cups-lpd(8) OpenPrinting cups-lpd(8)
NAME
cups-lpd - receive print jobs and report printer status to lpd clients
(deprecated)
SYNOPSIS
cups-lpd [ -h hostname[:port] ] [ -n ] [ -o option=value ]
DESCRIPTION
cups-lpd is the CUPS Line Printer Daemon ("LPD") mini-server that sup-
ports legacy client systems that use the LPD protocol. cups-lpd does
not act as a standalone network daemon but instead operates using any of
the Internet "super-servers" such as inetd(8), launchd(8), and sys-
temd(8).
OPTIONS
-h hostname[:port]
Sets the CUPS server (and port) to use.
-n Disables reverse address lookups; normally cups-lpd will try to
discover the hostname of the client via a reverse DNS lookup.
-o name=value
Inserts options for all print queues. Most often this is used to
disable the "l" filter so that remote print jobs are filtered as
needed for printing; the inetd(8) example below sets the "document-
format" option to "application/octet-stream" which forces autode-
tection of the print file format.
CONFORMING TO
cups-lpd does not enforce the restricted source port number specified in
RFC 1179, as using restricted ports does not prevent users from submit-
ting print jobs. While this behavior is different than standard Berke-
ley LPD implementations, it should not affect normal client operations.
The output of the status requests follows RFC 2569, Mapping between LPD
and IPP Protocols. Since many LPD implementations stray from this defin-
ition, remote status reporting to LPD clients may be unreliable.
ERRORS
Errors are sent to the system log.
FILES
/etc/inetd.conf
/etc/xinetd.d/cups-lpd
/System/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.cups.cups-lpd.plist
NOTES
The cups-lpd program is deprecated and will no longer be supported in a
future feature release of CUPS.
PERFORMANCE
cups-lpd performs well with small numbers of clients and printers. How-
ever, since a new process is created for each connection and since each
process must query the printing system before each job submission, it
does not scale to larger configurations. We highly recommend that large
configurations use the native IPP support provided by CUPS instead.
SECURITY
cups-lpd currently does not perform any access control based on the set-
tings in cupsd.conf(5) or in the hosts.allow(5) or hosts.deny(5) files
used by TCP wrappers. Therefore, running cups-lpd on your server will
allow any computer on your network (and perhaps the entire Internet) to
print to your server.
While xinetd(8) has built-in access control support, you should use the
TCP wrappers package with inetd(8) to limit access to only those comput-
ers that should be able to print through your server.
cups-lpd is not enabled by the standard CUPS distribution. Please con-
sult with your operating system vendor to determine whether it is en-
abled by default on your system.
EXAMPLE
If you are using inetd(8), add the following line to the inetd.conf file
to enable the cups-lpd mini-server:
printer stream tcp nowait lp /usr/lib/cups/daemon/cups-lpd cups-lpd \
-o document-format=application/octet-stream
CUPS includes configuration files for launchd(8), systemd(8), and
xinetd(8). Simply enable the cups-lpd service using the corresponding
control program.
SEE ALSO
cups(1), cupsd(8), inetd(8), launchd(8), xinetd(8), CUPS Online Help
(http://localhost:631/help), RFC 2569
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2020-2024 by OpenPrinting.
2021-02-28 CUPS cups-lpd(8)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sat Oct 3 07:42:16 CEST 2026.