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Network Sharing of Scanners via Linux

There is a lot of confusing instructions circling around regarding network sharing of scanners. Windows users are told to install programs like BlindScanner, additional network devices are advertised, and even Linux users are (mis-)guided to connect to their network scanners via CUPS.

At the same time there is a clean and simple solution to share scanners among Linux devices with free open source software: Just use SANE.

I recommend following the instructions in How to share a scanner on your network by Manolis Tzanidakis on Linux.com. Even though the article dates back to 2006, it still is extremely useful and the only amendment I had to make to share a scanner connected to the current Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system was to replace the deprecated inetd / xinetd.

Instead of

we need to issue the following command:

This will advertise the scanner over the local network.

I actually tried that it works by connecting a Raspberry Pi that ran Mayan EDMS under Ubuntu to my sane compliant Samsung SCX-4263 scanner which was physically hooked to another machine on the network.