Scanners

Installing scanner support

Scanner support is provided by the SANE library. To enable scanner support, amend your system configuration like so:

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

{
  ...
  hardware.sane.enable = true; # enables support for SANE scanners
  ...
}

Users in the scanner group will gain access to the scanner, or the lp group if it’s also a printer. To add yourself to these groups, amend your system configuration as follows:

❄︎ /etc/nixos/configuration.nix

{
  ...
  users.users.YOURUSERNAME.extraGroups = [ "scanner" "lp" ];
  ...
}

🟆︎

Tip: In order to affect your NixOS system by your nix-language-specific changes you must first evaluate it:

$ nixos-rebuild switch --sudo

🟆︎

Tip: The detection of installed backends by SANE depends on the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, which is set at login. You will need to logout and login again for backend changes to take effect after evaluation.

This environment is only set for login sessions. Your own systemd services that use SANE (e.g. a scan script) will not find backends added via hardware.sane.extraBackends or hardware.sane.brscan4/brscan5 unless you set it explicitly, as the built-in saned service does:

systemd.services.my-scan-service.environment = {
  SANE_CONFIG_DIR = "/etc/sane-config";
  LD_LIBRARY_PATH = "/etc/sane-libs";
};

Testing scanner support

To determine if your scanner is supported by SANE:

$ scanimage -L

If you can only see scanners when running as root, try adding the user to the scanner or lp groups, either using the method given above, or as follows (beware, don't forget to logout/login after running this command):

$ sudo usermod -a -G scanner,lp username

Supported backends

See the Supported Devices page to check if your scanner is supported. Some backends are proprietary and are not installed by default; see below. You may also be interested in "driverless" scanning (see below) if your scanner supports Apple AirScan and/or Microsoft WSD.

Driverless Apple AirScan and Microsoft WSD

A large number of printers now support "driverless" scanning. As explained at the sane-airscan backend project:

Driverless scanning comes in two flavors:

• Apple AirScan or AirPrint scanning (official protocol name is eSCL)
• Microsoft WSD, or WS-Scan (Web Services for Devices)

This backend implements both protocols, choosing automatically between them. It was successfully tested with many devices from Brother, Canon, Dell, Kyocera, Lexmark, Epson, HP, Panasonic, Ricoh, Samsung and Xerox, both in WSD and eSCL modes.

For eSCL devices, Apple maintains a comprehensive list of compatible devices. This list has scanners, multifunction devices and pure printers.

eSCL/Apple Airscan scanners should be found natively by the default escl backend. However, the sane-airscan third party backend is more actively maintained and you may have better luck using it:

hardware.sane.extraBackends = [ pkgs.sane-airscan ];
services.udev.packages = [ pkgs.sane-airscan ];

It can be that your scanner is found twice (once by escl and once by airscan, in this case disable escl:

hardware.sane.disabledDefaultBackends = [ "escl" ];

To detect Microsoft WSD "driverless" scanning, also use the sane-airscan backend.

If the scanner is connected by USB, also set the following option:

services.ipp-usb.enable=true;

HP

hardware.sane.extraBackends = [ pkgs.hplipWithPlugin ];

Epson

If your scanner is listed as supported by the epkowa backend and is connected by USB or SCSI:

hardware.sane.extraBackends = [ pkgs.epkowa ];

If your scanner is listed as supported by the epkowa backend and is on the network, substitute the host name or IP address in:

hardware.sane.extraBackends = [
  (pkgs.epkowa.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: {
    postInstall = oldAttrs.postInstall + ''
      echo "net epson10a2e0.local" >> $out/etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf
    '';
  }))
];

Some other scanners (see list) need the utsushi backend:

hardware.sane.extraBackends = [ pkgs.utsushi ];
services.udev.packages = [ pkgs.utsushi ];

SnapScan firmware

Many scanners require firmware blobs which can be downloaded from the website of the scanner or extracted from the drivers they provide. Once you have the appropriate firmware you need to tell SANE where to find it in your configuration.nix:

{
  hardware.sane.enable = true;
  hardware.sane.drivers.scanSnap.enable = true;
  # the below may be necessary
  nixpkgs.config.sane.snapscanFirmware = pkgs.fetchurl {
    # https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Scanner/Epson_Perfection/#Unterstuetzte-Geraete
    url = "https://media-cdn.ubuntu-de.org/wiki/attachments/52/46/Esfw41.bin"; #Epson Perfection 2480
    sha256 = "00cv25v4xlrgp3di9bdfd07pffh9jq2j0hncmjv3c65m8bqhjglq";
  };
}

Brother

Brother currently provides four different scanner backends for various generations of its scanners. The two newest, brscan4 and brscan5, are available as NixOS options (hardware.sane.brscan4 and hardware.sane.brscan5); no extra import is needed. Check Brother's driver download page for your model to see which one it uses.

Add a network scanner like this:

{
  ...
  hardware = {
    sane = {
      enable = true;
      brscan4 = {
        enable = true;
        netDevices = {
          home = { model = "MFC-L2700DN"; ip = "192.168.178.23"; };
        };
      };
    };
  };
  ...
}

In some cases, configuration changes may not take effect until after a reboot.

