Which URL reaches the CUPS administration web interface on the local machine, and which directory holds the CUPS configuration files?

LPIC-1 Exam 102-500, objective 108. Essential system services easy

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The options

Correct http://localhost:631/ and /etc/cups/

Correct. cupsd listens on TCP port 631, the IPP port, and serves its administration interface there. Its configuration, including cupsd.conf and printers.conf, lives in /etc/cups/.

Not correct http://localhost:515/ and /etc/printcap/

Wrong. 515 is the port of the old LPD protocol, which CUPS only emulates for compatibility, and printcap is a single legacy file rather than a directory.

Not correct http://localhost:631/ and /var/spool/cups/

Wrong on the directory. The port is right, but /var/spool/cups holds the spooled job data itself, not the configuration.

Not correct http://localhost:9100/ and /etc/cupsd/

Wrong. 9100 is the raw JetDirect port many network printers listen on, and the configuration directory is /etc/cups, not /etc/cupsd.

Why

CUPS is built on IPP, which uses TCP port 631, and the same daemon that serves printing also serves the browser interface at http://localhost:631/. /etc/cups/cupsd.conf configures the daemon itself — listening addresses and access control — while printers.conf records the defined queues and is normally edited through the web interface or lpadmin rather than by hand. Spooled jobs are held under /var/spool/cups, and where the Printcap directive in cupsd.conf is set, CUPS also generates a printcap file listing the queues for legacy applications that expect one.

Where this comes from

Cited
LPI exam objective 108.4
What it says
Basic CUPS configuration files, directories and the CUPS web interface.

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