Resolved: [PLUG] CUPS Password Problem

[Richard C. Steffens]

> Carla Schroder wrote:
>> On Friday 09 March 2007 11:16, Richard C. Steffens wrote:
>>> What does one do when CUPS doesn't recognize root's password?
> <...>
>> I wonder if SUSE did the same dim thing as Ubuntu Dapper and older, which 
>> (stupidly) disabled the root password in CUPS and the CUPS web interface. 

Sure enough, SuSE did change how CUPS runs.

>From the SuSE documentation found on my machine:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
11.6.2.1. cupsd Runs as the User lp

 On start-up, cupsd changes from the user root to the user lp. This
provides a much higher level of security, because the CUPS print service
does not run with unrestricted permissions, only with the permissions
needed for the print service.

However, the authentication (the password check) cannot be performed via
/etc/shadow, because lp has no access to /etc/shadow. Instead, the
CUPS-specific authentication via /etc/cups/passwd.md5 must be used. For
this purpose, a CUPS administrator with the CUPS administration group
sys and a CUPS password must be entered in /etc/cups/passwd.md5. To do
this, enter the following as root:
lppasswd -g sys -a CUPS-admin-name

 This setting is also essential if you want to use the CUPS
administration Web front-end or the KDE printer administration tool.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once I created the user and password I was able to log in to "Do
Administration Tasks" at http://localhost:631/ and add the printer. The
test page printed just fine.

-- 
Regards,

Dick Steffens