Chapter 7. Setting up a legacy printer


You can use the printer applications for supporting legacy printers which do not support driverless standards. After you install the legacy printer in a printer application, the application makes the legacy printer available for CUPS to use.

Important

Installing printers with classic drivers in CUPS is deprecated.

You can utilize classic CUPS drivers with a modern printing architecture by configuring a legacy printer in a printer application. Currently, RHEL includes printer applications based on the PAPPL, such as lprint and legacy-printer-app. The current PAPPL-based printer applications in RHEL and their TCP ports they are listening at are the following:

  • LPrint: 8000
  • Legacy Printer Application: 8001

7.1. Setting up PAPPL-based printer application

To easily and effectively support various printing requirements and prepare it for installing legacy printers, you can set up a PAPPL-based printer application.

Prerequisites

  • CUPS is configured with a TLS certificate.

Procedure

  1. Install a PAPPL-based printer application package, for example, lprint :

    # dnf install <printer_application_name>
  2. Optional: Enable the port 8000 in firewalld to access the printer application web interface from a remote host:

    # firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=8000/tcp
    # firewall-cmd --reload

    You can check the port in the /etc/lprint.conf configuration file.

  3. Enable and start the service:

    # systemctl enable --now <printer_application_name>

Add legacy printers to a PAPPL-based application to bridge the gap between older hardware and modern driverless environments. This process converts legacy protocols into IPP services, ensuring non-driverless devices remain functional and discoverable on your network.

Prerequisites

  • CUPS is configured with a TLS certificate.
  • The printer application is configured and running.

Procedure

  1. In the printer application home page, click Add Printer.
  2. Choose printer name, device, hostname/IP address in case of network printers, select the driver name from the offered list, and click on the Add Printer. You can also use the auto-detect option to search for the driver.

    Using the auto-detection option for the driver might result in finding an incompatible driver for your device, if the device model is too different from available drivers. Check the assigned driver before printing and change the driver manually to prevent any printing issues.

  3. The used driver is on the second line in the block Status. You can test the functionality by clicking on the Print Test Page.

Add legacy printers to a PAPPL-based application to bridge the gap between older hardware and modern driverless environments. This process converts legacy protocols into IPP services, ensuring non-driverless devices remain functional and discoverable on your network.

Prerequisites

  • CUPS is configured with a TLS certificate.
  • The printer application is set and running.

Procedure

  1. Search the available drivers in PAPPL based printer application:

    # lprint drivers
    zpl_2inch-203dpi-dt "Zebra ZPL 2-inch/203dpi/Direct-Thermal
  2. Install the printer. For example, to install a network printer with a specified driver, enter:

    # lprint add -d <printer name> -v socket://<hostname> -m zpl_2inch-203dpi-dt

Verification

  1. Check printer is visible in the printers list, together with its raw socket for sending raw data:

    # lprint printers
    <printer_name> - printer - ipp://localhost/ipp/print/<printer_name>
    <printer_name> - raw socket - socket://localhost:9101/

You can set up a generated network printer from a dedicated printer application as CUPS permanent queue by using the command line interface.

Prerequisites

  • CUPS is configured with a TLS certificate.
  • You have permission in CUPS to manage printers.
  • The legacy printer is installed in a printer application.

Procedure

  1. Check if the generated network printer is available:

    # lpstat -e
    <printer_name_in_printer_application>
  2. Search for the port that the printer application is using:

    # grep 'server-port=' /etc/lprint.conf
    server-port=8000
  3. Install the permanent queue by using the port number 8000:

    # lpadmin -p <printer_name_in_CUPS> -v ipps://localhost:8000/ipp/print/<printer_name_in_printer_application> -m everywhere -E
  4. Check if CUPS queue is installed:

    # lpstat -a
    <printer_name_in_CUPS>  accepting requests since Wed 07 May 2025 02:31:04 AM EDT
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