SANE

Related articles
SANE/Scanner-specific problems
Scanner Button Daemon
SANE
(
Scanner Access Now Easy
) provides a library and a command-line tool to use scanners under GNU/Linux.
Installation
Install
the
sane
package. Most front-ends and drivers pull this as a dependency anyway, so it is often unnecessary to explicitly install it.
Scanner drivers
Many modern scanners support "driverless" scanning.
[1]
You can look for your device's compatibility on
sane-airscan GitHub
or
Apple AirPrint devices
.
Install
the
sane-airscan
package if the scanner is known to work in "driverless" mode. If your scanner is using USB, also
install
the
ipp-usb
package and
start/enable
ipp-usb.service
to allow using IPP protocol over USB connection.
Otherwise, check
SANE - Supported Devices
and
SANE/Scanner-specific problems
to see if your scanner will work with a different driver.
Most scanners should work out of the box. If yours does not, see
SANE/Scanner-specific problems
for installation instructions.
Note
Some drivers, including
sane-airscan
, use multicast to search for network scanners. See
iptables#Allowing multicast traffic
to correctly configure your firewall.
Frontends
Many frontends exist for SANE, a non-exhaustive list of which can be found on the
SANE project website
.
GNOME Document Scanner
— Simplified GUI that is intended to be easier to use and better integrated into the
GNOME
desktop than XSane. Part of
gnome
.
https://apps.gnome.org/SimpleScan/
||
simple-scan
NAPS2
— Fully-featured, open-source document scanner with built in OCR functionality.
https://www.naps2.com/
||
naps2
AUR
Scantailor
— A scanning application that works with projects and allows live editing during the scanning process.
https://github.com/ScanTailor-Advanced/scantailor-advanced
||
scantailor-advanced
Skanlite
— Simple image scanning application that does nothing more than scan and save images, based on the KSane backend. Part of
kde-graphics
.
https://apps.kde.org/skanlite/
||
skanlite
Skanpage
— A simple scanning application designed for multi-page scanning and saving of documents and images. Part of
kde-utilities
.
https://apps.kde.org/skanpage/
||
skanpage
XSane
— Full-featured GTK-based frontend, looking a bit old but providing extended functionalities.
http://www.xsane.org/
||
xsane
AUR
Xsane-gimp
— A GIMP plugin to scan from GIMP using xsane.
https://gitlab.com/sane-project/frontend/xsane
||
xsane-gimp
AUR
Some
OCR software
can scan images using SANE: gImageReader,
gscan2pdf
, Linux-Intelligent-Ocr-Solution,
OCRFeeder
,
Paperwork
.
Note
Scanning directly to PDF using XSane in 16bit color depth mode is known to produces
corrupted files
and a note in
pacman
output warns so. 8bit mode is known to work.
The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.
Reason:
skanlite does not need to
handle
mDNS. As long as
mDNS hostname resolution
is set up correctly and the scanner 's address is specified as
hostname
.local
, it should just work. This looks like a hplip limitation/bug. (Discuss in
Talk:SANE
)
Using a frontend does not mean you do not have to apply some tricks. This is especially true with devices configured via
mDNS
. For example,
skanlite
needs to have additional info specified on the command line in order to detect a network scanner properly as it cannot handle mDNS. Here is an example with an HP Officejet Pro L7590:
skanlite  --device "hpaio:/net/Officejet_Pro_L7500?ip=192.168.0.17"
.
Verification
Now you can try to see if sane recognizes your scanner.
$ scanimage -L
If that fails, run the command again as root to check for permission problems. If that fails as well, check that your scanner is plugged into the computer. You also might have to unplug/plug your scanner for
/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/65-sane.rules
to recognize your scanner.
Now you can see if it actually works
$ scanimage --format=png --output-file test.png --progress
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 --output-file test.tiff --progress
Sane provides many special backend options for numerous scanner types. To see what these are for your device:
$ scanimage -A
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
or in
/etc/sane.d/dll.conf
.
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
Second, install, start and enable
avahi
-daemon on your server (if it is not already active) so your scanner can be found by multicast. Or, if your scanner is supported by Airscan installing the
sane-airscan
package is an alternative.
If you use
iptables
,
insert
the
nf_conntrack_sane
module to let the firewall track
saned
connections.
Conntrack helper seems to be disabled by default.
[2]
You can activate it with
# echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_helper
To configure this permanently, set the
nf_conntrack_helper=1
option for the
nf_conntrack
module, see
Kernel module#Using modprobe.d
.
Now
start/enable
saned.socket
. Your scanner is now available over the network. For more information, see
saned(8)
.
