Sane: Share scanners via Network?

Hello all,

following a recommendation in the forum, I tried Qoppa PDF Studio as a PDF processing tool.
Unfortunately, this software relies on your scanner being shared via saned, if I understand these instructions correctly.
https://kbpdfstudio.qoppa.com/how-to-set-up-your-scanner-to-work-with-sane-and-pdf-studio-under-fedora-27-linuxs-systemd/

As I read at FS#54786 : [sane] unable to share network scanner , saned is unable to provide this functionality for scanners that are attached to the computer via Ethernet or WiFi.

Is there any way to circumvent this issue? I must admit that I do not know where the patch provided at FS#54786 : [sane] unable to share network scanner is to be applied in Manjaro.

Thank you very much for any help in advance and kind regards,

DAC324

Must be me but…
Aren’t devices connected via Ethernet shared by definition when you plug it into an network hub?

Indeed, that’s what I thought as well at a first glance. However, if I just enter the scanner’s network name or IP address, Qoppa PDF Studio is not able to find it. The error message is interesting - it says “No saned found at {address}.”

While researching further, I found How to set up your scanner to work with Sane and PDF Studio under Fedora 27 Linux’s systemd – PDF Studio Knowledge Base which seems to confirm the assumption that the scanner has to be shared using saned as the error message above suggests.

I guess you are mixing terms here…
You might need to setup Saned to use the scanner on your machine, but the sharing is done via the Ethernet connection.
Each device that needs access to that scanner needs to use it’s own driver.

What you imply would be a scanner that is directly connected to your machine, which you want to share via Ethernet to other devices.
eg. That scanner is not connected to the Ethernet but your machine is…

Guess we are misunderstanding each other.
As indicated by the “No saned found at {address}” error message, Qoppa PDF Studio wants to contact a saned interface locally, in order to access the scanner.
Or, in other words, the scanners have to be presented to Qoppa PDF Studio via saned, which appears to be different to, for example, xsane.

Meanwhile, I was able to make some progress. In accordance with How to set up your scanner to work with Sane and PDF Studio under Fedora 27 Linux’s systemd – PDF Studio Knowledge Base , the file /usr/lib/systemd/system/saned@.service has to be amended as follows:

[Unit]
Description=Scanner Service
Requires=saned.socket

[Service]
Group=scanner
User=saned
Group=saned
ExecStart=/usr/bin/saned

StandardInput=socket
# StandardInput=null
StandardError=syslog

Environment=SANE_CONFIG_DIR=/etc/sane.d SANE_DEBUG_DLL=255

After a systemctl daemon-reload, Qoppa PDF Studio finally found the scanner :slight_smile:

Ok, just to clear-up term usage here then:
Is your scanner a “Network scanner” or a normal one via Serial/Parallel/USB cable?
To be more precise do you connect your scanner via the Ethernet port on your machine?

Indeed, it is one of these multifunction devices (scanner and printer combination), and it is connected to my computer via Ethernet.

ok in that case what i said still holds :slight_smile:
Because you are using saned as the driver between your scanner and your software on your machine…
Other devices/machines would normally need to install their own drivers to access the scanner (even when this machine is powered-off) :wink:
So the sharing is still done on Ethernet cable, not software on your machine :wink:

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This is still a bit muddled.

Is one end of your MFD’s ethernet cable connected to your computer, or to a router/switch? Splitting hairs, if the latter, then the MFD is connected to the network, not your computer.

I’ve been trying to get that part answered also :rofl:
The title is making me :roll_eyes:

Indeed, there is a switch in between, so it is connected to the network. Sorry for being not clear enough initially.
As for the sharing aspect: If I understood the linked KB article for Qoppa PDF Studio correctly, the attached scanner has to be offered as a shared resource, i.e. saned has to act as a scanner server that is further sharing the networked scanner as a resource.
In my particular scenario, the scanner is locally announced by saned in order to be seen by Qoppa PDF Studio running on the same computer.
Why all this? Because the scanner itself does not offer the same interface saned does. So its services apparently need to be translated for Qoppa PDF Studio to recognize them.

Ok now it is clear what you want to accomplish:

  1. You have a scanner connected to your machine that you want to share over the network to other machines.
  2. You want to share the scanner using the interface provide by your software on this machine.

That setup has nothing to do with how your scanner is connected to your machine to start with…
So ill change the title to reflect that…

If you had started with asking the correct question in title OR explained it, you would not have wasted our time like this.

I think this is a software issue. A lot of unnecessary steps to use pdf software, esp. seeing that sane/xsane can save to .pdf.

@DAC324: output of:

scanimage -L

Unfortunately, xsane is not able to handle scanners with document feeders very well.
When using xsane for scanning, you can only insert one page at a time in the document feeder as xsane is not able to process more than one page.

In particular when scanning documents with more than one page, this is very cumbersome as you will have to scan and save each page in a separate file and concatenate all of them afterwards in a separate step.

The ADF works fine on my HP8710. :man_shrugging:

Congratulations :slight_smile:
I have a Brother DCP-J715W, and with xsane, only the first page gets scanned, all subsequent ones run through the ADF without being scanned.

device `brother3:net1;dev0' is a Brother DCP-J715W DCP-J715W

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