[cups.bugs] Unable to change the Printer Name

[Michael Sweet]

Santhosh Hiriyur Shankar wrote:
> Hi all,
> for a existing printer, how can I change the printer name. Is there a
> way by which I can change the printer name through cups or it is not
> possible at all? 

It is not possible directly, however you can create a new printer
based on the old one and then delete the old one.

> I am getting the following response status for my request to change
> attribute printer-name:
>  response status == IPP_OPERATION_NOT_SUPPORTED
> 
> I want to know whether cups do not support renaming the printer at all
> or if it does allow, how can I go about it.
> Any help, pointers will help me a lot.

You cannot rename printers in CUPS.  A simple, local implementation
of a rename script might do:

     lpadmin -p printer -E -v device-uri -i /etc/cups/ppd/oldprinter.ppd
     lpadmin -x oldprinter

I don't see us adding rename support, for several reasons:

     1. Renaming printers can cause issues for pending jobs -
        what to do (local is easy, just move them, but remote
        jobs might still be using the old printer name)

     2. Classes would need to be updated, both locally and
        remotely.

     3. You would need to update the job history and other
        associated data to preserve quotas, policies, etc. for
        the queue.

     4. IPP's Set-Printer-Attributes extension operation defines
        the printer-uri-supported attribute as READ ONLY, and
        that is really that you would be changing since in CUPS
        the printer-name is used to form the printer-uri-supported
        values...

In short, renaming of queues opens a big can of worms if you want to
do it "right", so we aren't going to add it unless someone comes up
with a compelling reason it is needed.

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Internet Printing and Document Software          http://www.easysw.com