List additional CUPS printer information

Question

How to display printer information, such as printer description or printer location using command line tools?

lpstat -t lists printer names, classes and devices for printers, but it doesn't list printer description or location. Is there a way to get this information without using http or GUI interface?

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 01 '12 at 08:47

7

You can obtain this information with lpstat -l -p printername.

[root@Valley ~]# lpstat -l -p zebra2
printer zebra2 is idle.  enabled since Tue Jun  8 15:50:35 2010
        Form mounted:
        Content types: any
        Printer types: unknown
        Description: Zebra 105SL in shipping
        Alerts: none
        Location: Shipping
        Connection: direct
        On fault: no alert
        After fault: continue
        Users allowed:
                (all)
        Forms allowed:
                (none)
        Banner required
        Charset sets:
                (none)
        Default pitch:
        Default page size:
        Default port settings:

answered Jul 01 '12 at 08:47

ewwhite

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Thanks, this helps. Do you know if the returned field names are locale aware, or will they always default to English? – tresf Mar 22 '16 at 17:25
I do not know, but you can check at cups.org and with your specific distribution of Linux. – ewwhite Mar 22 '16 at 17:26
Turns out it is. Exporting `LANG=C` does the trick to force `en_US`. If calling this command with Apple, an additional export `SOFTWARE=` (blank) needs to be provided to bypass the locale used by the desktop. Why mention this? If you are parsing the output of this command wight a script (e.g. `grep "Description:"`), forcing locale is a good idea, or else the logic could fail on a non-English desktop/terminal. – tresf Apr 20 '16 at 02:34

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Mar 04 '16 at 12:39

0

This is a bit more global, for everything eliminate the grep statement.

for i in $( lpstat -v | awk '{ print $3 }' | tr ':' ' ' ) ; do lpstat -l -p $i | grep 'printer\|Location' ; done

edited Mar 04 '16 at 12:39

Diamond

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answered Mar 03 '16 at 23:53

Jefferson Davis

1

List additional CUPS printer information

2 Answers2