Can't set default printer

[Jeffrey Goldberg]

When I run lpadmin as root on my SuSE 9.3 system, to set a default 
printer, I get

# lpadmin -d HFC-8440
lpadmin: set-default failed: client-error-not-found


A first (and reasonable guess) would be that CUPS doesn't know about the 
printer.

HFC-8440 is connected via USB to another host on the local network, 
doing both SMB printer sharing and IPP.  (It's CUPS on OS X)

I do have reason to believe that CUPS knows about this printer because 
when I use http://localhost:631/ and go to printers it is listed.  And 
using that interface, I can successfully print a test page.

But when I use that web based system to set this printer as a default 
printer I get.

  Forbidden

  You don't have permission to access the resource on this server.

I have used

   lppasswd -g sys -u root

to set up a root account, the :631 server doesn't seem to be asking me 
for a user name and password.

It looks to me that I have two, possibly separate problems.

(1) CUPS is "seeing" this remote printer in some fashions, but not others

(2) Some kind of authentication/authorization problem through the web 
interface.

The two problems are conspiring in a way that makes the printing system 
unusable to me.

Can someone help me out here.  The more I read about IPP the more I'm 
convinced that it is the "right thing".  But if I can't get it to work, 
I'll have to resort to using LPD

Cheers,

-j