CUPS backend issue writing to file

Daniel Stoeck trashmay at googlemail.com
Fri Apr 30 08:00:35 PDT 2010


Hello everybody,

I am trying to set up a virtual printer that writes postscript files to the harddrive. After that these ps-files are postprocessed by an Acrobat Distiller with professional DTP joboptions, but that shall not be important now. My problem happens earlier.

I am using a cups backend which is pretty simple. After some exception handling it just does the following in short (if you need the complete backend, just say so):

FILE=$6
TARGETFILE=${DEVICE_URI#filewrite:}/${TITLE}.ps
cat $FILE > $TARGETFILE

The path where cups writes the file is given in the DEVICE-URI. This works pretty well on my Macbook Pro with Mac OS X 10.6.3 and CUPS 1.4.3. (As an example: the DEVICE-URI looks like filewrite:/tmp/postscripts/) Now I wanted to transfer the whole story on our Mac OS X Server running 10.6.x and also CUPS 1.4.3. But the printer doesn't want to work. (My goal is to use CUPS with around 40 virtual printers, every single one just writing postscript files to particular hotfolders where the ps-files are getting processed furthermore)

I can add the printer with the same settings as on my Macbook Pro with non-SERVER Mac OS X. But when I try to print anything I get the following error message: "The printing software was not installed correctly. Reinstall the printing software or call your vendor." (Translated from the german error message "Die Druckersoftware wurde nicht korrekt installiert. Installieren Sie die Druckersoftware erneut oder wenden Sie sich an den Hersteller.")

* the Mac OS X Server is a raw installation with the newest system updates
* I tried several PPD files
* the write-permissions to the $TARGETFILE path are given
* the backend has +x permissions to be executed

I made a screenshot from the only error I get. You can find it here: http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/4072/screenqac.png

I do not know any further. Please help me :)




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