TIL that CUPS has an URL

Never knew this but I wish I had…

http://127.0.0.1:631/jobs/

Here’s all the print jobs underway or completed. All sorts of useful things here.

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Just in case you haven’t enabled it :slight_smile:

Web Interface is Disabled

The web interface is currently disabled. Run “cupsctl WebInterface=yes” to enable it.

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On my system (running macOS 11 Big Sur), when the web interface isn’t running, I don’t even see an error. My browser just fails to connect to anything.

But the cupsctl WebInterface=yes command does turn it on.

(Tommy’s link) link won’t open on my iPad Air 2.

Hi Jane,

Tommy’s link will not work when accessed from an iPad or an iPhone because of how those devices are configured by default. If you’re interested in the technical reasons, please read on.

Tommy’s link points to a special network address that always refers to the current system that you are using, regardless of whether you are on a Mac or a PC or an iPad.

For example, if you try to access a “127.0.0.1” link from your iPad, your web browser will look for a web server that is running on your iPad. If you try to access a “127.0.0.1” link from a Mac, the browser will look for a web server running on that particular Mac.

To access Tommy’s link from any particular device, there are two requirements:

  1. The CUPS printing system must be installed on that device.
  2. The device must have web server software installed, configured, and enabled to serve the CUPS web pages through the 127.0.0.1 address.

I believe that iOS/iPadOS still includes CUPS software, though I haven’t looked in a very long time. Assuming that to be correct, we have satisfied the first requirement. For the second requirement, Apple seems to discourage people from running web servers on their iDevices.

To be fair, the CUPS web interface is turned off by default on Macs, too, which is why earlier posts referred to typing cupsctl WebInterface=yes in the Mac Terminal.app to turn it on. It is technically possible to activate a web server on an iDevice, but since iDevices are much more “locked down” than Macs by Apple, the procedure is much more involved than it is on the Mac and would be worthy of an article on its own, I think.

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Thank you SO much for the explanation!

Thanks @adieb, I should have added that, and @josehill for the clear explanation.

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