Scan button on network devices (without brscan-skey)

On Brother network devices, the "Scan to PC" button does not work via polling (see scanbd below). Instead, a computer registers itself on the device, and the device notifies it when someone presses Scan and selects that computer. Brother's proprietary brscan-skey implements this, but a small script of your own can replace it (protocol notes: jmesmon/brother2):

• Register via SNMP v1 set, community internal, OID 1.3.6.1.4.1.2435.2.3.9.2.11.1.1.0, one string per scan function:

TYPE=BR;BUTTON=SCAN;USER="MyPC";FUNC=FILE;HOST=<host-ip>:54925;APPNUM=5;DURATION=360;

FUNC/APPNUM pairs: IMAGE/1, EMAIL/2, OCR/3, FILE/5. USER is the name shown on the device. The registration expires after DURATION seconds, so renew it periodically (e.g. every 5 minutes).

• Button press: the device sends a UDP packet to port 54925 of the registered host, e.g. \x02\x00u0TYPE=BR;BUTTON=SCAN;USER="MyPC";FUNC=IMAGE;...;REGID=17174;SEQ=3;. Every event arrives twice with the same SEQ; no reply is needed. Remember to open UDP port 54925 in the firewall.
• Scanning: right after the button press the device is busy for a few seconds and scanimage fails with open of device ... failed: Invalid argument, so retry for a few seconds.
• With the brother4 backend and the document feeder as source, an empty feeder makes the device scan from the flatbed on its own.

Tested with an MFC-7360N and hardware.sane.brscan4, using a small Python listener as a systemd service that scans with scanimage --batch and img2pdf into the Paperless-ngx consume directory. Remember the SANE environment for such services (see the tip at the top of this page).

GIMP support

To enable support for scanning in GIMP:

1. Enable GIMP support in xsane by editing /etc/nixos/configuration.nix. Remove pkgs.xsane from your package list, and use the following instead:

   {
     #...
     environment.systemPackages = [
       (pkgs.xsane.override { gimpSupport = true; })
     ];
     #...
   }
   

2. Rebuild:

   $ sudo nixos-rebuild switch
   

3. Finally, you will need to manually create a symlink:

   $ ln -s /run/current-system/sw/bin/xsane ~/.config/GIMP/2.10/plug-ins/xsane
   

Network scanning

If NixOS cannot find a scanner located on your network, you may be interested in adding in your configuration.nix:

{
  ...
  services.avahi = {
    enable = true;
    nssmdns4 = true;  # for IPv4
  # nssmdns6 = true;  # for IPv6
  };
  ...
}

Currently (2017-08-16) the SANE backend does not support overriding according to 🚩︎nixpkgs issue #17411. The workaround for this is to download michaelrus's sane-extra-config.nix, copy it to /etc/nixos/sane-extra-config.nix and import it in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix as follows:

{
  ...
  imports = [
    ...
    ./sane-extra-config.nix
    ...
  ];
 ...
 hardware.sane.extraConfig."magicolor" = ''
   net 10.0.0.30 0x2098
 ''; # Magicolor 1690mf
 ...
}

Sharing a scanner with macOS/iOS (AirSane)

saned shares scanners with other SANE clients only. To make a scanner usable from macOS (Preview, Image Capture), iOS apps or Mopria clients without drivers, run AirSane on the machine the scanner is attached to (locally or via the network). It exposes SANE scanners via eSCL ("AirScan"), announces them through Avahi and has a small web interface. It is not in nixpkgs; notes for packaging it yourself:

• It builds with cmake and pkg-config against sane-backends libjpeg libpng avahi libusb1.
• Upstream's install step writes to /lib/systemd and /etc; install only the airsaned binary and define the systemd service in Nix.
• Give the service the SANE environment (see the tip at the top of this page).
• Use --ignore-list to hide escl:.*, airscan:.* and net:.* devices. Otherwise the same scanner shows up several times, and AirSane may find itself through the airscan/escl backends.
• The default port 8090 is often already in use; change it with --listen-port. Check the announcement with avahi-browse -rt _uscan._tcp.

Using the scanner button

🗎︎

This article or section features a wall of configuration. Such configuration examples are hard to follow, and usually contain too much information or unrelated configurations. Please edit this section, stripping down the configuration to a minimal example showcasing the necessary implementation. While editing, please refer to the Manual of Style.

Many scanners feature a hardware button which makes for very convenient operation, especially in combination with an automated document processing system like paperless. NixOS includes the scanner button daemon scanbd which can be used for this purpose; however, its setup isn't terribly user friendly. For Brother network scanners, see the Brother section instead.

Basic scanbd configuration requires us to provide:

1. a config file;
2. a script to execute the scanning sequence;
3. a systemd service that loads the config file, starts polling the scanner, and executes the script when it detects a button press.

🟆︎

Tip: As scanbd continuously polls the scanner, it can't be used at the same time by SANE, which must be disabled.

There is a more advanced configuration which allows sharing the scanner with SANE frontends, but I haven't yet figured out how to set this up under NixOS (the config is a bit recursive).

