SANE

Related articles

• Scan print and save Script
• Scanner Button Daemon

Sane provides a library and a command-line tool to use scanners under GNU/Linux. Here you can check if sane supports your scanner.

Installation

Install sane from the official repositories.

Configuration

Now you can try to see if sane recognizes your scanner

$ scanimage -L

If that fails, check that your scanner is plugged into the computer. You also might have to unplug/plug your scanner for /etc/udev/rules.d/sane.rules to recognize your scanner.

Now you can see if it actually works

$ scanimage --format=tiff > test.tiff

If the scanning fails with the message scanimage: sane_start: Invalid argument you may need to specify the device.

$ scanimage -L

device `v4l:/dev/video0' is a Noname Video WebCam virtual device
device `pixma:04A91749_247936' is a CANON Canon PIXMA MG5200 multi-function peripheral

Then you would need to run

$ scanimage --device pixma:04A91749_247936 --format=tiff > test.tiff

For Acer/BenQ hardware

If you own an USB scanner from Acer (now BenQ), you need to download a suitable firmware binary and configure /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf.

• Find out which model you own and take note of the USB ID:

$ lsusb

Bus 002 Device 010: ID 04a5:20b0 Acer Peripherals Inc. (now BenQ Corp.) S2W 3300U/4300U

• Go to snapscan main page and see whether your scanner is supported and which firmware you need (e.g, u176v046.bin).
• Search the firmware image on the Internet and download it to /usr/share/sane/snapscan/.
• Edit the head of /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf and configure the following two lines:

firmware /usr/share/sane/snapscan/u176v046.bin
/dev/usb/scanner0 bus=usb

For HP hardware

For HP hardware you may also need to install hplip from the official repositories (see hplib supported devices) and/or hpoj^AUR from the AUR (see hpoj supported devices).

• Uncomment or add hpaio and hpoj to a new line in /etc/sane.d/dll.conf.
• Running hp-setup as root may help you add your device.
• hp-plugin is the 'HPLIP Plugin Download and Install Utility'.
• hp-scan is the 'HPLIP Scan Utility'.

For Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet, PSC, LaserJet, and PhotoSmart printer multi-function peripherals, run ptal-init setup as root and follow instructions. Then start the ptal-init daemon.

For Brother hardware

In order to install a Brother Scanner or Printer/Scanner combo you need the right driver (which can be found in the AUR). There are only four drivers to choose from (brscan1-4). In order to find the right one you should search for your model at the brother linux scanner page.

After you installed the driver you need to run (eg. setupSaneScan2 for brscan2 compatible devices):

# /usr/local/Brother/sane/setupSaneScan2 -i

so the drivers/scanner are recognized by sane.

For network scanners, Brother provides a different configuration tool for each brscan version (eg. brsaneconfig2 for brscan2 compatible devices):

# brsaneconfig2 -a name=<ScannerName> model=<ScannerModel> ip=<ScannerIP>

Example:

# brsaneconfig2 -a name=SCANNER_DCP770CW model=DCP-770CW ip=192.168.0.110

For Epson hardware

For network (including Wi-Fi) scanners, you can use "Image Scan! for Linux".

Install iscan^AUR and iscan-plugin-network^AUR from the AUR, then edit /etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf and add the line:

net {IP_OF_SCANNER}

For Samsung hardware

For some Samsung MFP printers you may need to edit /etc/sane.d/xerox_mfp.conf.

example entry:

#Samsung SCX-3200
usb 0x04e8 0x3441

Change the printer model as needed. You can get the idVendor and idProduct code with lsusb. See this thread.

For plustek scanners

Some plustek scanners (noticeably Canoscan ones), require a lock directory. Make sure that /var/lock/sane directory exists, that its permissions are 660, and that it is owned by <user>:scanner. If the directory permissions are wrong, only root will be able to use the scanner. Seems (at least on x86-64) that some programs using libusb (noticeably xsane and kooka) need scanner group rw permissions also for accessing /proc/bus/usb to work for a normal user.

