In reply to a post by andynormancx:

The reason it will probably have broken in 15.1 is because there were some long standing but only recently found security vulnerabilities with CUPS (the open source print server used in macOS).

Fixing those some of those issues completely necessarily involved breaking some existing printer drivers in a way that typically doesn’t happen when you fix most security vulnerabilities.The way some of CUPS worked was fundamentally insecure, the some drivers would need updating after this fix.

That's why (after many years) I posted here... people who know stuff like that are here 🤣😂🤣😂

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In reply to a post by andynormancx:

The reason it will probably have broken in 15.1 is because there were some long standing but only recently found security vulnerabilities with CUPS (the open source print server used in macOS).

Fixing those some of those issues completely necessarily involved breaking some existing printer drivers in a way that typically doesn’t happen when you fix most security vulnerabilities.The way some of CUPS worked was fundamentally insecure, the some drivers would need updating after this fix.

Ah CUPS. I thought it was near enough dead in most recent releases of MacOS.

When they eventually put a fork in it - wouldn’t it be possible to use an intermediate device like a Pi or something to act as a CUPS “print server” for ancient printers? Dunno, just thinking out loud…

My Brother :LED printer uses CUPS, but it was only a couple of weeks ago that I realised it was using a driver that was not Brother, so some of the functions was not available, not that I really needed them, but if I get myself an inkjet, then I will need to use profiles on that, so I need to know how to install the manufacture's driver.

I do now know how to do that.

I remember mucking around with CUPS in Linux, for my Brother printer it is not too bad as it is more of a document printer with colour, certainly not a photo printer.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

- wouldn’t it be possible to use an intermediate device like a Pi or something to act as a CUPS “print server” for ancient printers? Dunno, just thinking out loud…

I have done this to turn an ancient HP printer with USB and parallel into a network printer. Worked a treat.

The last time I seriously played around with CUPS was probably well over ten years ago, now that I think about it.

Most recently I had to get AirPrint playing nicely between subnets. That was always a bit of a hotch-potch to get working nicely, but Mikrotik very recently implemented "one-click" support for the underlying mDNS Repeater functionality in RouterOS v7.16 which makes it a doddle.

Cool. It's amazing what you can do with a Pi or Arduino type device these days.

I've got one of the latter on my desk and it's smaller than a postage stamp!

I have an openSuSe image for my Pi 4 [4GB] and it is very nearly a capable desktop. Only thing missing is a proper off button. I think this is now available with Pi 5 and I want to give that a try when I have some free time. It will probably be Pi 6 by the time I get around to it.

I believe it is dead as an actual print server. But I’m guessing they were still keeping part of it kicking as a way to support some older printer drives like this Canon one. I don’t really know the details beyond the general details about this recent CUPS vulnerability (which allowed anyone on the network to run any code they liked as root).

If CUPS is dead, then what is the replacement? CUPS is fairly central to Linux printing.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

The last time I seriously played around with CUPS was probably well over ten years ago, now that I think about it.

Most recently I had to get AirPrint playing nicely between subnets. That was always a bit of a hotch-potch to get working nicely, but Mikrotik very recently implemented "one-click" support for the underlying mDNS Repeater functionality in RouterOS v7.16 which makes it a doddle.

It was airprint that my printer was on, by all accounts Air print is useless unless you just want basic printing.