[Pkg-samba-maint] Samba CUPS connection to localhost:631 timeout causes momentary interrupt in data stream from Samba server to clients

[Steve Langasek]

On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 12:05:40PM -0500, Jonathan Polom wrote:
> Why is printing enabled on a system that has no connected printers and
> doesn't even have CUPS installed?

Because you don't need a connected printer to have a print queue, and we
want Samba to work transparently with cups when installed (and also to work
correctly when not).  So we're not going to change the default.

If you're getting *timeouts* when samba is trying to connect to the local
cups server, then that's not because cups isn't installed - it indicates a
misconfigured firewall on the system which is dropping packets instead of
returning connection refused.  When you don't let your kernel tell the
application that the service isn't present, waiting for a network timeout is
the only option the application has.

> I guess if this is something that people have just learned and come to
> accept, it should just be documented somewhere that Samba on Debian, by
> default, wants to talk to CUPS at localhost:631 which may cause problems
> if CUPS is not present or traffic is not allowed on that port.

It does not cause problems if CUPS is not present.  It only causes problems
if traffic is not allowed on the port.  It is not the place of the Samba
package documentation to instruct users in proper configuration of a
firewall.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org