SCX-4500W if anyone is interested)

Try to connect the printer directly to your Arch system and see what you get. (splix??) -- дамјан

Jonathan Hudson

30 Jul 30 Jul

10:06 p.m.

On Mon, 30 Jul 2012 20:52:55 +0100, mike cloaked wrote:

...

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 8:46 PM, Mantas Mikulėnas wrote:

...
On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 10:23 PM, mike cloaked wrote:

...
Now that cups 1.6 is in core - I have been struggling to get my laptop to "see" a shared printer attached by usb to another machine on the same network - previously if port 631 was open on all machines in the network then cups seemed to make the printer visible on all local machines.

I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups but I have not been able to get my laptop to see the cups shared printer on a desktop elsewhere in the same network - does anyone have a link to the key steps in the config to get this working?

Try "BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd" in cupsd.conf.

...
I did read that under the new system avahi needs to be running on both server and client - but in my case the "server" machine is linux but not arch and still running cups version <1.6 and is not currently running avahi....

So install Avahi? If I remember correctly, older CUPS versions support both CUPS and DNS-SD browsing.

In fact I already had "BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd" in cupsd.conf in my laptop (client) - and on checking the server machine in fact avahi-daemon was already running - though I may need to change a config somewhere to allow it to broadcast dns-sd?

I now have avahi-daemon running in the client laptop also but I don't see any printers visible from the server in the local network - one question I don't know is what port the dns-sd traffic needs - I need to ensure that any required port is not blocked in the firewalls.

Do you have the nss-mdns package installed and a suitable entry in /etc/nsswitch.conf (hosts: dns files mdns works for me, but there is some discussion in the wiki about it).

Mantas Mikulėnas

10:42 p.m.

On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 11:06 PM, Jonathan Hudson wrote:

...

Do you have the nss-mdns package installed and a suitable entry in /etc/nsswitch.conf (hosts: dns files mdns works for me, but there is some discussion in the wiki about it).

This is useful, but normally not needed for DNS-SD to function – Avahi clients do not use the system's resolver when performing service discovery, but contact the daemon directly. -- Mantas Mikulėnas

Kevin Chadwick

11:31 p.m.

...

I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups

I just hope your kidding!!! -- _______________________________________________________________________ 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface' (Doug McIlroy) _______________________________________________________________________

Jelle van der Waa

31 Jul 31 Jul

10:48 a.m.

On 30/07/12 23:31, Kevin Chadwick wrote:

...

...
I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups

I just hope your kidding!!!

http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/whatsnew.html -- Jelle van der Waa

Kevin Chadwick

11:32 a.m.

...

...
...
I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups

...

...
I just hope your kidding!!!

http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/whatsnew.html

Thanks "Bonjour Support; Bonjour printer sharing and discovery is now also supported using Avahi." Also supported? I can't see it affecting network printers using IPP in any case anyway. -- _______________________________________________________________________ 'Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface' (Doug McIlroy) _______________________________________________________________________

Mantas Mikulėnas

12:33 p.m.

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Kevin Chadwick wrote:

...

"Bonjour Support; Bonjour printer sharing and discovery is now also supported using Avahi."

Also supported?

"Also supported" means "you can now use Avahi instead of Bonjour", as DNS-SD support in previous versions was limited to Mac OS X. The removal of CUPS Browsing is mentioned in http://cyberelk.net/tim/2012/02/06/cups-1-6-changes-ahead/. It makes sense, since DNS-SD is more efficient, and Apple already use it for a whole ton of other programs.

...

I can't see it affecting network printers using IPP in any case anyway.

That's right, it only affects printer discovery. -- Mantas Mikulėnas

mike cloaked

12:53 p.m.

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Mantas Mikulėnas wrote:

...

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 12:32 PM, Kevin Chadwick wrote:

...
"Bonjour Support; Bonjour printer sharing and discovery is now also supported using Avahi."

Also supported?

"Also supported" means "you can now use Avahi instead of Bonjour", as DNS-SD support in previous versions was limited to Mac OS X.

The removal of CUPS Browsing is mentioned in http://cyberelk.net/tim/2012/02/06/cups-1-6-changes-ahead/. It makes sense, since DNS-SD is more efficient, and Apple already use it for a whole ton of other programs.

...
I can't see it affecting network printers using IPP in any case anyway.

That's right, it only affects printer discovery.

I finally got my printer working - by setting the correct settings into nsswitch.conf and running avahi-daemon I can see the printer - though it turns out that the printer definition in the client machine needs a proprietary ppd file (and proprietary raster file in the cups filter directory) and all then works well - strangely although the splix package works fine on Fedora - on arch the splix package fails to support my printer so I guess the two packages are different. Also I think that the old cups sharing meant that all the printing was handled in the server machine - but now the printer also needs to be defined in the client machine with its own drivers - which is rather different from the pre-1.6 behaviour - at least when the client is on cups v1.6 and the server is cups 1.5 However at least I have shown that printer sharing is possible and does work in cups 1.6 so I have an operational print facility again in my arch laptop. -- mike c

Tom Gundersen

12:58 p.m.

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 11:32 AM, Kevin Chadwick wrote:

...

...
...
...
I have been reading that avahi-daemon needs to be running for printer discovery to work with the new version of cups

...
...
I just hope your kidding!!!

http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/whatsnew.html

Thanks

"Bonjour Support; Bonjour printer sharing and discovery is now also supported using Avahi."

Also supported?

I can't see it affecting network printers using IPP in any case anyway.

http://cyberelk.net/tim/2012/02/06/cups-1-6-changes-ahead/ -t

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participants (9)

Andreas Radke
Damjan
Denis A. Altoé Falqueto
Jelle van der Waa
Jonathan Hudson
Kevin Chadwick
Mantas Mikulėnas
mike cloaked
Tom Gundersen