Cups importing/exporting

[angelb]

> Kurt,
>
> Thanks for the reply.  I am using FC6.  I am not getting confused here, but maybe just didnt do a good job at explaining my issue.  I have about 80 servers that are being used as cup servers.  I want to upgrade them to version 1.2.  I want to load the package of all the printers (about 90 printers in total) to each server with the upgrade of the new version.  On version 1.1 it use to have a script that you could use that would allow one server to export the printers and the other server to import them, all done automated.  With version 1.2 I cant find this and what I dont want to do is have to log onto all 80 servers, mostly because they are in different states, to add the printers.  Is there any type of utility that can help me accomplish this?
>
>

If I understand you correctly, you want to upgrade all 80 CUPS servers
running 1.1 to CUPS 1.2? If that's true, here's my two cents:

In CUPS 1.1, you can very easily replicate a server without too much
hassle by symply installing CUPS 1.1 on the server and then copy the
config files(including printer defs) from the existing server to the
new server. But you already know this.

Your problem is how to upgrade all of your 80 servers running CUPS 1.1
into a fully functional CUPS 1.2 with all of the printers intact.

It doesn't matter how many servers you have; it's how many printers you
have to convert from CUPS 1.1 to CUPS 1.2 and how to do it are the
questions that needs to be answered. And by experience, with nearly 2000
printers, converting these to CUPS 1.2 wasn't an easy task. The reason
for this is CUPS 1.2 introduced additional info and fields in the
printers config file that makes it inconvenient to perform a straight-
through upgrade.

Here's how I upgraded my two servers from CUPS 1.1 to CUPS 1.2:

a. Installed and setup a test CUPS 1.2 server.

b. Wrote a script to convert the CUPS 1.1 printer queues into a CUPS 1.2
   format and the output became my script to re-create the printer ques
   in my test CUPS 1.2 server. BTW, when I say format, look at the
   printers.conf file between the two versions and you'll notice they're
   different. Customize your script for those differences accordingly.

c. Once I have all of my printer queues in CUPS 1.2, tested and fully
   functional, I then simply scp the config files to the other servers,
   restarted cupsd and that's it.

This is what you need to figure out: how to convert one CUPS 1.1 printer
que into a CUPS 1.2. If you can do that for one printer queue, then it
don't matter how many printer queues you have because you can script it
then. So, have a test CUPS 1.2 server running, create one printer queue from a CUPS 1.1 server, compare their config file and look at the differences and work from there.

That's how I upgraded my servers. Others may have done it differently.
And if there was an easier and faster way, aaarrg, I wasn't aware of it.

Good luck.

Angel