A minimal IPP server

This is a small python script which pretends to be a printer.

It works well enough to print documents on my Linux box with CUPS 1.7.5, but it doesn't implement the entire IPP specification.

Add ipp-server as a printer

Start running the server:

python -m ippserver --port 1234 save /tmp/

The server listens to localhost by default. The well-known port of 631 is likely to already be in use by the web interface of CUPS, so I'm using port 1234 for this example.

Next, add the printer as you would normally on your computer (ie: the Gnome or KDE add printer dialogs). The printer location is ipp://localhost:1234/.

Doing things with print jobs

You can save print jobs as randomly named .ps files in a given directory:

python -m ippserver --port 1234 save /tmp/

Alternatively, you can send the postscript files to a command. The following command will run hexdump(1) for every print job received. hexdump reads the .ps file from stdin.

python -m ippserver --port 1234 run hexdump

Or why not email print jobs to yourself using mail(1):

python -m ippserver --port 1234 run \
	mail -E \
	-a "MIME-Version 1.0" -a "Content-Type: application/postscript" \
	-s 'A printed document' some.person@example.com

PDF files

The printer normally advertises itself as a postscript printer. Alternatively, the printer can advertise itself as a PDF printer. This changes the printer description (PPD), so you will need to re-add the printer (eg: with a different port).

Run the printer with save --pdf, and add a new printer:

python -m ippserver --port 7777 save --pdf /tmp/