Share a scanner in a network server with Debian Linux

[Guillaume Mahieu]

Hello,

I want converse an old computer (Pentium II 450 MHz with 96 Mo RAM
Memory) in a network server with Debian Linux, Debian installation is
done, but, I want share my scanner (Agfa 1236s connected to a ISA SCSI
card) with my private network.

What I must doing to install and share this scanner ?

Thank you.

 

[Dances With Crows]

[ Crossposting to irrelevant groups trimmed. This is Linux-specific,
comp.unix.* will be as useful as tits on a bull. ]
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.os.linux.misc.]

I want [to convert] an old computer (Pentium II 450 MHz with 96 M RAM)
[into] a network server with Debian Linux. Debian installation is
done, but I want [to] share my scanner (Agfa 1236s connected to a ISA
SCSI card) with my private network. What I must doing to install and
share this scanner ?

ISA SCSI? Yuck. Well, first thing to do is to go to the SANE project
homepage at http://sane-project.org/ and look for the backend for your
scanner. This is probably the sane-snapscan backend; the list of
supported scanners says "AGFA 1236s: good, sane-snapscan".

Then you have to make sure the SCSI bus is configured properly (cables
are OK and termination is OK). Then you have to modprobe the module for
your SCSI card, scsi_mod, and sg. This may be difficult since ISA PnP
is a PITA and ISA cards usually require parameters like io= and irq=.
You should post the make and model# of your ISA SCSI card, so someone
can advise you. Better yet, throw out that ancient ISA card and grab a
PCI SCSI card, since SCSI is enough of a pain when it's attached to a
decent bus. Once you've modprobed everything and installed SANE and its
backends, run SANE and make sure it works.

Then you have to set something up so that a user at a remote machine can
invoke SANE. I don't have any idea why anyone would want to do
this--you have to be right next to the scanner to open the lid and
insert originals, for $DIETY's sake. But, since SANE's GUI is
X11-based, you can probably get something going pretty easily if you
just set up sshd on the machine connected to the scanner, make sure that
"X11Forwarding yes" is in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and do this:

user@machine1:~$ ssh -Y scannermachine
user@scannermachine:~$ sane &
(SANE runs on scannermachine and displays on machine1 thanks to ssh's X
forwarding. NOTE: use -X if -Y doesn't work.)

....if you set your users' public keys up properly, you could create a
small shell script that invoked those commands when a user clicks on an
icon. HTH,

 

[Michael Vilain]

Hello,

I want converse an old computer (Pentium II 450 MHz with 96 Mo RAM
Memory) in a network server with Debian Linux, Debian installation is
done, but, I want share my scanner (Agfa 1236s connected to a ISA SCSI
card) with my private network.

What I must doing to install and share this scanner ?

Thank you.

Write a scanner driver and scanner server daemon that runs on the
machine that will host your scanner. Write a scanner client which
connects to the server over the network for each different machine on
your network.

I've never seen this architecture in practice as scanners aren't
expensive and there's no money in making them a shared network resource.
Add to that the fact that most scanner vendors don't write the drivers
and software for their products, but contract it out to a software
house. That's why most scanner software only works on a narrow set of
OS versions and patch levels. If you have the internal specification
document which describes how your scanner works, start coding (doubtful
as it's proprietary and would most likely get the Department of Homeland
Security in your face for violations of Trademark here in the US).

It's probably cheaper in terms of time and money to buy a scanner for
each machine that needs one. If you don't have the scanner internals
document, you'll have to reverse engineer how the scanner works. That
will also get Homeland Security on you doorstep.

Dontcha just _love_ the DCMA. Just wait, the European Parliament is
considering drafting a version of your very own. Lucky you!

 

[jpd]

Begin <[email protected]>

Write a scanner driver and scanner server daemon that runs on the
machine that will host your scanner. Write a scanner client which
connects to the server over the network for each different machine on
your network.

It's been done: http://www.sane-project.org .

 

[Dances With Crows]

[ Excessive crossposting trimmed ]
["Followup-To:" header set to comp.periphs.scanners.]

Write a scanner driver and scanner server daemon that runs on the
machine that will host your scanner.

Er, http://sane-project.org/ says the AGFA 1236s has "good" support with
the sane-snapscan backend on Linux. I'd be more worried about the ISA
SCSI card, myself.

Write a scanner client which connects to the server over the network
for each different machine on your network.

Overkill. SANE is X11-based; use X11's built-in networkability.
user@workstation does "ssh -Y remotemachine /usr/X11R6/bin/sane" so SANE
runs on remotemachine and displays on workstation. Naturally,
remotemachine has to be able to mount a network filesystem using SMB or
NFS to save scans to somewhere that isn't its local disk, but that's not
difficult.

Add to that the fact that most scanner vendors don't write the drivers
and software for their products

Irrelevant here. The scanner in question has a SANE backend that is
reported to work correctly, so its protocol is fairly well understood.
You're right in that most "vendor-supplied drivers" are steaming piles
of feces, but the OP doesn't have to worry about that.

If you don't have the scanner internals document, you'll have to
reverse engineer how the scanner works. That will also get Homeland
Security on you doorstep. Dontcha just _love_ the DCMA.

IIRC, "reverse engineering for interoperability purposes" is explicitly
protected under that law. And nobody has to reverse-engineer *anything*
for the AGFA 1236s; its protocol is already well-understood. Do a
little Googling before spouting off, eh?

 

[Thomas Jahns]

I want converse an old computer (Pentium II 450 MHz with 96 Mo RAM
Memory) in a network server with Debian Linux, Debian installation is
done, but, I want share my scanner (Agfa 1236s connected to a ISA SCSI
card) with my private network.

What I must doing to install and share this scanner ?

You will need to install sane on both the server and the clients. Sane
is supposed to work on MacOS X, and definitely works on many other Unix
systems, but I'm not sure if it has been ported to Win32.

The server would run saned and the clients need to be configured to use
the server host as scanner backend.

For debian saned is contained in the sane-utils package.

All this has nothing to do with SCSI itself and would be just the same
for a USB-attached scanner, so please consider asking further questions
in groups that typically discuss the operating systems you intend to
use. And read the saned(8) and sane-snapscan(5) manpages before you do
so, they should already contain all the information you need.

Thomas Jahns

 

[Guillaume Mahieu]

Thanks for your assistance, that corresponds what I thought with
regard to the use of SANE. The problem is that I have to find the
parameters of IRQ and E/S because it's an ISA card. But take a SCSI
card in PCI, yes, but which ?

 

[Crazy Monkey]

Thanks for your assistance, that corresponds what I thought with
regard to the use of SANE. The problem is that I have to find the
parameters of IRQ and E/S because it's an ISA card. But take a SCSI
card in PCI, yes, but which ?

Adaptec SCSI Connect 2904 PCI Card