[cups] Is client.conf really deprecated on all platforms?

[Michael Sweet]

Sebastiaan,

> On Oct 29, 2015, at 5:04 PM, Sebastiaan Lokhorst <sebastiaanlokhorst at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The man page for client.conf says "client.conf - client configuration file
> for cups (deprecated)".
> 
> I understand that client.conf is already unusable on OS X, but it is not
> clear to me if it will also be useless on Linux systems. If so, will there
> be an alternative, or will CUPS completely abandon the server/client model?
> Also, if this will be the case, any idea when this might happen?

Even on Linux, you cannot assume you have arbitrary network access or even access to the ~/.cups/client.conf file.  We have had reports of issues with applications and toolkits incorrectly assuming this and never retrying their connection to the server listed in the client.conf file, preventing printing from working for the rest of the life of the application.

This isn't a matter of "abandoning the server/client model", this is an issue of better allowing the client to discover the server(s) and printer(s) to use.

We introduced new client APIs for applications and toolkits to use in CUPS 1.4, but so far they have not been adopted.  Future versions of these APIs will also include LDAP support in addition to the current local and Bonjour/DNS-SD shared printer support, allowing for much more flexible and reliable discovery of printers by clients.

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Michael Sweet, Senior Printing System Engineer, PWG Chair