With the kind help of several posters here on the forum, I have resolved this issue, and thought I would post the solution in case it helps others.

The problem turned out to be CUPS doing a broadcast to the broadcast IP, apparently advertizing it availability. This must be standard behaviour, as I have done zero configuration on CUPS - just a standard MDK 10.1 install, and addition of my Canon i950 printer.

I checked the CUPS configuration (point your browser at http://localhost:631), but there were no options to control this behavior. Following a lead from one of the posters on this forum, I decided to solve the symptom, as opposed to the problem, which I cant seem to configure (CUPS broadcasting).

To turn off logging for the dropped broadcast messages, do the following as root:

- cd to /etc/shorewall
- edit the file "policy" in your favorite text editor.
- delete the word "info" from the two rules "net all" and "all all". Save and restart.

That did it for me. No more shorewall logs cluttering up dmesg output. I can now actually see the dmesg info - it used to be just a mass of shorewall logs (a "mess of shorewall logs? ), with "real" info interspersed here and there. No it is just "real" info.

Thanks to everyone who posted, and I hope that this may help a few folks.

you can also add in the rules file the following:

ACCEPT loc:127.0.0.1 all all -

Which will alow anything from your local box through

I was able to fix this by changing the BrowseInterval in the cupsd.conf file from 30 to 0. Since I'm only using cups to print from my linux box, and not sharing out a cups printer, I'm not sure if this affects cups ability to share out a printer on a network.

I never had any success in modifying my Shorewall rules file to allow this traffic through.

BTW:

THANKS!

For posting the resolution to your problem.

If more people did this we would not have to repeatedly type the same answer over and over... and the added feedback lets the people who reply know if they were on the right track.

Kudos.

Thanks, even though I fixed the logs problem already, it always bothered me that CUPS was wasting my computer and network bandwidth mindlessly advertising itself when there was no one there to hear it (or care!). Thanks for the tip on how to disable this behavior.