airprint-generate.py
This script will generate avahi .service files for shared CUPS printers.
This script will connect to a CUPS server and for each printer configured and marked as shared will generate a .service file for avahi that is compatible with Apple's AirPrint announcements. Any printer that can be configured to work with CUPS can be used. Printers should not be configured in CUPS as raw, unless the printer can natively print PDF. That is to say, CUPS needs to already be configured with a PDF filter. Debian based distributions ship CUPS pre-configured this way.
DNSSD has a limit of 255 Chars for a given txt-record, because of this the list of accepted pdl's will be truncated to fit. If you're curious to see which ones are trimmed out of the list run with the script with the verbose flag (--verbose)
If python-lxml is installed, .service files will be generated in a human readble format, I wasn't able to get minidom's version to work acceptably.
Usage: airprint-generate.py [options]
Options: -h, --help show this help message and exit -H HOSTNAME, --host=HOSTNAME Hostname of CUPS server (optional) -P PORT, --port=PORT Port number of CUPS server -u USER, --user=USER Username to authenticate with against CUPS -d DIRECTORY, --directory=DIRECTORY Directory to create service files -v, --verbose Print debugging information to STDERR -p PREFIX, --prefix=PREFIX Prefix all files with this string
Docker containerized avahi .service generation
After the printers have been configured in the cups server, docker can interactively generate the avahi .service while making use of the container.
- Build the container
docker build -t airprint-generate .- Generate the avahi service by defining the ip address of the cups server
docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/tmp airprint-generate -H ${CUPS_SERVER_IP} -d /tmp