Supporting low-end print servers, e.g., NSLU2

[Anonymous]

> Del Merritt wrote:
> > ...
> > One more question, though: which document(s) also held this nugget?
> > It seems like it would be a somewhat-common thing to do, and I
> > completely missed it.
>
> Aside from the SAM (which tells you how to add IPP printers) and
> the web interface (which shows you the URLs to use with CUPS), the
> IPP Implementation document describes the URI formats that are
> supported.

I had indeed seen those.  But:

> The only missing bit is "raw" printing to another CUPS server, which
> is a less common configuration...

Perhaps; certainly it's "better" in most cases to have the formating of a file/document happen as close to the printer as possible.  But there will always be dumb-devices out there.

What I still don't quite understand is how CUPS magically understands that my desktop system should format to the device output stage and then send the bits off to the remote print server.  Is this all a function of the PPD?  I.e., when the desktop system fields the command:

   % lpr foo.pdf

Does the desktop CUPS say, "OK, since it came to me, I have to crunch it to raw bits and then pump it to whatever is in the DeviceURI"?  I am fuzzy on the linkage between the ppd and the definition in printers.conf: is it solely the "Info" line that maps to the/a "*NickName:" in the ppd?

Thanks again for your patience,
-Del