after upgrade, cups writes gigabytes of "error" logs a day

[Steve Langasek]

After upgrading yesterday to the latest cups package, my root partition is filling up at the rate of more than a gigabyte per day, as a result of /var/log/cups/error.log being filled with useless messages. Examples:

D [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] [Client 60] POST / HTTP/1.1
D [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients", busy="Not busy"
D [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] [Client 60] Read: status=200
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdFindBest: uri = "/"...
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdFindBest: Location /admin/conf Limit 7f
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdFindBest: Location /admin Limit 7f
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdFindBest: Location / Limit 7f
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdFindBest: best = /
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] [Client 60] con->uri="/", con->best=0x7fc8ee5c22f0(/)
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] [Client 60] Authorization=""
D [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] [Client 60] No authentication data provided.
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdIsAuthorized: con->uri="/", con->best=0x7fc8ee5c22f0(/)
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdIsAuthorized: level=CUPSD_AUTH_ANON, type=None, satisfy=CUPSD_AUTH_SATISFY_ALL, num_names=0
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdIsAuthorized: auth=CUPSD_AUTH_ALLOW...
D [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] [Client 60] 2.0 Get-Jobs 111841
d [12/Feb/2015:06:58:49 -0800] cupsdAddSelect(fd=19, read_cb=(nil), write_cb=(nil), data=0x7fc8ee900a80)

A look at /etc/cups/cupsd.conf shows that 'LogLevel debug2' is set in this file. I don't remember ever setting this, but the timestamp on the file is from Oct 2012 - so this hasn't been causing a problem until now. I would not expect a 'debug' log setting to cause an error log to balloon out of control.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: cups 2.0.2-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.18.0-8.9-generic 3.18.1
Uname: Linux 3.18.0-8-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.16.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Thu Feb 12 06:56:06 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2010-09-24 (1602 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100816.1)
MachineType: LENOVO 2306CTO
Papersize: letter
PpdFiles:
 Error: command ['fgrep', '-H', '*NickName', 'HP-Officejet-Pro-8600.ppd', '/etc/cups/ppd/HP-ENVY-4500-series.ppd', '/etc/cups/ppd/HP-Color-LaserJet-CM1312-MFP.ppd', '/etc/cups/ppd/davidson-printer.ppd'] failed with exit code 2: /etc/cups/ppd/HP-Officejet-Pro-8600: HP Officejet Pro 8600, hpcups 3.14.6
 grep: /etc/cups/ppd/HP-ENVY-4500-series.ppd: Permission denied
 HP-Color-LaserJet-CM1312-MFP: HP Color LaserJet CM1312 MFP Series Postscript (recommended)
 davidson-printer: HP Color LaserJet CP3505 Postscript (recommended)
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.18.0-8-generic root=/dev/mapper/hostname-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: cups
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to vivid on 2014-12-06 (68 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 10/25/2013
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: G2ET97WW (2.57 )
dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available
dmi.board.name: 2306CTO
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Defined
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrG2ET97WW(2.57):bd10/25/2013:svnLENOVO:pn2306CTO:pvrThinkPadX230:rvnLENOVO:rn2306CTO:rvrNotDefined:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 2306CTO
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X230
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO
modified.conffile..etc.cups.cupsd.conf: [inaccessible: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/etc/cups/cupsd.conf']

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

The debug2 LogLevel is extremely verbose. Use it only if really necessary, usually only if you report a bug and the developer taking care of the bug tells you to use this mode. Make sure to stop using this mode when you are done investigating.

To get back to the normal debug mode use

cupsctl --debug-logging

and to get back to the standard mode us

cupsctl --no-debug-logging

Please check whether the excessive log file spamming stops in normal debug mode (also check whether you really have "LogLevel debug" and NOT "LogLevel debug2" in your cupsd.conf then). If logging is still much more excessive than with older CUPS versions in the normal debug mode or even, in standard mode, report an upstream bug:

http://www.cups.org/str.php