Hi,
I thought I should make a post here to help anyone who would like to make the print server to actually work in ClearOS 7. I do not know who maintains it, but I pretty sure that anyone who tries to install it will find it impossible to use as it is. At least that is how it has been for me, using the ClearOS 7 Community version with the "default" LDAP directory. It is possible to access the https://your-clearos-server-ip:631 web page and even get to the admin page. But there it stops. You will not be able to add/modify any printers, and if you if you manage anyway to configure any locally connected printers on your ClearOS server, nobody will be able to print to them...

After several evenings fighting my system I think I how now got it to work with all authentication turned off... Maybe someone would like to take my config file below and re-implement that, but still keep the print server in a "working mode"...

First note: If you install cups and foomatic (not the app-print-server) from the command line, you will most likely find that cups (cups is the print-server program) actually works! However, when app-print-server is installed it will overwrite the /etc/cups/cupsd.conf file and create two include-files. However whoever maintains this cannot have looked into cups release notes for some time since they contains obsolete parameters and are missing others.

No longer valid parameters in /etc/cupsd.conf

BrowseOrder

BrowseAllow

CUPS protocol

Missing declarations for following in /etc/cupsd.policy.conf

Validate-Job

Cancel-Jobs

Cancel-My-Jobs

Close-Job

CUPS-Get-Document



JobPrivateAccess

JobPrivateValues

SubscriptionPrivateAccess

SubscriptionPrivateValues

Some of the missing statements above will be set to defaults, but not all.

Also, I found that after reboot the print-server was not possible to start. I am not sure if I caused it by all my attempts to fix things, but I found out that avahi-daemon did not start automatically at reboot. So my tip to anyone who cannot start cups: Do this at the command line:

systemctl status avahi-daemon

systemctl is-enabled avahi-daemon

It should say "started" + a few more lines after the first command. It should answer "enabled" after the second command. If not do this:

systemctl enable avahi-daemon

systemctl start afahi-daemon

Now try to start cups (either from the ClearOS web-config for the print-server, or from command line)

systemctl start cups

Second: If you like me are interfacing your ClearOS server from a windows 10 client. Watch out! Windows seems to have some "memory", so if you try to print to a printer connected to your ClearOS server and it does not work and you then reconfigure the ClearOS server so it actually will work, then Windows will fool you: It will NOT print until you reboot your windows machine!

Having said all this. If you are desperate, and really would like to get printing to work. Make a backup of your /etc/cups/cupsd.conf file and then REPLACE all the content in the /etc/cups/cupsd.conf file with this (change IP address 192.168.0.10 to whatever IP your server has on your LAN):

MaxLogSize 1m

# Show general information in error_log.

LogLevel warn

# Allow remote access

Listen 192.168.0.10:631

Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock

Browsing On

BrowseLocalProtocols dnssd

DefaultAuthType Basic

WebInterface Yes

<Location />

  # Allow remote access...

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

<Location /admin>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

<Location /admin/conf>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

</Location>

<Policy default>

  JobPrivateAccess default

  JobPrivateValues default

  SubscriptionPrivateAccess default

  SubscriptionPrivateValues default

  <Limit Create-Job Print-Job Print-URI Validate-Job>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit Send-Document Send-URI Hold-Job Release-Job Restart-Job Purge-Jobs Set-Job-Attributes Create-Job-Subscription Renew-Subscription Cancel-Subscription Get-Notifications Reprocess-Job Cancel-Current-Job Suspend-Current-Job Resume-Job Cancel-My-Jobs Close-Job CUPS-Move-Job CUPS-Get-Document>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer CUPS-Delete-Printer CUPS-Add-Modify-Class CUPS-Delete-Class CUPS-Set-Default CUPS-Get-Devices>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit Pause-Printer Resume-Printer Enable-Printer Disable-Printer Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job Hold-New-Jobs Release-Held-New-Jobs Deactivate-Printer Activate-Printer Restart-Printer Shutdown-Printer Startup-Printer Promote-Job Schedule-Job-After Cancel-Jobs CUPS-Accept-Jobs CUPS-Reject-Jobs>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit Cancel-Job CUPS-Authenticate-Job>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit All>

    Order deny,allow

  </Limit>

</Policy>

<Policy authenticated>

  JobPrivateAccess default

  JobPrivateValues default

  SubscriptionPrivateAccess default

  SubscriptionPrivateValues default

  <Limit Create-Job Print-Job Print-URI Validate-Job>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit Send-Document Send-URI Hold-Job Release-Job Restart-Job Purge-Jobs Set-Job-Attributes Create-Job-Subscription Renew-Subscription Cancel-Subscription Get-Notifications Reprocess-Job Cancel-Current-Job Suspend-Current-Job Resume-Job Cancel-My-Jobs Close-Job CUPS-Move-Job CUPS-Get-Document>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit CUPS-Add-Modify-Printer CUPS-Delete-Printer CUPS-Add-Modify-Class CUPS-Delete-Class CUPS-Set-Default>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit Pause-Printer Resume-Printer Enable-Printer Disable-Printer Pause-Printer-After-Current-Job Hold-New-Jobs Release-Held-New-Jobs Deactivate-Printer Activate-Printer Restart-Printer Shutdown-Printer Startup-Printer Promote-Job Schedule-Job-After Cancel-Jobs CUPS-Accept-Jobs CUPS-Reject-Jobs>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit Cancel-Job CUPS-Authenticate-Job>

    Order deny,allow

    Allow @LOCAL

  </Limit>

  <Limit All>

    Order deny,allow

  </Limit>

</Policy>

BrowseWebIF Yes

Then restart cups

systemctl restart cups

You should now be able to surf to https://your-clearos-ip:631 and access the admin-pages and configure printers etc. Also, all users on the LAN should be able to print to them. (Remember to restart windows machines before changing anything more on your server...). Please note however, that all authentication is turned off by the config-file above. Look in the cupsd.location.conf and in cupsd.policy.conf (neither is in use after modifying the cupsd.conf file according to the above) for inspiration and work yourself "backwards"

/Fred