sane-project-backends/PROBLEMS

Last update: 2003-02-09

- Avoiding damage on flatbed scanners

  Most flatbed scanners have no protection against exceeding the physical scan
  area height.  That is, if a scan is attempted with a height that exceeds the
  height of the scan surface, the scanner begins making loud noises and the
  scan mechanism may be damaged.  Thus, if you hear such a noise, IMMEDIATELY
  turn off the scanner.

  Normally, the backend will ensure that the maximum scan height is not
  exceeded.  However, if your scanner model has not been tested yet this
  safety-guard may not work. Please report errors like this to the author of
  the backend or the sane-devel mailing list.

- pnm backend disabled by default

  If the pnm backend is installed and saned is used to allow users on remote
  computers to scan on the local machine, pnm files can be read by the remote
  user. This is limited to the files saned can access (usually it's running as
  user "sane"). All pnm files can be read if saned runs as root which isn't
  recommended anyway. The pnm backend is disabled by default. If you want to
  use it, enable it with configure (see configure --help for details). Be sure
  that only trusted users can access the pnm backend over saned. As the pnm
  backend is ususally used for testing, the "test" backend should be used
  instead.

- Security problems with saned (SANE network scanning daemon)

  saned is not intended to be exposed to the internet or other non-trusted
  networks.  Make sure that access is limited by tcpwrappers and/or a firewall
  setup. Don't depend only on saned's own authentification.  Don't run saned
  as root if it's not necessary. And do not install saned as setuid root.
  Read man saned(8) for details.