CUPS (formerly an acronym for Common Unix Printing System,

but now with no official expansion) is a modular printing

system for Unix-like computer operating systems which allows

a computer to act as a print server. A computer running CUPS

is a host that can accept print jobs from client computers,

process them, and send them to the appropriate printer.

If you are using a client with CUPS and a CUPS server has

already been configured, installing the printers on your

client can not get much easier than this: do nothing.

Through broadcasting, the client should find the CUPS server

and automatically configure the printers that are installed

on that print server. This is one of the features of CUPS

that will be really appreciated on large networks.

Manually configuring printers with CUPS, also is a peace of

cake. If you are new to CUPS and/or Unix printing, the way

to go is probably the web interface. If you have to

configure lots of printers, using the command-line will

probably be faster.

The URL to access the CUPS web interface is

http://hostname:631/admin by default. The port can be

changed in cupsd.conf if necessary.

To add a printer from the command-line the general syntax is

lpadmin -p printer -E -v device -m ppd Lpadmin with the -p

option adds or modifies a printer. The printers are saved in

the file The -x option deletes the named printer. Read the

lpadmin man page for available options.

Example 3. command-line examples

/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p testpr1 -E -v socket://192.168.1.9 -m

deskjet.ppd

/usr/sbin/lpadmin -p testpr2 -E -v parallel:/dev/lp0 -m

laserjet.ppd

/usr/sbin/lpadmin -x testpr1

More information about configuring printers and options can

be found in the CUPS documentation. The Software

Administrators Manual will teach you all you need to know

about configuring printers with CUPS.