[wellylug] Scanner permissions

[Jethro Carr]

On Mon, 2008-09-15 at 19:40 +1200, Rob van der Linde wrote:
> I have a Canon USB scanner which is supported by Linux (I can run it no
> problem on Ubuntu 8.04 desktop), that I want to get running on Ubuntu
> 8.04 server. When I enter:
> 
> scanimage -L
> 
> Nothing shows, however:
> 
> sudo scanimage -L
> 
> Comes up with the following:
> 
> device `plustek:libusb:002:003' is a Canon CanoScan N1240U/LiDE30
> flatbed scanner
> 
> I also ran sane-find-scanner which sees the scanner, it says you may
> need to adjust the permissions for scanimage -L to see it. I think that
> is is why it is only showing when I run that command as root.
> 
> I want to be able to use the scanner as the user www-data, so I can run
> Jethro's openpsfc software. Any ideas how I should do this?

hi Rob,

I believe it works with your GUI because HAL/GNOME/KDE does some funky
stuff to give the user access to the scanner device.

To make it work on a server, I tend to fix it by giving the scanimage
command permissions to run as root when executed by any user. Eg:
chmod +s /usr/bin/scanimage

There are other ways too, such as setting up sudo access, but the chmod
method is easiest.

There may be a better way to give non-root users access to scanners, but
I'm not aware of how. (if you know, please do enlighten me! :-)

The problem is that usb scanners don't create device files, so you can't
set permissions on them that way, it's all done using kernel APIs.

regards,
jethro
-- 
Jethro Carr
www.jethrocarr.com/index.php?cms=blog
www.amberdms.com
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