Need encryption help & proposals fordocumentation

[David H]

> The SMB backend is provided
> as part of the (separate) Samba software and its usage varies slightly
> depending on the version of Samba you have installed.
>
> ...
>
> So, you can expect that we will continue to not document the SMB
> scheme or how to put a username and password in an SMB URI.  I
> encourage you to file a bug against Samba (directly or via your Linux
> distro of choice) to get this added.

Ok, I'll write a bug report to Samba. Though there probably won't be a section about the SMB URI scheme, it could be mentioned, that CUPS also accepts other URI formats than AppSocket, IPP and LPD and that the user should consult the appropiate documentation of the backend supporting the specific URI scheme, so that a beginner can get an idea where to look for appropiate information. (No, it's not so obvious, where to get the right information.)

> Second, putting a username and password in the URI is not recommended,
> and since CUPS 1.3 we have a proxy authentication mechanism that works
> with both Mac OS X and Linux as long as you are using Tim's printer
> status monitor applet.

Why not? When I configure the printer and add my username and password to the URI, they are stored in /etc/cups/printers.conf which is only readable by root and in the webinterface neither username nor password can be seen by the user.

And what's the name of this printer status monitor applet? Googling for "Tim's printer status monitor applet" or any subset of this words does yield useful results.

> > How do I encrypt the data send to the Windows
> > printerserver?
>
> Current Windows authentication information is not sent as clear-text
> (hasn't been for at least 10 years now).

Good to know. The security issue is more or less solved as I found out that I can make a VPN tunnel to the printerserver.

> > The CUPS documentation surely isn't very detailed and one easily can
> > get confused and therefore not made for beginners and people who want
> > to know how things work.
>
> Even worse when you read the documentation for the wrong software...

Yea, I have learnt my lesson ...