cups / sane server system requirements
 

Howdy Slackers:

I have a 2010 model laptop running slackware 13.1, and after setting up a udev rule for my epson rx700 printer/scanner, this laptop can print to the rx700 without problems, and I can scan straight into gimp with xsane... I can even share the printer and scanner over my local lan... oh joy!

this is great for me... however when I pack up my laptop and hit the road, the other folks in the house cannot print or scan over the network anymore, so I tried to get an older desktop we have laying about to be the cups / sane server instead of my laptop. I tried a Dell Dimension 8300, and a Dell Optiplex GX 260... Both have USB 2.0... however, on fresh slackware 13.37 installs, even after the udev rule, neither old computer is successful finding the scanner with sane-find-scanner, although it is listed in output of lsusb...

does anyone know if there is a workaround on these older machines, or have there been some hardware changes in the last 8 years that the machines haven't undergone, and I should give up trying to get one to be cups/sane server for rx700..

Did you configure the computer properly? I've once written this: http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/...r_over_network tutorial about scanning in the network. You must have done it similar with your laptop since you've got it working, but maybe you'll check every point of the described settings (on the server).

First thing that I am thinking of: did you configure inetd? try the nmap command in order to check if the port for sane is open.Markus

ty markush for your response, and for your excellent tutorial...

however in my case, it is not the networking of the scanner that is hassling me, but rather finding the scanner with sane-find-scanner...

on the laptop, once my user is in the scanner group, and once I create the udev rule for the scanner containing idVendor and idProduct, which I get with lsusb, my user can find my usb connected scanner with sane-find-scanner, and it can scan with sane and xsane. No hassles...

The udev rule I save as /etc/udev/rules.d/80-libsane.rules, and it looks as follows:
If I wanted laptop to be scannerserver, I could follow your excellent tutorial, and sleep well tonight.

Problem is, I don't want laptop to be scanner server. I have the older P4 desktops mentioned, and was hoping to get one of those turned into scanner server... but I didn't figure on proceeding with the networking side of the server until after I could get one of them to find the scanner and make scans locally, like the laptop can...

unfortunately, adding user to scanner group and creating udev rule isn't enough on the older models... they see device with lsusb... but they don't see any connected usb scanner with sane-find scanner, not as user in scanner group, nor as root, which also is in scanner group... so I am suspecting hardware... I have some other older machines I can test it on, but if someone knew anything about some change to the USB 2.0 standard that could be affecting this, maybe I could rule out some of them as being too old...

I have an old poweredge 2650... I'm gonna try it next, then a g4 xserve with slackintosh 12 -- doing the same steps each time that got it working on laptop...

maybe I'll just have to get a sheevaplug and try armedslack... but hopefully can get more work out of an older piece of hardware... hate to buy if I don't have to...

mh, I think I didn't understand your question, I was thinking your clients cant find the scanner over the lan.

What happens if you use sane-find-scanner as root, and what if you use "scanimage -L" as root (on the local machine)?

Did you add your users to the lp group? as you know, both, lp and scanner group are necessary for a multifunction-device.

I'm pretty sure that with Slack-13.37 a special udev-rules is not necessary for the scannerserver.

Markus

What! I finally figured out how to make em... and now we don't need em... go figure...



Anyhow, I got it working :)

The weird bit is that sane-find-scanner never comes up with any results... however, scanimage -L does :)

Fusing bits from your tutorial with bits from this one, got me scanning over the network! The only place I varied from your tutorial, was that I created a user called saned and added it to the scanner group... my inet.conf line was

the other variation from your tutorial was that I was able to use hostnames in /etc/sane.d/saned.conf (and /etc/sane.d/net.conf on client) provided that the hostnames were already defined in the /etc/hosts file on the scanner server and on each client.

All is working... except that sane-find-scanner doesn't find the usb connected scanner on the scanner server, even though scanimage -L does...

thanks for your help

Hello slac-in-the-box,

I'm happy to read the the tutorial was useful for you :), I did not yet receive any feedback about it.

Surely there are several other ways to use the scanner in the network. The permissions have been the point where I had the most effort to get it working. When I got it working the first time, I was using Gentoo.

A question: you did not mention if your users are member of the lp-group. Are they? if not, maybe the sane-find-scanner problem is related to that. Normally you'll need to be member of lp in order to get permissions to use a multifunction-device.

Markus

yes...

users are in the lp group as well... I don't know why the sane-find-scanner fails... I just didn't have the persistence to proceed further, and figured scanner was undetected... but it scans just fine...

it is a cups server as well, and that is working great... I only had to add rules in firewall to allow tcp on port 6566 for saned and 631 for cupsd in and out of server and clients...

now I'm a gonna go scan today's receipts... (still don't have ocr going to grab totals and vendors from receipts and enter into database yet... still things to work on, lol)