[Bug 238406] Minor clarification for Section 9.1 of the Handbook

bugzilla-noreply at freebsd.org bugzilla-noreply at freebsd.org
Sat Jun 8 00:57:19 UTC 2019


https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=238406

            Bug ID: 238406
           Summary: Minor clarification for Section 9.1 of the Handbook
           Product: Documentation
           Version: Latest
          Hardware: Any
                OS: Any
            Status: New
          Severity: Affects Only Me
          Priority: ---
         Component: Documentation
          Assignee: doc at FreeBSD.org
          Reporter: rfg-freebsd at tristatelogic.com

Section 9.1 of the Handbook gives nice examples of /etc/printcap files that can
be used for printing. The one for a networked printer says to include the DNS
FQDN of the printer.

This isn't always either possible or desirable.  Printers should generally not
be connected to the public routed Internet except in some very special cases
because of the potential for security issues.  Furthermore, in those cases
where the IP address of a networked printer is one that is not publicly
routable, that address should not appear in DNS records, according to published
IETF guidance:

https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-dnsop-dontpublish-unreachable-01.txt

Fortunately, it appears that at the point in the example /etc/printcap file
where the user it told to substitute in the DNS name of the networked printer,
if the user instead substitutes in a traditional dotted quad representation of
the networked printer's IPv4 address, this seems to work just as well as if
there had been a DNS fully qualified domain name for the networked printer
substituted at that point in the /etc/printcap file instead.

Readers of the Handbook should be advised of this alternative possible way of
designating a networked printer.

Readers of the Handbook should perhaps also be advised that a networked printer
that can operate either in DHCP mode or in static address mode may possibly be
easier to deal with (for printing from FreeBSD) if the printer is assigned a
static IP address.

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