ippx

Sync and async IPP/IPPS client for Python. Send print jobs and monitor network printers, including printers exposed over the internet behind TLS with source IP allowlisting.

Built on httpx with a pure sans-IO codec for the IPP binary protocol (RFC 8010) and the RFC 8011 required operation set.

ippx is a plain library: the only runtime dependency is httpx. No framework, no server, no Docker required. Use it from a script, a CLI, a cron job, a serverless function, or an async web app.

Why

pyipp is monitoring only. ippx can actually print, in both async (FastAPI-native) and sync code, with first-class support for the realities of network printers: self-signed certificates, legacy cipher suites, HTTP Basic auth, and flaky WAN links.

Install

pip install ippx

Python 3.11+. Single runtime dependency: httpx. Fully typed (PEP 561).

Quick start (async, e.g. inside FastAPI)

from ippx import AsyncIppClient, BasicAuth, TlsConfig

async def print_invoice(pdf_bytes: bytes) -> None:
    async with AsyncIppClient(
        "ipps://printer.example.com:631/ipp/print",
        auth=BasicAuth("user", "password"),
        tls=TlsConfig(fingerprint="sha256:AB:CD:..."),
    ) as printer:
        job = await printer.print_job(
            pdf_bytes,
            document_format="application/pdf",
            job_name="invoice-123",
            job_attributes={"copies": 1, "sides": "two-sided-long-edge"},
        )
        result = await printer.wait_for_job(job.job_id, timeout=120)
        print(result.state, result.state_reasons)

Quick start (sync)

from ippx import IppClient

with IppClient("ipps://203.0.113.10:631/ipp/print") as printer:
    caps = printer.get_printer_attributes()
    print(caps.make_and_model, caps.state, caps.document_formats)
    job = printer.print_job(pdf_bytes, document_format="application/pdf")

Operations

The RFC 8011 required operation set, supported by every conformant printer:

wait_for_job polls with exponential backoff (1s doubling to a 15s cap by default) until the job reaches a terminal state (completed, canceled, aborted) and raises JobTimeoutError otherwise.

A printer's full operations-supported list decodes to the named Operation enum (the complete IANA IPP registry, not just the implemented set), so you can introspect capabilities like Operation.IDENTIFY_PRINTER.

Note that for get_jobs most printers only return job-id and job-uri by default, per RFC 8011; pass requested_attributes=["job-id", "job-state", "job-name"] to get more.

Authentication

• HTTP Basic: auth=ippx.BasicAuth("user", "pw") (or a plain ("user", "pw") tuple)
• HTTP Digest: auth=ippx.DigestAuth("user", "pw")
• TLS client certificate: tls=TlsConfig(client_cert=("cert.pem", "key.pem"))
• requesting-user-name: set via requesting_user_name=, sent on every request (identification only, not authentication)

TLS

Printers almost universally ship self-signed certificates. TlsConfig gives you four options, strongest first:

TlsConfig()                                  # system CA validation (default)
TlsConfig(verify="/path/to/printer-ca.pem")  # custom CA bundle
TlsConfig(fingerprint="sha256:AB:CD:...")    # pin the exact certificate
TlsConfig(verify=False)                      # no validation (last resort)

Fingerprint pinning verifies the SHA-256 digest of the server certificate during the TLS handshake itself, so there is no window between checking and using the connection. Get a printer's fingerprint with:

openssl s_client -connect printer:631 < /dev/null 2>/dev/null \
  | openssl x509 -fingerprint -sha256 -noout

For an internet-exposed printer (port forward locked to a source WAN IP), the recommended setup is fingerprint pinning plus HTTP Basic auth.

Two behaviours worth knowing:

• Printers very commonly offer only plain-RSA key exchange (no ECDHE), which stock OpenSSL policy rejects with a bare handshake-failure alert. Every context ippx builds therefore uses DEFAULT:@SECLEVEL=1 ciphers so real hardware is reachable and genuine certificate problems surface as truthful certificate errors; override with TlsConfig(ciphers=...) to tighten or loosen.
• With a custom CA bundle, hostname verification is disabled (printers are usually addressed by IP), so any certificate issued by that CA is accepted.

Job attributes

Pass common Job Template attributes as a plain dict; tags are inferred for copies, sides, media, print-quality, print-color-mode, orientation-requested, output-bin, number-up, printer-resolution and others. For anything else, pass ippx.Attribute objects with explicit tags.

Verified hardware

Also verified end-to-end against a live CUPS 2.4 server (Get-Printer-Attributes, Validate-Job, Print-Job, job polling to completion, Get-Jobs, sync and async clients). Contributions to this table are welcome.

Not in scope (yet)

• Document conversion: bring your own PDF/PCL/PWG raster bytes
• Create-Job / Send-Document multi-document jobs
• IPP event subscriptions (RFC 3995): printer firmware support is too rare to rely on; use wait_for_job polling
• Encoding IPP collections in requests (decoding is fully supported)
• mDNS/driverless discovery

Development

pip install -e .[dev]
ruff check src tests
pytest

License

MIT