Converting existing BSD printcap to printers.conf

Michael Sweet mike at easysw.com
Tue Jan 9 05:29:16 PST 2007


paul boin wrote:
> I'm surprised to find a lack of information on converting a BSD-style
> printcap into printers.conf.

Mainly because printcap files don't provide enough information to
do a good auto-conversion.  In CUPS, we normally deal with PPD files
along with the printers.conf file to describe how to print to a
printer.  The PPD file brings in printer-specific filters (if any)
while the printers.conf file describes where to send the print data.

> We've got a well-established printcap that gets pushed out to all of
> our linux boxes, but I'd like to have those entries populated into
> CUPS automaticaly.  (RHEL, by the way.)

You might want to consider a using one or more dedicated print
servers instead, and use printer sharing to distribute the printers
to the rest of the systems on your network.  Then you don't need to
push the CUPS configuration and your default printer concerns are
automatically addressed.

If you must push the full configuration, you'll need to push both
printers.conf and the /etc/cups/ppd directory.  The lpoptions file
(either /etc/cups/lpoptions or ~/.cups/lpoptions) can be used to
define per-system/user defaults.

Either way, I would recommend starting from scratch rather than
converting the printcap file - you'll get better results.

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




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