CUPS Virtualization

Greg Surbey gregsurbey at hotmail.com
Wed May 10 12:40:33 PDT 2006


Hello all, I'm new here.  My main background is in Linux administration and coding in C++.  I would like to become a developer for CUPS, and more specifically I would like to be able to virtualize CUPS.  CUPS has not been designed for virtualization of its service to allow for separation of printers and queues into distinct client realms. This lack of virtualization functionality is incongruous to some of the other popular ASP (Application Service Provider) run Open Source client/server platforms such as Apache, Sendmail, Qmail, and Vsftp.  There are wrappers available such as http://www.prongs.org/virtfs/ but those are kluges.

I currently work for an ASP that requires printing services to be available to many different clients.  My company has a need for CUPS to be virtualized.  Therefore it is my optimistic goal, while wearing my developer hat, to integrate virtualization functionality into the CUPS core.  I believe if implemented correctly this feature could befit the whole community.  I am only at the beginning stages of this idea and I have not yet extensively explored the CUPS source code, nor have I formulated a formal code design plan; but if all goes well in the coming weeks I will be doing those things.
I am very interested in any feedback about this idea.  I also would be very interested in anyone willing to give help and pointers to get me started.

--
Greg Surbey




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