MASTER: system-config-printer doesn't accept password when user is not in 'lpadmin' group

[Jordan Erickson]

Binary package hint: system-config-printer

Please mark all other related bugs to this bug as a duplicate so we can track them.

ISSUE:
Running 'system-config-printer' as a user (even a user as a member of group 'admin') gets prompted when adding/modifying printers, but the password prompt re-appears, even when the correct password is entered. ONLY when the user is a member of the group 'lpadmin' does system-config-printer allow changes (or when running with sudo priviliges).

HOW TO REPRODUCE:
1) Add a new user
2) Add the new user to group 'admin'
3) Log in with new user and launch System -> Administration -> Printing
4) Attempt to add or modify a printer. Apply settings
5) Enter user's password when prompted
6) Notice the password prompt re-appears when correct password is entered

From this, I believe that 'system-config-printer' needs to:
1) Use PAM calls (for situations such as LDAP authentication) instead of looking directly in /etc/group
2) Honor the 'admin' group as a system administrator and allow modification of printers and their settings without prompting for a password
3) Prompt user to require 'lpadmin' membership instead of simply returning to a password prompt with no information on how to resolve the issue of not being able to modify printers (this shouldn't be necessary if #2 is fixed, rather it should either require information to be displayed to the user to be added to 'admin' group to modify printers, or modify the .desktop file to use gksudo by default).

This is a bug, as far as I can tell, going back to Gutsy (at least) when system-config-printer was introduced in Ubuntu. I have reproduced this bug on 9 different Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04.1 servers I administrate. Not sure if it's fixed in Intrepid, maybe someone can comment on that.

PLEASE let me know if there's more information I can provide. This is most likely affecting a ton of Ubuntu users, and is perplexing to troubleshoot without manually scouring LP for bugs.

[Schmirrwurst (schmirrwurst)]

I'm experiencing the same problem under Intrepid with kde 4.1.3 and 4.2 beta 1

[click170 (click170)]

I use LDAP authentication through PAM, and this bug has bitten me. When trying to add a user, my password is not accepted, nor is the root password.

[Tom Dimiduk (tdimiduk)]

I think I am seeing the same bug in 9.04. I get asked for the root password, if I change the username to a user with sudo access and enter that password it fails. I can get sysetem-config-printer to work by running it from the terminal with sudo.

[Pascal De Vuyst (pascal-devuyst)]

Jordan Erickson,
This is an old bug.
Can you update the status of this report for Ubuntu 10.04 or higher?

[Vindicator (vindicator)]

15.04
Part 1, what led up to the issue:
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Brother HL-2140 printer was detected/automatically added

For any print job, printer would repeatedly print blank pages. (eg, 1 job, 1 page, results in continuous blank pages being printed)

I read that it was likely fix to change the "Make and Model" driver from "Brother HL-2140 Foomatic/Postscript [en] (recommended)" (yeah right, "recommended") to "Brother HL-2140 Foomatic/hl1250 [en]"

Instead of trying to see if that worked, I also read about a Brother lpr and cups packages, so opted to go that path.

At this point, I had NOT encountered this original old bug when I changed the DPI and economy toner settings.
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Part 2, using Brother packages
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Deleted printer and turned off the printer

Prerequisites: http://support.brother.com/g/s/id/linux/en/before.html?c=us&lang=en&prod=hl2140_all&redirect=on
Packages: http://support.brother.com/g/b/downloadlist.aspx?c=us&lang=en&prod=hl2140_all&os=128

After performing the prerequisites and installing, I turned printer on and "2" printers were automatically created. One was the original (usb://Brother/HL-2140%20series?serial=<sanitized>) which was "Set as Default", the other was (usb:/dev/usb/lp0).

Knowing the original printer was flawed, I TRIED to "Set as Default" the lp0 printer leaving it as "Set as the system-wide default printer"
THIS prompted for the password. It still would set it as the default, but since I'm the only user, I don't know if it was truly "system-wide".

Changing the default printer back did NOT prompt for any password. Going back again to lp0 DID NOT at some point with multiple tries. Then changing the "Job Options" prompted again.

I think among the multiple tries, I had added myself to the "lpadmin" group (only sudo and myself were the other groups), and that would work.
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