Setting Up and Administering Printers by Using the CUPS Web Browser Interface

You can use the CUPS web browser GUI to manage your printing environment in Oracle Solaris 11. This section describes the requirements to use the web browser interface and the administration tasks that you can perform.

Requirements for Using the CUPS Web Browser Interface

To access the web browser interface, go to http://localhost:631. The CUPS web browser interface can be accessed from all supported browsers. Depending on the task that you are performing, you might be prompted for a user name and password, or for the root role and password.

Note the following requirements for using the CUPS web browser interface:

• The CUPS software packages must be installed on the host that is accessing the CUPS web pages. If you are running the Oracle Solaris 11 release, these software packages are installed on your system by default.

  The following CUPS packages are required:

  • cups

  • cups-libs

  • foomatic-db

  • foomatic-db-engine

• The CUPS scheduler, svc:/application/cups/scheduler, must also be running on the host.

  To verify that the CUPS scheduler is running, open a terminal window and type the following command:

  $ svcs cups/scheduler
  STATE          STIME    FMRI
  online         10:07:54 svc:/application/cups/scheduler:default

• The JavaScript scripting language must be supported and enabled on the browser that you are using to access the CUPS web pages.

  Most current browsers support the use of the JavaScript language. To determine whether the JavaScript language is enabled, check your browser's Preferences menu.

Troubleshooting Issues With Accessing the CUPS Web Browser Interface

If you encounter an error while attempting to access the CUPS web browser interface or you cannot access the interface, see Requirements for Using the CUPS Web Browser Interface to ensure that all of the requirements have been met. In addition, verify your browser's proxy settings to determine whether a proxy server has been configured. If so, try disabling the proxy server, then re-attempt to access the CUPS web browser interface.

To determine whether the CUPS web browser interface is running, you can also attempt to connect to the CUPS port (Port 631) by typing the telnet command in a terminal window, as follows:

mymachine% telnet localhost 631
Trying ::1...
Connected to mymachine
Escape character is ^].
^]q
telnet> q
Connection to mymachine closed.
mymachine%

To stop the telnet session, press the Control-]. To quit the telnet session, type q.

Print Administration Tasks

Common print administration tasks that you can perform by using the CUPS web browser interface include the following:

• Customizing a print server setup

• Pointing a print client to a common print server

• Setting up and managing directly-attached printers and printer classes on servers

• Setting up and managing remote printers and printer classes on servers

• Managing print jobs from print clients

When you first access the CUPS web browser interface at http://localhost:631, you see the Home tab. From this tab, you can access all of the print administration tasks, which are grouped together by category, as well as the full set of CUPS documentation.

The following tabs are displayed on the web browser interface's main web page:

• Administration – Enables you to access most print administration tasks, including CUPS server configuration.

  You can directly access the Administration section of the web browser interface by going to http://localhost:631/admin.

• Classes – Enables you to search printer classes.

  CUPS provides collections of printers, which are called printer classes. Print jobs that are sent to a class are forwarded to the first available printer in that class. Classes can be members of other classes. Therefore, you can define very large, distributed printer classes for high-availability printing.

• Documentation – Enables you to access the CUPS documentation, which includes manuals, system administration documentation, FAQs, and online help.

• Jobs – Enables you to view and manage print jobs for configured printers.

• Printers – Enables you to view information about and modify the settings of a specified printer.

About the Administration Tab

Most printing tasks can be performed from the Administration tab. Note that some tasks can be performed from multiple tabs. Basic server settings can also be changed from the Administration tab. For more information about CUPS server configuration, see the cupsd.conf(5) man page.

The following figure shows the contents of the Administration tab of the CUPS web browser interface.

The following table describes the task categories and individual tasks that can be performed from the Administration tab.

About the Printers Tab

The Printers tab enables you to view and modify information for configured print queues, as illustrated in the following figure.

From the Printers tab, you can also perform the following tasks:

• Print a test page

• Stop the printer

• Reject a print job

• Move a print job

• Cancel all print jobs

• Unpublish the printer

• Modify a printer

• Set printer options

• Delete a printer

• Set the printer as the default

• Set allowed users for a printer

How to Add a New Printer

1. Access the Administration tab by going to http://localhost:631/admin.
2. Click the Add Printer button.
3. If prompted, type your login user name and password, or log in as the root role and password.
4. Follow the prompts to complete the process.