Home / ubuntu / Questions / 23936
Accepted
Evan
Asked: 2011-01-30 13:37:42 +0800 CST

How do you administer CUPS remotely using the web interface?

  • 772

I have an Ubuntu server in my apartment and I just got a printer, so it's time to share!

In the past I've used CUPS on my Desktop and I'd just point the browsers to localhost:631 to set things up. Can I used the web based admin tools remotely?

I've been playing with the /etc/cups/cupsd.conf file and am currently at the point where I can direct a browser on my LAN to server-ip:631 but I'm getting the 403 Forbidden error.

If it's not possible or it's a bad idea for security reasons to allow remote administrator of CUPS, would it be possible to accomplish this using an SSH tunnel to the sever?

server

4 Answers

  1. I found this way to be simpler.

    # cupsctl --remote-admin --remote-any --share-printers

    It will update the /etc/cups/cupsd.conf file and restart cups for you, saving a backup of the previous configuration in the same folder.

    It's the similar to the method presented in the official CUPS guide to printer sharing. I found the options --remote-admin in man cupsctl.

    • 81

  2. The way I normally achieve this is to tunnel over ssh via an arbitrary port:

    ssh [email protected] -T -L 3631:localhost:631

    Secure, and allows remote access. Won't solve all problems but useful for irregular access.

    • 41
  3. Best Answer

    Mission achomplished! This page helped me out a lot.

    All I had to do was add "Allow all" to to the access to the server and the admin pages so that my configuration now looked like:

    # Restrict access to the admin pages...
<Location /admin>
  Order allow,deny
  Allow all
</Location>

# Restrict access to configuration files...
<Location /admin/conf>
  AuthType Default
  Require user @SYSTEM
  Order allow,deny
</Location>

    Now I just need to figure out to only allow those on my local network to access the admin pages and the configuration files :) (though it's probably not a big deal since I don't have port forwarding for 631 set up on the router?).

    EDIT: To only allow a certain computer I could have done something like

    <Location /admin>
      Order allow,deny
      Allow from 10.10.10.5
</Location>

    Or for the whole 10.10.10 subnet,

    <Location /admin>
      Order allow, deny
      Allow from 10.10.10.*
</Location>
    • 36

  4. You might need to add the following line to your CUPS configuration file (/etc/cups/cupsd.conf):

    Listen 127.0.0.1:631           # existing loopback Listen
Listen /var/run/cups/cups.sock # existing socket Listen
// this two line 
// replace 192.168.10.250 with ur only ip
Listen 192.168.10.250:631      # Listen on the LAN interface, Port 631 (IPP)
Port 631  # Listen on port 631 on all interfaces
//
    • 0