CUPS provides support for the both "password" and "certificate" types of authentication methods. These authentications provide ways to limit access to individuals or groups.
There are three types of password authentication, and they are:
Basic
Digest
Kerberos
Let's discuss them one by one.
In basic authentication, the UNIX system's usernames and passwords are used to authenticate access to resources such as printers and classes, and to limit access to the administrative functions.
The username and password are encoded in Base64
. This information is passed in plain text format from the client to the server, and hence it does not offer any protection from eavesdropping. Since in this authentication method CUPS uses the usernames and passwords of the system (UNIX/Linux or any other OS in which CUPS is configured), if any malicious user monitors network packets and discovers valid users and passwords, it could result in a serious...