Printing using IPP without drivers (IPP Client)

Question

I have a device/appliance that you cannot install drivers for. I would like to add the ability to support network/IPP/AirPrint printers by having the user add the IP Addresses.

Since I am not printing through windows (which would use the IPP), how do I use IPP myself? Is there a c# client (or any windows library) out there that allows you to interact with IPP printers with the IPP protocol?

Answer 1

There are a few IPP client implementations and IPP libraries available for different programming languages (java/php/python). A practical solution could be to use the ipptool available at https://openprinting.github.io/cups/. Create an ipp-command-file called printjob.ipp:

{
 OPERATION Print-Job
 GROUP operation-attributes-tag
  ATTR charset attributes-charset utf-8
  ATTR language attributes-natural-language en
  ATTR uri printer-uri $uri
 FILE $filename
}

Now you should be able to print a PDF file using these options:

ipptool -tv -f mydoc.pdf ipp://192.168.2.207 printjob.ipp

Make sure the printer (or print server) supports the document format you send. I assume you're familiar with how to execute an external command in your application.

Even though the ipptool is provided by CUPS it works perfect with any IPP printer. Check RFC 3510 or your printers documentation for the appropriate printer-uri-scheme or use ippfind.

Experienced developers should be able to implement the print job operation in their preferred programming language and ecosystem. I have implemented the use case from above in kotlin with 100 lines of code: https://github.com/gmuth/ipp-printjob-kotlin.

This is my minimal PrintJob implementation in Java: https://github.com/gmuth/ipp-printjob-java

Answer 2

IPP Sample Software

Meanwhile the IPP Sample Software (which includes ipptool mentioned above) is a separate project on Github. It is now under the auspices of the Printer Working Group (PWG), the body which standardized IPP (Internet Printing Protocol).

While the software currently still is in beta, is already very functional. It ships two main command line tools:

1. ippserver. Start it (with the appropriate options) and you will have a fully-fledged IPP server instance on your network, serving as virtual IPP printer (or an IPP server hosting multiple virtual IPP queues) which you can use to test any (or your self-written) IPP client software against.

2. ipptool. This is an IPP client program which can send any combination of IPP requests to any IPP instance on the network (CUPS server, ippserver, IPP-capable printer hardware) and validate its responses. The software ships with a few prepared text files containing example IPP requests, all with a .test suffix for their filenames.

For your purpose, you could run these commands:

1. ipptool -t -v ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ipp/print get-printer-attributes.test. This command will query any IPP printer about its supported IPP attributes. This should include an item telling about its supposed IPP versions support. For example reporting as ipp-versions-supported (1setOf keyword) = 1.0,1.1,2.0.

2. ipptool -t -v ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ipp/print ipp-1.1.test. This command will run a complete validation suite against the printer to test for its real-world IPP-1.1 compliance.

3. ipptool -t -v ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ipp/print ipp-2.0.test. This command will run a complete validation suite against the printer to test for its real-world IPP-2.0 compliance.

4. ipptool -t -v ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ipp/print ipp-2.0.test. This command will run a complete validation suite against the printer to test for its real-world IPP-2.0 compliance.

5. ipptool -t -v ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ipp/print ipp-2.1.test. This command will run a complete validation suite against the printer to test for its real-world IPP-2.2 compliance.

6. ipptool -t -v ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ipp/print ipp-2.2.test. This command will run a complete validation suite against the printer to test for its real-world IPP-2.2 compliance.

7. ipptool -t -v ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ipp/print ipp-everywhere.test. This command will run a complete IPP Everywhere (which is the latest IPP Standard) validation suite against the printer to test for its real-world IPP Everywhere compliance.

---

AppImage of the IPP Sample Software

To make this type of testing easy for you guys, I created a ready-made executable AppImage from the IPP Sample software that should be able to directly run (no "installation" needed!) on all x86_64 Linux distros.

You can use it on (almost) any Linux system without having CUPS or ippsample installed!

The AppImage has embedded all the major executable command line tools of the IPP Sample Software project. These exacutables will run as 'sub-commands' of the AppImage. See further down for examples.

1. Download:

   wget https://github.com/KurtPfeifle/ippsample/releases/download/continuous/ippsample-x86_64.AppImage
   

2. Make AppImage executable (and optionally rename it to ippsample):

   chmod a+x ippsample-x86_64.AppImage
   mv ippsample-x86_64.AppImage ippsample
   

3. Have a look at its built-in help screen:

   ./ippsample --ai-usage
   

4. Run it:

   ./ippsample ipptool -t -v ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/ipp/print ipp-2.0.test
   

5. Find all IPP-capable printers nearby:

   ./ippsample ippfind
   

   will yield s.th. like:

   ipp://HPA0B3CCF051B9.local:631/ipp/printer
   ipp://lenjessie2.local:8444/ipp/print
   ipp://mbp14.papercut-ipv4.local:631/printers/OJ6500
   ipp://mbp14.papercut-ipv4.local:631/printers/libreoffice-pin-code-drucker
   

6. Pick one printer, print a job:

   ./ippsample ipptool       \
           -tv               \
           -f ./printjob.pdf \
            ipp://HPA0B3CCF051B9.local:631/ipp/printer \
            print-job.test
   

---

ASCIinema ASCIIcast

Here is an (older) ASCIinema ascii-cast acting as an illustration of what I wrote about and how to use the IPP Sample Software (and its AppImage):