Job hold and release using printer's own hardware

[John A. Murdie]

CUPS implements job hold and release, of course, such that a print job held by the CUPS server can be released from a web browser or specialised application running on a PC (either a desktop or a small-board computer) or even a user's iPhone or iPod Touch (!) etc next to the printer. (Except that the iPhone etc don't do Kerberos, which we use for CUPS authentication.) A second method of job hold and release would be for the printing system to send the job to a Multi-Function Device (MFD) - i.e. printer/copier etc - marked in such a way that the MFD itself will hold the job until the user releases it via the front panel.

I think that the first method - implemented, I've been told, for instance, by http://www.pykota.com/ - is probably superior (one can move the job to and release it at any printer), but (as far as I know) it does require extra hardware to be dedicated to each printer.

Is there a solution which permits held CUPS jobs to be released using a printer's own hardware? Is either the first or the second method above thus possible? Clearly 'Yes' (first method), for a printer which had a front-panel web browser (which system required users to authenticate for the CUPS server), but what if, like us, you have Ricoh MFDs and may end up with HP MFDs? (There are some smaller HP printers with integrated - limited? - web browsers, I gather, but I doubt that these 'speak' Kerberos.)

John A. Murdie