Unable to implement PIN release printing in CUPS

[mdk6c]

We are trying to implement PIN release printing in CUPS for iOS devices.

We have added the following to the bottom of our PPD file, as per the documentation.

*cupsMandatory: "job-password job-password-encryption"
*cupsJobPassword: "1111"

Our printer is visible from iOS devices and the print options sheet shows "This printer requires a PIN to print" as expected.

However, when we tap "Print" to submit the print job, no PIN is ever presented to the user via the expected iOS PIN dialog (screenshot below).

I can see from the error_log that a job password is being generated and passed along to the filters.

error_log.txt

Maybe this issue is on the iOS side, not CUPS. I'm sorry to report it as a bug. But we have found scant guidance or implementation examples for PIN printing in our research thus far.

[michaelrsweet]

Yeah I'm guessing this must be on the iOS side - perhaps it is expecting the job to be in the pending-held state (held on the CUPS server), but it is obviously passing a PIN, just not displaying it. You should be able to see the PIN in the print center (accessible in different ways on different versions of iOS, none of them very discoverable...) but I'm not sure what to do here short of updating CUPS to briefly hold the job (say for 10 seconds) before releasing it?

[mdk6c]

Thanks for your response Michael.

My understanding was that, when submitting a new print job, if a job-password value is provided, then CUPS will hold the job in the pending-held state and the job-state-reason attribute would be set to job-password-wait. But, in my experience, CUPS does not hold these print jobs and sends them straight to processing.

Maybe this is an IPP RFC feature that hasn't been implemented in CUPS? Or maybe I'm way off base...

[michaelrsweet]

Since CUPS is passing the job-password value on to the actual printer, it isn't implementing the hold. What we probably need to do is (as I mentioned in my original response) is to hold the job for a short time (so the iOS client will see the job-state as 'pending-held') and then release it to the printer so it can be held there.

[michaelrsweet]

Tracking this change in issue #1456.