Sunday, June 20, 2004

Modifying an OS X printer using the CUPS localhost web interface requires root privileges

MacFixIt - Troubleshooting Solution for the Macintosh
The security update of 04-05-2004 made some small changes to cupsd.conf
that have major changes in how the user gets to access it. If you read lines
820-823 you'll see notes about how admin rights in the system group are
required to make do 'administration functions' which are what you are trying
to do.

We found that if we change this back with the following procedure. Open the
file cupsd.conf with a text editor (I use BBEdit, you may prefer something
else). Go to lines 835 and 836 and comment them out (put # at the beginning
of each line).

You'll see that these two lines indicate the auth types required to access the
function. By commenting them out you deactivate them and you'll be able to
make the changes again.

Note that subsequent security updates reinsert these lines and you'll have to
deactivate them again.

I used my root uname and pword and was able to get access. Usual admin pw didn't work. The above is another fix for this problem. The CUPS web access is htpp://localhost:631. It has options beyond the native GUI tool.

I'm also using the shareware app, Printer Setup Repair, to work my OS X CUPS printing problems.

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