[cups.development] Deleting printers that have no backend

Jim Fehlig jfehlig at novell.com
Wed Aug 31 10:01:51 PDT 2005


I have encountered configurations where it is possible to have printers 
installed with no corresponding backend to communicate with the target 
device.  Details can be provided at how I arrived at such a 
configuration, but don't believe it is terribly relevant.

I would like to get the community's thoughts on providing a patch that 
would delete printers for which there is no corresponding backend to 
service the queue.  I have looked into deleting the printer when a job 
is processed and we find that exec()ing the backend fails with ENOENT.  
Such a patch appears to be fairly simple but wanted to get some feedback 
before creating it.

An alternate approach would be to check for necessary programs (filters 
and backends?) for installed printers during initialization of cupsd and 
removing those for which there is no hope for success.  Perhaps a config 
item or command line option to control this behavior?

I may be overlooking scenarios where such behavior is undesirable, but 
will happily provide a patch if this functionality is deemed appropriate.

Thanks in advance.
Jim Fehlig





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