Knowledge Base

The printer configuration information on Mac OS X is stored in the directory:

This is a “hidden” system directory storing the CUPS configuration. Recursively copying this directory from one system to another will duplicate the printer configuration. Mac OS X administrators may find the following shell script example useful. It uses a secure shell (ssh) to pull and duplicate the printer configuration from a master/source system. This script will work with most printers that use standard PPD based drivers, but may have problems with some drivers that use custom components (e.g. Epson wide-format printers).

How to use:

            sudo sh pull-printer-config.sh <sourcemachine> <adminuser>

where:

<sourcemachine> is the name or IP of the system who’s printer config you’d like to copy.

<adminuser> is the name of an “admin” level account on the source system. You will need to know the password associated with this account.

The script:

Copy the contents below into a plain text file called pull-printer-config.sh

 
#!/bin/sh
#
# (c) Copyright PaperCut Software, 2007
#
# Author: Chris Dance (chris.dance <a> papercut.com)
# A simple script to copy printer configuration from one Apple Mac OS X 
# system to another.
#

TARGET_HOST=`hostname`
SRC_HOST=$1
SRC_USER=root

if [ -z "${SRC_HOST}" ]; then
    echo
    echo "USAGE: pull-printer-config SOURCE [USER]"
    echo "    SOURCE: The remote system whose printer config you'd like to copy."
    echo "    USER: An admin level user on the source system. If not defined root is used."
    echo
    exit 1
fi

if [ ! -z "$2" ]; then
    SRC_USER=$2
fi

userid=`id | sed "s/^uid=\([0-9][0-9]*\).*$/\1/"`
if test "${userid}" -ne 0; then
    echo "Error: Please run this script as root (e.g. sudo pull-printer-config)" 1>&2
    exit 1
fi


echo "Copying printer configuration from ${SRC_HOST} to ${TARGET_HOST}."
echo "Enter the password for the user ${SRC_USER} on ${SRC_HOST} if requested."
echo "You may be requested for your password multiple times."
echo 

#
# On the target system take a copy of our cups config and set ourselves as the
# owner.
#
echo "Preparing config on source server..."
ssh -t "${SRC_USER}@${SRC_HOST}" \
    "sudo sh -c \
    \"rm -fr /tmp/cupstmp; cp -R /etc/cups/ /tmp/cupstmp; chown -R ${SRC_USER} /tmp/cupstmp\""

if [ "$?" -ne "0" ]; then
    echo "Error: Unable to source config of remote system" 1>&2
    exit 1
fi

#
# Use scp to copy our temp copy over to our local system.
#
echo "Copying config..."

rm -fr /etc/cupstmp >/dev/null 2>&1

#
# Move old config
#
scp -rpq "${SRC_USER}@${SRC_HOST}:/tmp/cupstmp/" "/etc/cupstmp"
if [ ! -d /etc/cupstmp  ]; then
    #
    # Error so restore our backup
    #
    echo "Error: Unable to copy files." 1>&2
    exit 1
fi

datestamp=`date +%y%m%d`
mv /etc/cups "/etc/cups${datestamp}" && mv /etc/cupstmp /etc/cups

#
# Restart the CUPS server so it picks up our new config.
#
killall -HUP cupsd

echo "Copy complete."

Categories: Scripting, Tips & Tricks, Apple Mac OS X

keywords: duplicate, deploy, automate printer configuration

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