[cups.bugs] problem with lpd reserve=on option

Michael Sweet mike at easysw.com
Tue Jul 13 19:18:59 PDT 2004


Anonymous wrote:
 > ...
> CUPS doesnt advertise itself as a network printer ONLY solution. Its
> quite legitimate to use CUPS to talk to a (legacy) LPD server on a
> NIX box. Users have many reasons for maintaining these LPD streams
> (eg Accounting). At any rate the job limit is 11 per network printer,
> not per user. You make it sound common to have more than 11 network
> printers. I disagree. The *most* likely scenario is exactly one
> network printer.

That is not my experience, and I have been doing UNIX printing since
1988.

 > You deliberately stepped outside RFC 1179 because of
> performance issues. This would be okay if you flagged this in some

Not really performance, but usability.  When you have more than 11
simultaneous jobs going, it is quite common for some jobs to be
delayed for a very long time - this doesn't bog down the server,
but *does* keep the job from printing which is an enormous problem
for users who depend on printing.

> ...
> BTW If you have reserve=any does that mean the cups client will try
> to use a port in the range 1 to 1023? Why dont you just try to follow
> the RFC first, then try alternatives in the case of failure?

Because in our experience our customers (the people that have paid
for CUPS directly or indirectly) use more than 11 queues connected
to printers and print servers which either want or do not want a
privileged port.  Most do not require a privileged port, and of
those that do less than 1% require a source port from 721 to 732.

 > If version 1.1.21 uses a port outside the RFC range while communicating
> to Mandrake 8 and its ilk, it will fail.

Actually, no, since LPRng was used prior to CUPS, and LPRng does
not depend on a privileged port.

> Adherance to any RFC, even if restrictive, helps massively in
> debugging. It gives the user a frame work to test within. One of the
> many things I like about Linux is that almost all GNU inspired
> projects adhere to RFC's first and then give alternatives.

RFC 1179 is an informational RFC, not a standard RFC.  There is an
enormous difference, and if you read it you'll notice that the
author states that it merely documents the common implementation
of the "LPD protocol" and does not define a standard.  Most network
printers do not conform to the RFC (no copy support, no multi-file
support, strange restrictions on the order of control commands and
files, no formatting support, etc.), so the LPD backend has been
developed and modified in order to work with the most devices
possible out-of-the-box.

> Also: I looked for evidence of the originating port number in
> error_log on the cups client side and couldnt find it
> (loglevel=debug2). Is it in there? Everything else seems to be!

You should see a debug message of the form:

     [Job ###] Connected on ports ### (local ###)...

> Also: When I create (using the command line lpadmin prog - the GUI
> should not be mentioned in polite company) the remote LPD printer,

Which GUI?  You mean the web interface?  Or ???

> the printcap file that gets created bears little resemblance to the
> options passed to lpadmin. If CUPS is running the whole (LPD backend)
 > ...

The printcap file that CUPS optionally creates is there solely for
legacy applications that read it to get a list of available
printers.  If you want the CUPS configuration file, look at
/etc/cups/printers.conf, or use the appropriate commands or IPP
requests.

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Printing Software for UNIX                       http://www.easysw.com




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