please document the fact that lpadmin modifies printers.conf in man page

[archenemies]

I had a hard time figuring out that lpadmin (e.g. lpadmin -p Virtual_PDF_Printer -o outputorder-default=normal) modifies /etc/cups/printers.conf. Can this info be added to the lpadmin(8) man page? Maybe together with the fact that you have to reload cupsd for the modifications to show up? Also, can you say something there about the relationship between settings configured through lpadmin, and settings configured through lpoptions?

[michaelrsweet]

printers.conf

The lpadmin command is concerned with managing printers. For CUPS, this happens through communication with cupsd - the fact that cupsd writes printers.conf is an implementation detail that is subject to change and not something most users will/should care about. (and in fact I've publicly warned about this implementation detail changing for about 15 years...) I can add a NOTE to this effect to the lpadmin man page, although I'm not sure it is necessary.

As for printers.conf itself, the top of printers.conf says:

# Printer configuration file for CUPS v#.#.#
# Written by cupsd on YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE WHEN CUPSD IS RUNNING

The printers.conf man page says:

The printers.conf file defines the local printers that are available.
It is normally located in the /etc/cups directory and is maintained by
the cupsd(8) program. This file is not intended to be edited or managed
manually.

Settings

The current documentation already lists specific -o options, PPD options of the form "name=value", and server-side defaults of the form "name-default=value". Plus it has references to the lpoptions man page which talks about local/per-user defaults.

But yes I can add yet another NOTE about this behavior. Hopefully it won't confuse things beyond the current level of confusion.

[michaelrsweet]

[master f07dbc9] Document indirect changing of configuration files (Issue #5403)