[cups] Restrict the visibility of printers

[Michael Sweet]

Michael,

> On Nov 21, 2014, at 7:42 AM, Michael Kiermaier <michael.kiermaier at uni-bayreuth.de> wrote:
> 
> I'm running a cups server managing several printers.
> On the network, there are different clients (identified by their IP)
> which are allowed to print on different selections of the printers.
> I've managed to restrict the rights by using policies.
> 
> However, every client sees all the printers of the print server,
> including the forbidden ones. I would like to restrict this, such that
> every only sees those printers which he is allowed to use.
> 
> I've considered the following variants:
> 
> * Announcing the printers by dns-sd: I didn't find a way to set a
>  different IP range depending on the announced printer.

There isn't unless you manually manage zones on your DNS server.

> * Putting the print server into the client's /etc/cups/client.conf
>  This shows all the printers of the print server to the client, an
>  again I don't know how to restrict the selection.

You can restrict by user/group.

> * On each host: Setting up a printer queue for each allowed printer.
>  Probably this would work, but it is not really an option since it
>  involves a lot of administration effort.

There are users/admins that do this, typically using scripts.

> * Running several instances of cups, one for each policy.
>  This seems overly complicated and I really don't want to do this.

While there are valid situations for doing this, it isn't something I would recommend for this sort of thing.

_________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer, PWG Chair