Migration to Broadcast only

[Michael Sweet]

angelb at bugarin.us wrote:
> ...
> Let me start with this: Does the client need to know what printers are
> available, changes made, printer status, offline, online, etc? No, the
> clients doesnt have to know these details because the servers already
> know that.

Actually, no, the clients need to know the servers and the printers.
Otherwise, every time a client shows a print dialog, displays queue
statuses, etc., you'll get a network storm that will put the CUPS
broadcasts to shame.

> So then, if the clients doesn't know anything about the printers in the
> servers, how can it request a print service? Simple, the cupsd.
> 
> Here's where I'm getting at: If I wanted to print a document to a
> printer, I should just be able to pick a printer name off the air and
> let the cupsd take that name and along with my document and forward it
> to the servers. It's up to the servers to resolve that printer name
> whether it exist or not, offline or online, etc, and then sends back
> a reply or status to the client accordingly.

And how does the user know the name?  By selecting it from a list.
How do we get a list?  There are several ways - the CUPS protocol is
one way, DNS-SD, LDAP, and SLP are others that will be supported in
CUPS 1.2.

> It's like DNS, not that I'm an expert in DNS or anything, when a user
> enters a www name on its browser, the user does not need to know
> whether that name resolves or even response? No, it relies entirely on
> the browser to do all the work for him and the browser will return the
> appropriate site or error message accordingly. If the cuspd on the
> client system can function that way, I'd say it's far better and more
> efficient than sticking with the printers list.

And do you want users to type in printer names all the time?  I don't
think so...

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