Cups Web Admin Authentication Fails

[upandacross]

Binary package hint: cups

My home office configuration is Karmic Koala server sharing a printer to be used by a Windows XP box on the local network. While attempting to manage CUPS from the XP box after connecting to the server port 631, certain pages ask for a root login but the correct name and password apparently fail and the user name / password dialog reappears never completing. Escalating the Logging level to "debug" I found that cupsdAuthorize was failing with no user name data being passed .

I tried many things and, as seems always to be the case with these things, ended up with a fix but not enough energy to start over with a fresh cupsd.conf, /etc/group, and lppasswd configuration to reproduce the problem and isolate the minimum number of changes needed to fix the problem. Thus, some or all of the following changes have fixed the problem:

1. Add root to Shadow group in /etc/group
2. Add root to lpadmin group in /etc/group
2. Add root to lppasswd via lppaswd -a root and responding to the password prompt with my root password
3. Change DefaultAuthType to BasicDigest

Perhaps someone can identify the minimum set of changes required.

On a side note, I receive, when connecting to certain locations, the 426 Upgrade Required page mentioned elsewhere that changes from http://hostname:631 to a SSL connection on https://x.x.x.x:631. Simply clicking on the supplied link allows the web admin app to continue (not a bug, as far as I'm concerned, but an annoyance).

[Dimitrios Symeonidis (azimout)]

I'm on Maverick alpha 2. I can confirm your solution works.

Here's what I did:
sudo passwd root
sudo usermod -aG shadow root
sudo usermod -aG lpadmin root
sudo lppasswd -a root
sudo vi /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
sudo service cups restart

I will write back if I find some of these steps are not necessary, or if enabling the root account can be avoided...

[Lane Lester (llester)]

The fix worked for my Mav Alpha 2 too. lppasswd made me come up with a better password. I prefer a simple one because I'm the only one who comes near my computer. But of course, many of the Linux developers think everyone should live like an IT admin.

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

A root account is not needed. What you have to do is at first to allow remote administration. Chhose System -> Administration -> printing in the desktop menu of your Maverick box and in the program starting then, Server -> Settings. Then mark "Allow remote administration" and click OK.

On the client you enter your server's CUPS interface via https://x.x.x.x:631 and if asked for login and password, enter your user name and your password of the server, not "root".

[Till Kamppeter (till-kamppeter)]

Note that for the above you must have Ubuntu's default CUPS configuration, with DefaultAuthType set to Basic.

[sam (samthsm)]

I have the similar issue with Windows XP. I was very upset with that bug then I found a link http://www.outlooktechnicalsupportnumbers.com/. This was a really helpful link.