Firmware

Note: This section is only needed if you need to upload firmware to your scanner.

Firmwares usually have the .bin extension.

Firstly you need to put the firmware someplace safe, it is recommended to put it in a subdirectory of /usr/share/sane.

Then you need to tell sane where the firmware is:

• Find the name of the backend for your scanner from the sane supported devices list.
• Open the file /etc/sane.d/<backend-name>.conf.
• Make sure the firmware entry is uncommented and let the file-path point to where you put the firmware file for your scanner. Be sure that members of the group scanner can access the /etc/sane.d/<backend-name>.conf file.

If the backend of your scanner is not part of the sane package (such as hpaio.conf which is part of hplip), you need to uncomment the relevant entry in /etc/sane.d/dll.d/hplip.

Install a frontend

XSane provides a GTK-based frontend to Sane. It can be installed with the package xsane, available in the official repositories.

Note: Scanning directly to pdf using Xsane in 16bit color depth mode is known to produces corrupted files. 8bit mode should work.

Other frontends exist, to find them you can:

• use pacman -Ss to search for keywords such as "sane" or "scanner"
• see the list of frontends on the sane-project website

Network scanning

Sharing Your Scanner Over a Network

You can share your scanner with other hosts on your network who use sane, xsane or xsane-enabled Gimp. To set up the server, first indicate which hosts on your network are allowed access.

Change the /etc/sane.d/saned.conf file to your liking, for example:

# required
localhost
# allow local subnet
192.168.0.0/24

Insert the nf_conntrack_sane module for iptables to let the firewall track saned connections.

Scanning requests are handled by saned. This can be run as a daemon with saned -a or run when needed by xinetd:

Configuring xinetd for sane

Install xinetd from the official repositories.

Next, make sure the file /etc/xinetd.d/sane exists and disabled is set to no:

service sane-port
{
   port        = 6566
   socket_type = stream
   wait        = no
   user        = nobody
   group       = scanner
   server      = /usr/bin/saned
   disable     = no
}

The user named ('nobody' in the file included in the sane package) must usually be a member of the scanner group to have permission to access the scanner:

# usermod -a -G scanner nobody

For some HP combined scanner-printers the user must be a member of the lp group instead, which should also be used instead of scanner in the service file.

Add the following line to /etc/services if it is not already present:

sane-port 6566/tcp

Start the xinetd daemon.

Your scanner can now be used by other workstations, across your local area network.

Accessing Your Scanner from a Remote Workstation

You can access your network-enabled scanner from a remote Arch Linux workstation.

To set up your workstation, begin by installing xsane from the official repositories.

Next, specify the server's host name or IP address in the /etc/sane.d/net.conf file:

# static IP address
192.168.0.1
# or host name
stratus

Now test your workstation's connection, from a non-root login prompt:

$ xsane

or

$ scanimage -L

After a short while, xsane should find your remote scanner and present you with the usual windows, ready for network scanning delight!

For HP All in one network printer/scanner/fax you need to configure it via:

$ hp-setup <printer ip>

Troubleshooting

Invalid argument

If you get an "Invalid argument" error with xsane or another sane front-end, this could be caused by one of the following reasons:

Missing firmware file

No firmware file was provided for the used scanner (see above for details).

Wrong firmware file permissions

The permissions for the used firmware file are wrong. Correct them using

# chown root:scanner /usr/share/sane/SCANNER_MODEL/FIRMWARE_FILE
# chmod ug+r /usr/share/sane/SCANNER_MODEL/FIRMWARE_FILE

Multiple backends claim scanner

It may happen, that multiple backends support (or pretend to support) your scanner, and sane chooses one that doesn't do after all (the scanner won't be displayed by scanimage -L then). This has happend with older Epson scanners and the epson2 resp. epson backends. In this case, the solution is to comment out the unwanted backend in /etc/sane.d/dll.conf. In the Epson case, that would be to change

 epson2
 #epson

to

 #epson2
 epson

Slow startup

If you encounter slow startup issue (e.g. xsane or scanimage -L take a lot to find scanner) it may be that more than one driver supporting it is available.

