Bug#372493: cupsys: unable to print, configure, or check status in 1.2.1-2

[Moshe Yudkowsky <speech@pobox.com>]

Package: cupsys
Version: 1.2.1-2
Severity: grave
Justification: renders package unusable


I simply cannot get cupsys to run after my upgrade to 1.2.1-2. Printing does not work, and the usual admin tools do not work either. 

If I use http://localhost:631/admin, I see the error message "Unable to open cupsd.conf file: Permission denied."  A quick check of /etc/cups/cupsd.conf shows it has permissions of "root" and "lpadmin." (I note that this new version of the admin page does not request a login/password.)

If I attemp to use command-line utilties to check on the printers, I get:

# lpstat
lpstat: Forbidden

and

# lpstat -t
scheduler is running
no system default destination
lpstat: Forbidden
lpstat: Forbidden
lpstat: Forbidden
lpstat: Forbidden
lpstat: Forbidden


If I use http://localhost:631/printers to view the printers, I see the printers, but with error messages such as ""/usr/lib/cups/backend/usb failed"". The printer state is stopped. I have also seen messages that complain about being unable to read the spool files in /var/spool/cups.

The port is active, at least:

# lsof -i :631
COMMAND   PID USER   FD   TYPE  DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
cupsd   12425 root    0u  IPv6 1209941       TCP *:ipp (LISTEN)
cupsd   12425 root    1u  IPv4 1209942       TCP *:ipp (LISTEN)
cupsd   12425 root    2u  IPv4 1209943       UDP *:ipp


I tried removing my old cupsd.conf file and using the default version but that did not help. A downgrade to "stable" fails completely -- the server at port 631 doesn't even start up.

This smells like an authorization problem to me, but I can't figure out where the problem is.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.16-2-k7
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages cupsys depends on:
ii  adduser                  3.87            Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]    1.5.1           Debian configuration management sy
ii  gs-esp                   8.15.1.dfsg.1-2 The Ghostscript PostScript interpr
ii  libacl1                  2.2.37-1        Access control list shared library
ii  libc6                    2.3.6-15        GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcupsimage2            1.2.1-2         Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libcupsys2               1.2.1-2         Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  libdbus-1-2              0.61-6          simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libgnutls13              1.3.5-1.1       the GNU TLS library - runtime libr
ii  libldap2                 2.1.30-13       OpenLDAP libraries
ii  libpam0g                 0.79-3.1        Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpaper1                1.1.18          Library for handling paper charact
ii  libslp1                  1.2.1-5         OpenSLP libraries
ii  lsb-base                 3.1-10          Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  patch                    2.5.9-4         Apply a diff file to an original
ii  perl-modules             5.8.8-5         Core Perl modules
ii  procps                   1:3.2.6-2.2     /proc file system utilities
ii  xpdf-utils [poppler-util 3.01-8          Portable Document Format (PDF) sui
ii  zlib1g                   1:1.2.3-11      compression library - runtime

Versions of packages cupsys recommends:
ii  cupsys-client           1.2.1-2          Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - 
ii  foomatic-filters        3.0.2-20060530-1 linuxprinting.org printer support 
ii  smbclient               3.0.22-1         a LanManager-like simple client fo

-- debconf information:
  cupsys/raw-print: true
  cupsys/ports: 631
  cupsys/backend: ipp, lpd, parallel, socket, usb
  cupsys/portserror:
  cupsys/browse: true