Internet Printing Protocol
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In computing, the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) provides a standard network protocol for remote printing as well as for managing print jobs, media size, resolution, and so forth.
Like all IP-based protocols, IPP can run locally or over the Internet to printers hundreds or thousands of miles away. Unlike other printing protocols, IPP also supports access control, authentication, and encryption, making it a much more capable and secure printing solution than older ones.
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[edit] History
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Novell and Xerox did the original drafting of the Internet Printing Protocol, with necessary support from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
[edit] Implementation
IPP faces criticism[by whom?] for its protocol overloading, because it depends on HTTP/1.1. This allegedly makes for a more complex and bloated protocol and implementation than necessary — for example the extensions to the venerable lp protocol cover the same functionality.
Building a printing protocol on top of HTTP offers the advantage of an already well-tested mechanism for transferring files over the Internet, which enables reuse of proven, well-tested and debugged client and server code.
IPP has as one of its design goals not to invent new security features when it can use existing protocols. For example, the original RFC suggested that authorization take place (for example) via HTTP's Digest access authentication mechanism or via SSL3. Also, IPP itself does not do encryption, but can make use of encryption at the SSL/TLS protocol-layer.
Products using the Internet Printing Protocol include, among others, the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) and Novell iPrint.
IPP aims to define a protocol for end users' most common printing situations over the Internet.
The IPP allows a user to:
- find out about a printer's capabilities
- submit print jobs to a printer
- find out the status of a printer
- find out the status of a print job
- cancel a previously submitted job
Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 offer IPP printing via HTTPS. Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 also support IPP printing over RPC in the "Medium-Low" security zone.
IPP uses UDP and TCP with port 631 as its well-known port.
[edit] References
- RFC 2910 Internet Printing Protocol/1.1: Encoding and Transport (September 2000)
- RFC 2911 Internet Printing Protocol/1.1: Model and Semantics (September 2000)
- RFC 2567 Design Goals for an Internet Printing Protocol (April 1999)
- RFC 2568 Rationale for the Structure and Model and Protocol for the Internet Printing Protocol (April 1999)
- RFC 2569 Mapping between LPD and IPP Protocols (April 1999)
[edit] See also
- CUPS
- Job Definition Format
- iFax/T.37 - for emailing directly to a fax machine
