Chapter 10. Using cups-browsed to locally integrate printers from a remote print server
The cups-browsed service uses DNS service discovery (DNS-SD) and CUPS browsing to make all or a filtered subset of shared remote printers automatically available in a local CUPS service.
For example, administrators can use this feature on workstations to make only printers from a trusted print server available in a print dialog of applications. It is also possible to configure cups-browsed to filter the browsed printers by certain criteria to reduce the number of listed printers if a print server shares a large number of printers.
If the print dialog in an application uses other mechanisms than, for example DNS-SD, to list remote printers, cups-browsed has no influence. The cups-browsed service also does not prevent users from manually accessing non-listed printers.
Prerequisites
- The CUPS service is configured on the local host.
A remote CUPS print server exists, and the following conditions apply to this server:
- The server listens on an interface that is accessible from the client.
-
The
Allow fromparameter in the server’s<Location />directive in the/etc/cups/cups.conffile allows access from the client’s IP address. - The server shares printers.
- Firewall rules allow access from the client to the CUPS port on the server.
Procedure
Edit the
/etc/cups/cups-browsed.conffile, and make the following changes:Add
BrowsePollparameters for each remote CUPS server you want to poll:BrowsePoll remote_cups_server.example.com BrowsePoll 192.0.2.100:1631
Append
:<port>to the hostname or IP address if the remote CUPS server listens on a port different from 631.Optional: Configure a filter to limit which printers are shown in the local CUPS service. For example, to filter for queues whose name contain
sales_, add:BrowseFilter name sales_You can filter by different field names, negate the filter, and match the exact values. For further details, see the parameter description and examples in the
cups-browsed.conf(5)man page on your system.Optional: Change the polling interval and timeout to limit the number of browsing cycles:
BrowseInterval 1200 BrowseTimeout 6000
Increase both
BrowseIntervalandBrowseTimeoutin the same ratio to avoid situations in which printers disappear from the browsing list. This mean, multiply the value ofBrowseIntervalby 5 or a higher integer, and use this result value forBrowseTimeout.By default,
cups-browsedpolls remote servers every 60 seconds and the timeout is 300 seconds. However, on print servers with many queues, these default values can cost many resources.
Enable and start the
cups-browsedservice:# systemctl enable --now cups-browsed
Verification
List the available printers:
# lpstat -v device for Demo-printer: implicitclass://Demo-printer/ ...
If the output for a printer contains
implicitclass,cups-browsedmanages the printer in CUPS.
Additional resources
-
cups-browsed.conf(5)man page on your system
