CUPS Host Error

In versions of CUPS from 2009 onwards for both Linux and Mac OS X, administrators may encounter issues where jobs sent from a network workstation to the print server will halt and generate errors in the CUPS print logs. This is not a problem caused by PaperCut and will happen even without PaperCut installed. Based on research at the time of writing, it is a currently tracked bug within a number of Linux communities.

The key error notification will appear in the CUPS print log, similar to the example below:

  [15/Dec/2011:17:44:12 −0500] Request from “10.1.10.21” using invalid
  Host: field “thishost.department.company.au”

Resolution

The most common way to resolve this issue is as follows:

1. Add ServerAlias * in a new line to your cupsd.conf file.
   1. For Linux this should be located here: /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
   2. For OS X this should be located here: /private/etc/cups/cupsd.conf
2. If you are using IPP to share the printers, try connecting with LPR.