Created at 10:58 Jul 23, 2004 by mike, last modified at 14:28 Dec 14, 2008
Normally, if you are performing an administrative operation such as adding a printer, you need to provide the root or other authorized adminsitrator username and password.
If you have enabled authentication for normal printing and status operations (canceling print jobs, etc.), provide your normal login username (typically your first and last name in lowercase on MacOS X) and password.
That said, MacOS X 10.3.x broke user authentication in the web interface. The following comes from the folks at Apple:
Download · Home Page · ListingWhat's happening here is OS X 10.3 (Panther) switched to a form of shadow passwords that cupsd isn't able to read. The getpwent(3) man page discusses the details:
As of Mac OS X 10.3, there are now different per-user behaviours of this function, based on the AuthenticationAuthority value stored for the queried user in DirectoryServices.
If the queried user is still a legacy crypt password user or now has an AuthenticationAuthority value containing ";basic;", these routines will behave in their standard BSD fashion. These functions will "shadow" the password file, e.g. allow only certain programs to have access to the encrypted password. If the process which calls them has an effective uid of 0, the encrypted password will be returned, otherwise, the password field of the returned structure will point to the string '*'.
By default in Mac OS X 10.3 and later all users will have an AuthenticationAuthority will contain the value ";ShadowHash;". These users will have a visible password value of "********". These functions will have no access to the encrypted password whatsoever. Setting or changing an user password must be done entirely through the DirectoryService APIs for this default user.
Two workarounds for now are:
1 - Remove the <Limit GET> / </Limit> lines from /etc/cups/cupsd.conf
2 - Switch back to crypt passwords. This can be done in Netinfo Manager by changing a user's 'AuthenticationAuthority' from ';ShadowHash;' to ';basic;' and using 'openssl passwd' to set the password. The following macosxhints article talks about this:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2003102523435492
The CUPS repositories (both Darwin's and cups.org's) have been updated to install a pam(8) configuration file that works with these passwords via the pam_securityserver module. This solved the problem in Tiger.
The Radar bug tracking this is <rdar://problem/3613691>: 7F44: Cannot access CUPS web admin after Security Update 2004-04-05
I am using the username and password that enables access to this site to attempt to change the preferences for my printer (to make it print in colour it's an HP LJ1600) at the localhost 631 site but I am unable to log in, can anyone shed any light as to why I am unable to log in? Reply
Your cups.org username and password is probably NOT the same as your computer's username and password. Reply
Thanks Mike, I'm sure you're right but I have tried those also so finding the whole thing a little exasperating. I have literally tried all passwords associated with my Mac and CUPS all to no avail. Reply
Make sure you are using the right username - typically it is your first and last name but all lowercase with no spaces. You can confirm this by control-clicking on your account in the Accounts system preferences of Mac OS X 10.6 - the account name is the name you need to use. Reply
I don't have any clue on how to log into my printer at all(when I go to my printer's IP). No login window pops up. So what is the process to logging in so I can administrate my printer? Thanks Reply
This problem no longer exists in Tiger, an admin username and password works again, without any changes to the default install. (at least in 10.4.6 it does) Reply
Sorry to tell, but it does not work in OSX 10.4.x. The admin name and password is not accepted. Tried with a brand new Intel iMac, 10.4.4 preinstalled. No luck. Updated to 10.4.6 using the combo updater. No luck either. Installed SecUpd2006-003. Still no luck. The password is not accepted at all.
Koen Reply
Please contact Apple for assistance... Reply
Instesd of your user name use your short name as shown under system user
eg. Username: noby ShortName:nobykleber (for me the short name is longer than user name)
try it Reply
Yes, entering my shortname (name of my home folder) worked perfectly. All is well. Reply
Hi, nothing works for me nor my admin name and password, nor my shortname. All I want is to get rid of a dozen of schedulded jobs and be able to print normally again... When I try to cancel the jobs, I get an error message ("you are not allowed to..." hey, that's my printer!)... :-( I am using mac OS 10.3.9 on an ibook (PPC) Does anyone has a clue for this? The printer is an Epson stylus photo 790. Thank you for your help, Sylvie Reply