[cups.general] recommendations for best cups references for admins

[Helge Blischke]

Tim Mooney wrote:

> 
> All-
> 
> I'm looking for any and all recommendations on the best in-depth
> references on CUPS for system administrators.  I'm relatively new to CUPS,
> though I have a long history of running central print servers in a campus
> environment.  We're currently using LPRng, and I have experience with its
> predecessors (both PLP and the traditional BSD and SysV spooling systems).
> Our print servers are all Linux-based (RHEL 5 currently, potentially RHEL
> 6 if it releases soon enough).  Our main print server uses GoPrint
> (www.goprint.com) cost-recovery software + LPRng, and can receive
> 5000-10000 print jobs a day during busy parts of the semester.
> 
> Obviously it's going to take a while and a lot of experimentation to get
> the same level of knowledge and comfort with CUPS as I currently have with
> BSD-like spoolers (e.g. LPRng), but I'm looking for recommendations on
> what to read to help jump-start that process.
> 
> For example, is Michael Sweet's CUPS book still accurate and relevant?
> It's from nine years ago and some review comments on Amazon indicate that
> it's slanted toward developers rather than system administrators, so I'm a
> little hesitant to just pull the trigger and hope it meets my needs.  Is
> an updated version of the book in the works?
> 
> Anyone have Ankur Shah's "CUPS Administrative Guide" and care to comment
> on how up to date, useful, and relevant that is, especially in comparison
> to other reference materials?
> 
> What other reference materials do people recommend?  Obviously I've
> looked through the various sections of the FAQ, especially the HOW-TO
> section, and the online documentation and man pages that come with CUPS,
> but those tend to be narrowly focused or task-based.  I guess I'm looking
> for something that's similar to the LPRng HOWTO -- both an overview of
> all the pieces and how they fit together, as well as detailed information
> on each of the pieces and how it works.
> 
> I'm certainly capable of going to the source code if needed, but I prefer
> to do that to debug why something works the way it does or isn't working
> as expected, rather than trying to understand the software as a whole.
> 
> Any and all recommendations appreciated,
> 
> Tim

I think using the "CUPS Administrative Guide" as a reference and/or howto 
will be a good idea for you. As it has been published in autumn 2008, I 
think it is recent enough (covering CUPS 1.3.x already).
In addition, I'd recommend Kurt Pfeifle's tutorials/howtos on CUPS and 
SAMBA, which is especially useful if you need to manage printing to Windows 
clients. You'll find the rexpective links somewhere on the openprinting web 
site (note that they redesigned their setup; it might happen that some user 
supplied documents aren't currently accessible).

And, if you have special questions, feel free to ask me off the NG - I 
myselv have administrated a commercial CUPS installation over several yoars.

Helge