[sane-devel] Optrox Photomaker 3F - writing a backend

[m. allan noah]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Ondrej Zary<linux at rainbow-software.org> wrote:
> Hello,
> my attempt to reverse engineer Optrox Photomaker 3F scanner with proprietary
> ISA card produced some results: I can now (almost) scan a preview.
>
> If anyone is interested in details, here are some files (some command
> analysis, partial scanner schematic, some program, empty SANE backend):
> http://www.rainbow-software.org/linux_files/optrox/

wow- quite alot of work so far.

> I started writing a SANE backend. But the problem is that I need root
> privileges to access the scanner - the ISA card is accessed through I/O ports
> 0x340-0x34F. Is there a "correct" (or recommended) way to do this in SANE?
>
> I found that mustek backend supports one scanner with proprietary card. The
> manpage recommends accessing the backend through saned. This is certainly not
> very user friendly.
>
> Another way is to create a separate suid root scanning program. The backend
> will do all scanner access through this program. But this way, the backend
> will be not a real backend - could it be included into SANE?

I don't think SANE will ever include such a setuid backend.
Unfortunately, the best way to bypass the restriction on IO port
access is to write a kernel driver that exposes the ISA card. But I am
not sure the kernel devels would accept it, since the ISA slot is
dead, and you are talking about a 10+ year old scanner.

allan
-- 
"The truth is an offense, but not a sin"