drcoccodrillus/custom-printer-app repository overview

⁠custom-printer-app

A dockerized printer application based on CUPS for Custom® printers

⁠Supported printers

The following Custom printers are fully supported

• K3 (911HM010100733 - PRINTER K3 ETH USB RS232)
• K3-X ()
• Modus3 (915LF010100300 - PRINTER MODUS3 USB RS232 COMPACT)
• TG2460H (915CG020300300 - PRINTER TG2460H USB RS232)
• TL80 (915CK010500300 - PRINTER TL80 USB RS232)
• TL80III (915CK020100300 - PRINTER TL80III USB RS232)
• VKP80II (915DW011000300 - PRINTER VKP80II SX USB RS232)
• VKP80III (915DX010700300 - PRINTER VKP80III USB RS232 REAR CONN.)

I am currently working on this project for fully supporting Custom thermal printers. I will do soon all the required tests for making this printer app fully working with the following thermal printers.

The following Custom printers have not been tested yet

• KPM216HII (915AS020200300 - PRINTER KPM216HII RS232 USB 200 DPI)
• KPM216HIII (915AS050100700 - PRINTER KPM216HIII ETH USB RS232 ESP)
• Modus3X (915LF020200300 - PRINTER MODUS3 X USB RS232 COMPACT)
• P3 (911MH010100733 - PRINTER P3 ETH USB RS232)
• VK80 (915DY010100J00 - PRINTER VK80 ETH USB REAR CONN.)
• VK80 (915DY020200700 - PRINTER VK80 ETH USB LATERAL CONNEC. 300)

⁠How to use it

Using this printer application is pretty simple. Just follow the steps below in order to make it working on your system.

⁠Download the image

docker pull drcoccodrillus/custom-printer-app

⁠Start a container

You can start a working container using this docker-compose.yml

version: "3.8"

services:
  custom-printer-app:
    image: drcoccodrillus/custom-printer-app:latest
    container_name: custom-printers
    restart: always
    devices:
      - /dev:/dev
    ports:
      - "8631:631"
    networks:
      - printer-network

networks:
  printer-network:
    name: printer-network
    driver: bridge

⁠Connect the printer

Connect your Custom printer to your machine

⁠Initialize the printer app

docker exec custom-printers discovery

⁠Check if your printer has been configured

docker exec custom-printers lpstat -t

⁠Use your printer

docker exec custom-printers lp -d printer-name /printers/test.txt

⁠Troubleshooting

Sometimes things simply go wrong. If you need to troubleshoot CUPS these are places you should look at:

• /var/log/cups/access_log - Lists all cupsd http1.1 server activity
• /var/log/cups/error_log - Lists detailed information of the printing process
• /var/log/cups/page_log - Echoes a new entry each time a print is successful
• /var/spool/cups - Location where the scheduler stores job files

The best way to get complete information from log files is to set LogLevel in /etc/cups/cupsd.conf as the following:

LogLevel debug

And then viewing the output from /var/log/cups/error_log like this:

tail -n 100 -f /var/log/cups/error_log

The /var/spool/cups location stores two types of files: control files starting with the letter "c" and data files starting with the letter "d". Control files are IPP messages based on the original IPP Print-Job or Create-Job messages, while data files are the original print files that were submitted for printing. There is one control file for every job known to the system and 0 or more data files for each job.

Control files are normally cleaned out after the 500th job is submitted, while data files are removed immediately after a job has successfully printed. Both behaviors can be configured.