Full documentation is in the project README.

kliu's blog includes in his writeup a nice script, bits of which have been cribbed here.

Here is a working derivation that dumps the scanned document into the paperless intake directory; you'll need to modify it to suit your own needs.

{ config, lib, pkgs, ... }:

with lib;

let
  configDir = "/etc/scanbd";
  saneConfigDir = "${configDir}/sane.d";

  scanbdConf = pkgs.writeText "scanbd.conf"
    ''
      global {
        debug = true
        debug-level = ${toString config.services.scanbd.debugLevel}
        user = ${config.services.scanbd.user}
        group = ${config.services.scanbd.group}
        scriptdir = ${configDir}/scripts
        pidfile = ${config.services.scanbd.pidFile}
        timeout = ${toString config.services.scanbd.timeOut}
        environment {
          device = "SCANBD_DEVICE"
          action = "SCANBD_ACTION"
        }

        multiple_actions = true
        action scan {
          filter = "^scan.*"
          numerical-trigger {
            from-value = 1
            to-value = 0
          }
          desc = "Scan to file"
          script = "scan.script"
        }
        ${config.services.scanbd.extraConfig}
      }
    '';

  scanScript = pkgs.writeScript "scanbd_scan.script"
    ''
      #! ${pkgs.bash}/bin/bash
      export PATH=${lib.makeBinPath [ pkgs.coreutils pkgs.sane-frontends pkgs.sane-backends pkgs.ghostscript pkgs.imagemagick ]}
      set -x
      date="$(date --iso-8601=seconds)"
      filename="Scan $date.pdf"
      tmpdir="$(mktemp -d)"
      pushd "$tmpdir"
      scanadf -d "$SCANBD_DEVICE" --source "ADF Duplex" --mode Gray --resolution 200dpi

      # Convert any PNM images produced by the scan into a PDF with the date as a name
      convert image* -density 200 "$filename"
      chmod 0666 "$filename"

      # Remove temporary PNM images
      rm --verbose image*

      # Atomic move converted PDF to destination directory
      paperlessdir="/var/lib/paperless/consume"
      cp -pv "$filename" $paperlessdir/"$filename".tmp &&
      mv $paperlessdir/"$filename".tmp $paperlessdir/"$filename" &&
      rm "$filename"

      popd
      rm -r "$tmpdir"
    '';

in

{

  ###### interface
  options = {

    services.scanbd.enable = mkOption {
      type = types.bool;
      default = false;
      description = ''
        Enable support for scanbd (scanner button daemon).

        <note><para>
          If scanbd is enabled, then saned must be disabled.
        </para></note>
      '';
    };

    services.scanbd.user = mkOption {
      type = types.str;
      default = "scanner";
      example = "";
      description = ''
        scanbd daemon user name.
      '';
    };

    services.scanbd.group = mkOption {
      type = types.str;
      default = "scanner";
      example = "";
      description = ''
        scanbd daemon group name.
      '';
    };

    services.scanbd.extraConfig = mkOption {
      type = types.lines;
      default = "";
      example = ''
        device canon {
          filter = "^genesys.*"
          desc = "Canon LIDE"
          action file {
            filter = "^file.*"
            desc = "File"
            script = "copy.script"
          }
        }
        '';
      description = ''
        Extra configuration lines included verbatim in scanbd.conf.
        Use e.g. in lieu of including device-specific config templates
        under scanner.d/
      '';
    };

    services.scanbd.pidFile = mkOption {
      type = types.str;
      default = "/var/run/scanbd.pid";
      example = "";
      description = ''
        PID file path.
      '';
    };

    services.scanbd.timeOut = mkOption {
      type = types.int;
      default = 500;
      example = "";
      description = ''
        Device polling timeout (in ms).
      '';
    };

    services.scanbd.debugLevel = mkOption {
      type = types.int;
      default = 3;
      example = "";
      description = ''
        Debug logging (1=error, 2=warn, 3=info, 4-7=debug)
      '';
    };

  };

  ###### implementation
  config = mkIf config.services.scanbd.enable {

      users.groups.scanner.gid = config.ids.gids.scanner;
      users.users.scanner = {
        uid = config.ids.uids.scanner;
        group = "scanner";
      };

      environment.etc."scanbd/scanbd.conf".source = scanbdConf;
      environment.etc."scanbd/scripts/scan.script".source = scanScript;
      environment.etc."scanbd/scripts/test.script".source = "${pkgs.scanbd}/etc/scanbd/test.script";

      systemd.services.scanbd = {
        enable = true;
        description = "Scanner button polling service";
        documentation = [ "https://sourceforge.net/p/scanbd/code/HEAD/tree/releases/1.5.1/integration/systemd/README.systemd" ];
        script = "${pkgs.scanbd}/bin/scanbd -c ${configDir}/scanbd.conf -f";
        wantedBy = [ "multi-user.target" ];
        aliases = [ "dbus-de.kmux.scanbd.server.service" ];
      };
}

See also

Scanner firmware files

• Agfa Snapscan e40
• Misc Agfa Snapscan | IPFS mirror