Have a look at /etc/sane.d/dll.conf and try commenting out one (e.g. you may have epson, epson2 and epkowa enabled at the same time, try leaving only epson or epkowa uncommented)

Permission problem

If you see your scanner only when running lsusb (as root), you might get it working by adding your user to scanner and/or lp group.

# gpasswd -a username scanner
# gpasswd -a username lp

This is reported to work on HP all-in-one models (e.g., PSC 1315 and PSC 2355).

You can also try to change permissions of usb device but this is not recommended, a better solution is to fix the Udev rules so that your scanner is recognized.

Example:

First, as root, check connected usb devices with lsusb:

#Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
#Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
#Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
#Bus 003 Device 003: ID 04d9:1603 Holtek Semiconductor, Inc. 
#Bus 003 Device 002: ID 04fc:0538 Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd 
#Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
#Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
#Bus 001 Device 006: ID 03f0:2504 Hewlett-Packard 
#Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:0802 Logitech, Inc. Webcam C200
#Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

In our example we see scanner - 'Bus 001 Device 006: ID 03f0:2504 Hewlett-Packard'

Now edit /lib/udev/rules.d/53-sane.rules and look for the first part of the ID number found previously and check if there is a line that also reports the second part of the number (model numer), in this example 2504. If not found change or copy a line and enter the idVendor and idProduct of your scanner, in this example it would be:

# Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 4100C
ATTRS{idVendor}=="03f0", ATTRS{idProduct}=="2504", MODE="0664", GROUP="scanner",
  ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"

Save the file, plug out and back in your scanner and the file permissions should be now correct.

Another tip, is that you can add your device (scanner) in backend file:

Add 'usb 0x03f0 0x2504' to /etc/sane.d/hp4200.conf so it looks like this:

#
# Configuration file for the hp4200 backend
#
#
# HP4200
#usb 0x03f0 0x0105
usb 0x03f0 0x2504

Epson Perfection 1270

For Epson Perfection 1270, you also need a firmware named esfw3e.bin. It can be obtained by installing the Windows driver.

Modify the configuration file of the snapscan backend, /etc/sane.d/snapscan.conf. Change the firmware path line with yours:

   # Change to the fully qualified filename of your firmware file, if
   # firmware upload is needed by the scanner
   firmware /mnt/mydata/Backups/firmware/esfw3e.bin

And add the following line in the end or anywhere you like

  # Epson Perfection 1270
  usb 0x04b8 0x0120

Actually you can leave only two lines in the snapscan.conf file: 'firmware' line and 'usb' line.

You can get such code information (usb 0x04b8 0x0120) by "sane-find-scanner" command.

Also add such information lines to /etc/hotplug/usb/libsane.usermap to setup your privilege, like:

 #Epson Perfection 1270
 libusbscanner 0x0003 0x04b8 0x0120 0x0000 0x0000 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00000000

Replug scanner, you have a working Epson Perfection 1270 now.

NOTE: I can scan image if I define the X and Y value, but without that error message occurs like: "scanimage: sane_start: Error during device I/O", if anyone knows any other reasons, please add them to this section.

• To prevent "scanimage: sane_start: Error during device I/O" and hangup of the scanner itself, when trying to scan with ADF (automatic document feed) enabled, I had to remove or comment out all Backends from /etc/sane.d/dll.conf and instead just add this to the file:

snapscan

Finally. If you still get the "Error I/O" messages try to check the transportation lock of the scanner. It's on the bottom of the scanner. It must be opened.

Hangs while scanning due to xhci pre-boot mode

If you get a problem where your scanner is detected while running lsusb or scanimage -L and even the GUI apps, however when you attempt to scan, the scanner starts but shortly after hangs or freezes while scanning the following fix may help you.

You may also get this error loged while attempting to scan:

kernel: usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 8 using xhci_hcd
kernel: WARNING! power/level is deprecated; use power/control instead

The fix is: In the UEFI/BIOS change the setting under USB configuration, xhci pre-boot mode from enabled to disabled.