AirPrint with Cups (opens in new tab)

(connor.zip)

43 pointscptaffe2y ago25 comments

25 comments

I started a new blog and though writing about using twenty-year-old printers from your iPhone would be a good early post

triyambakam2y ago

I love it! I have my printer hooked up to my network with an Raspberry Pi and would be glad to make it easier to print from the iPad.

kotaKat2y ago

I had to have a HomeBridge server already and was running it from a Pi Zero W -- I just decided to bolt it onto the back of the printer and make it pull double-duty as the CUPS box.

A little party trick -- depending on the printer, you might be able to get an "in line" power tap/Y splitter for the power cord to run the Pi and the printer off the same outlet. (My printer takes a normal C14, so I just split and slapped a USB brick on the other end.)

cptaffeOP2y ago

This is cool! Blurring the line between what is and isn't part of the printer itself

Tepix2y ago

Neat. I am also using a Raspberry Pi to keep my (18 year old) Samsung CLP510N alive, however the Raspberry Pi also runs Pi-Hole (DNS Adblock). I'm curious if i can combine avahi (for air print) and pi-hole?

cramjabsyn2y ago

https://github.com/SickHub/docker-cups-airprint

willswire2y ago

Here’s a quick post I helped write which accomplishes this using a Raspberry Pi!

https://www.balena.io/blog//wifi-enable-usb-printers-with-a-...

mdaniel2y ago

Interesting: I knew about in-addr.arpa but didn't know they have a bunch of others, including the home.arpa as used it the post: https://www.iana.org/domains/arpa

bouke2y ago

I’ve been wanting to set this up for a long time for my Dell Color Laser 1320n, however I can’t seem to get printing working from RPi ARM Linux as the drivers only support x86.

BugsJustFindMe2y ago

I would much prefer a way that doesn't require setting up another computer on the network as a print server when the printer itself is already on the network.

cptaffeOP2y ago

I don’t think such a method exists. Modern printers do usually support driverless printing out of the box, but for older printers that still work well, there was no IPP Everywhere or AirPrint standard when they were manufactured, and there are no new firmware updates. Using another system to translate from these protocols and modern formats like PDF is required

e28eta2y ago

I had a IPP capable printer that wasn’t showing up for AirPrint, and was able to solve that with a (relatively) simple static mDNS entry in my DNSMasq config, which I already had running on our router.

running1012y ago

Can you share the config?

e28eta2y ago

Here’s my write up from the time: https://www.djackson.org/printer-discovery-using-dns-sd/

The article says the formats need to include ‘image/urf’, which afaik wasn’t true in 2017, and there may be other salient differences these days. We subsequently moved to a newer printer w/built-in AirPrint.

1 more reply

cramjabsyn2y ago

You can run all this in a container, in fact there are already pre-built containers to do it

BugsJustFindMe2y ago

I don't find solutions that amount to "just configure a computer on every network you encounter as a print server regardless of whether you own the network" to be very interesting. Using a container doesn't solve the problem unless that container is running on my phone.

cramjabsyn2y ago

And to be clear… the problem is transparently supporting airprint to every printer on every network…?

1 more reply

vuln2y ago

… and most people probably wouldn’t be attempting to print from a 20 year old printer.

BugsJustFindMe2y ago

Eh, laser printers last basically forever. The advent of built-in network cards was the last meaningful technological advancement.

DANmode2y ago

Is HN auto-formatting CUPS, in the title?

Definitely made it ambiguous for me, at first glance.

cptaffeOP2y ago

Yes, no drinkware was harmed in the creation of this blog post

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

25 comments

cptaffeOP2y ago

I started a new blog and though writing about using twenty-year-old printers from your iPhone would be a good early post

triyambakam2y ago

I love it! I have my printer hooked up to my network with an Raspberry Pi and would be glad to make it easier to print from the iPad.

kotaKat2y ago

I had to have a HomeBridge server already and was running it from a Pi Zero W -- I just decided to bolt it onto the back of the printer and make it pull double-duty as the CUPS box.

cptaffeOP2y ago

This is cool! Blurring the line between what is and isn't part of the printer itself

Tepix2y ago

cramjabsyn2y ago

https://github.com/SickHub/docker-cups-airprint

willswire2y ago

Here’s a quick post I helped write which accomplishes this using a Raspberry Pi!

https://www.balena.io/blog//wifi-enable-usb-printers-with-a-...

mdaniel2y ago

Interesting: I knew about in-addr.arpa but didn't know they have a bunch of others, including the home.arpa as used it the post: https://www.iana.org/domains/arpa

bouke2y ago

I’ve been wanting to set this up for a long time for my Dell Color Laser 1320n, however I can’t seem to get printing working from RPi ARM Linux as the drivers only support x86.

BugsJustFindMe2y ago

I would much prefer a way that doesn't require setting up another computer on the network as a print server when the printer itself is already on the network.

cptaffeOP2y ago

e28eta2y ago

running1012y ago

Can you share the config?

e28eta2y ago

Here’s my write up from the time: https://www.djackson.org/printer-discovery-using-dns-sd/

1 more reply

cramjabsyn2y ago

You can run all this in a container, in fact there are already pre-built containers to do it

BugsJustFindMe2y ago

cramjabsyn2y ago

And to be clear… the problem is transparently supporting airprint to every printer on every network…?

1 more reply

vuln2y ago

… and most people probably wouldn’t be attempting to print from a 20 year old printer.

BugsJustFindMe2y ago

Eh, laser printers last basically forever. The advent of built-in network cards was the last meaningful technological advancement.

DANmode2y ago

Is HN auto-formatting CUPS, in the title?

Definitely made it ambiguous for me, at first glance.

cptaffeOP2y ago

Yes, no drinkware was harmed in the creation of this blog post

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse