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David Boyes wrote:
>> the problem appeared to be related to this, but not between the CUPS
>> servers.  Specifically, since CUPS' default broadcast behavior doesn't
>> work across subnets, and since most of my hosts wanting to print to
>> CUPS weren't on those subnets, the client hosts had to be configured
>> to poll, and that broke the cups servers.
>
> Yeah, that configuration would cause a problem with 10K printers and
> lots of clients hammering the CUPS servers. That's also not the way CUPS
> is designed to work.
>
> The way to do this (this is now in the sysadmin manuals) for large
> numbers of printers is to designate one or two hosts per subnet as
> printer info servers, and have them redistribute the information they
> receive to the local subnet via directed broadcast/multicast.

In other words, a cups server on *each* subnet.  Unfortunately, at our
shop, that's also a model with some significant issues, both from a
systems management viewpoint, and some technical issues:

Technical issues first.  In short it *still* doesn't (or didn't) work.
 My testing only had a half dozen clients trying to poll.  I certainly
didn't drop this system on all 400 of our hosts just as a trial.

If the cups servers can't handle 6 hosts polling them, whyever would
they be able to handle more than twenty?

from a systems management perspective, it means we actually have to
have a server, (actually two servers for redundancy) on each subnet.
Adding yet another layer like this is a huge hassle to designate and
maintain.  I'd much rather simply get a smaller number of print server
boxes pimped out with 20 or more interfaces, and pull a cable to each
subnet.

> It also provides a better
> failure model, as the central servers can be temporarily restarted
> without risking losing printing enterprise wide.

One of the things I like about CUPS is the failure model -- the client
 can automatically select amoung servers which all publish a queue of
the same name.

This applies to central print servers, also.

> You should also look at the multicast support in the current CUPS. Since
> multicast traffic IS routable

Now that is something I didn't have at the time.

- -- Pat
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