[cups.general] Secure print?

[Johannes Meixner]

Hello,

On Jun 12 11:04 franz.pfoertsch.brose wrote (excerpt):
> But most important seems to me, more and more people are asking about
> enhancements of the ppd to allow secureprint, printing off pdf
> directly without generating postscript.
> And there is no standard, an no tools to generate the ppds.

Printing PDF directly means the printer "understands" PDF
which means it is (usually) a PostScript+PDF printer.

For PostScript and PostScript+whatever printers it is the
printer manufacturer who is first and foremost responsible
to provide appropriate PPDs so that his customers can use
the features of the printers appropriately.
In particular because there is no standard how features
like "mailbox print" and "secure print" is done - each
printer manufacturer has his own method.

Your example to use the "mailbox print" feature of
Canon IR multifunction devices in
http://www.pfoertsch.net/wiki/index.php/Main/CuPs
is what the manufacturer of the multifunction device
has to provide in his PPD - it is simple traditional JCL.
If it is missing, inform the manufacturer about his bug
in his PPD.

When the traditional PPD keywords are insufficient,
CUPS supports PPD extensions which are described at
http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.5/spec-ppd.html

I think that for "secure print" in particular the
CUPS "Custom Options" PPD extensions are of interest like:
----------------------------------------------------------------
*% Custom JCL key code option
*CustomJCLPasscode True: "@PJL SET PASSCODE = \1<0A>"
*ParamCustomJCLPasscode Code/Key Code: 1 passcode 4 4
----------------------------------------------------------------

For the "secure print" feature of Canon IR multifunction devices
using CUPS "Custom Options" PPD extensions it might look like:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
*% Custom JCL key code option
*CustomJCLPasscode True: "@PJL COMMENT CANPJL SET SECUREPASSWD=\1<0A>"
*ParamCustomJCLPasscode Code/Key Code: 1 passcode 4 4
----------------------------------------------------------------------

If the "secure print" feature needs a special filter to be run
it is first and foremost the manufacturer who knows what to do
to make his particular way of "secure print" work so that he
can provide a filter script and have in his PPD a matching
"cupsFilter" entry.

Because "secure print" happens usually on PostScript printers
a single "cupsFilter" entry is sufficient so that there is usually
no need for the new "cupsFilter2" functionality in CUPS 1.5.

Depending on which level of security the admin actually needs
he may have to make sure that print job data which may contain
strings like "@PJL SET PASSCODE=1234" is sent only encrypted
via network to the printer which means to access the printer
only via a network protocol that supports encryption which
is - as far as I know - only IPP but often IPP is not well
supported on network printers, see
http://www.cups.org/documentation.php/doc-1.5/network.html

I don't know if there are printing dialogs which support
the CUPS PPD extensions, in particular which support that
the user can enter values like a passcode or a password.


> Is anybody on the list, who has the opportunities, skill
> and resources and so on, to work on this?

Hello, printer manufacturers, where are you?
;-)


Kind Regards
Johannes Meixner
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