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.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 108 and space the ones you get wrong.