CUPS

Given that printers are evil and of the devil, it stands to reason that a ritual would be developed in order to contain their malevolent energy. CUPS is such a utility.

CUPS generates a psychic prison into which printers are interned. In doing so, other computers are protected from their unique perversions and are instead presented with a unified printing system with which they may interact.

You can run CUPS over the internet, but making it accessible outside your local network is just asking for trouble.

Using remote CUPS

To submit jobs to CUPS running on another computer, configure /etc/cups/client.conf to contain:

Encryption Required
ServerName <remote-host>

Even though you aren't running CUPS locally, software which prints things will read it to establish a connection. Most well-configured CUPS server will enforce encryption themselves, but you should still set encryption locally to ensure your credentials are never sent unencrypted over the network.

CUPS exposes a web interface which is reachable on port 631 by default.

Terminology

Here is a quick list of useful terms to know when reading CUPS documentation:

• Printer sharing: A printer must be "shared" in order for remote clients (i.e. computers other than the one running cupsd) to submit print jobs.