Note
saned intentionally refuses to share scanners that use the net: backend (which includes some USB scanners). There is a crude patch to allow this in
FS#54786
, but note it may cause problems on some networks. Check output of
scanimage -L
on the server to see the scanner url.
Accessing your scanner from a remote workstation
This article or section is being considered for removal.
Reason:
Once a local scanner is shared (above), remote workstations should follow the normal instructions (i.e. Installation's
#Scanner_drivers
). Static IPs & avahi-daemon should move to that section. (Discuss in
Talk:SANE
)
Note
Some network scanners require a different approach. See
SANE/Scanner-specific problems
.
You can access your network-enabled scanner from a remote Arch Linux workstation.
First, 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
Second, depending on what you configured at the server side, install, start and enable avahi-daemon or install sane-airscan at the remote workstation.
Now test your workstation's connection:
$ scanimage -L
The network scanner should now also show up in some
front-ends
.
Windows and macOS clients
Since the Windows port of SANE seems to be
unsupported, outdated and difficult to get
, you can try
SANEWinDS
or
SaneTwain
(old).
It is possible to use the Windows or macOS native scan UI with
AirSane
which could be installed via
airsane-git
AUR
. To access printers shared that way on Linux,
sane-airscan
could be used.
Troubleshooting
See also
SANE/Scanner-specific problems
.
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
#Firmware
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 does not do after all (the scanner will not be displayed by
scanimage -L
then). This has happened 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 comment out epson2:
/etc/sane.d/dll.conf
#epson2
epson
It may also be possible that the independent
iscan
AUR
epkowa
backend interferes with your
snapscan
backend (epson scanners). You may get this error right after using the
scanimage -L
command. Starting the scanner app (like
xsane
AUR
) twice can also solve the problem. Otherwise check your
/etc/sane.d/epkowa.conf
for wrong configurations or remove the
iscan
AUR
package.
Communication via xHCI not working (older scanner models)
Some older scanner models do not work when connected via an USB3 port. If you experience this issue, try setting the
SANE_USB_WORKAROUND=1
environment variable
before starting your frontend.
[3]
[4]
If that does not work, try one of the following workarounds:
Use an USB2 port instead of an USB3 port, if available.
Disable xHCI via BIOS/EFI. eHCI will consequently be used and communication with the scanner will work. On the downside, USB3 speed can not be reached on any port.
On (some) intel chipsets the
setpci
command can be used to route specific usb ports to either the xHCI or the eHCI controller. See
force-a-single-usb-3-0-port-to-work-as-usb-2-0
(scroll down to where it says "setpci") for further information. With this it is possible to toggle single USB ports with a simple shell script.
Connect the scanner over the network instead if it is supported.
Firewall
When network scanning scanner hangs, then invalid argument error occured.
saned uses data port range, so you must enable connections to 6566/tcp and
data_portrange
from
/etc/sane.d/saned.conf
or use conntrack firewall module for sane to enable data ports as described above.
Slow startup
If you encounter slow startup issue (e.g.
xsane
or
scanimage -L
does not return results nearly instantly), one of the drivers you do not use may be the culprit.
You can resolve this by editing
/etc/sane.d/dll.conf
and commenting out the scanner drivers you do not use. You can use
scanimage -L
to determine which drivers you need:
$ scanimage -L
device `brother4:net1;dev0' is a Brother DCP-L2550DW
device `v4l:/dev/video0' is a Noname Logitech Webcam C925e virtual device
device `escl:http://192.168.1.2:80' is a Brother DCP-L2550DW series adf,platen scanner
The parts between the
`
and the
:
in the output indicate the driver for the device. For example, if only want to use the Brother scanner and not the
webcam
or the generic scanner driver, you can comment out everything but the
brother4
driver in
/etc/sane.d/dll.conf
.
Another reason for slow startup issues might be in the driver-specific configuration file at
/etc/sane.d/
backend-name
.conf
; as an example, it has been reported that commenting out
net autodiscovery
in
/etc/sane.d/epson2.conf
solves these slow startup issues for Epson scanners using USB.
Device busy
The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.
Reason:
The user should not need to be in the scanner group (see
Users and groups#Pre-systemd groups
) (Discuss in
Talk:SANE
)
If your USB device is listed with
scanimage -L
but launching the test
scanimage pixma:04A9173E_11DAD1 --format=tiff --output-file test.tiff
always return the 'Device busy' error, you might try to add your username to the scanner group
usermod -a -G scanner yourusername
then blacklist the
usblp
kernel module by writing
blacklist usblp
in
/etc/modprobe.d/no-usblp.conf
(it prevents
usblp
from loading to support scanning, not needed by xsane and related tools, might also
conflict with CUPS
). Reboot to finish.
[5]
[
dead link
2025-08-16—HTTP 404]
In addition to this, some Cannon printers return "device busy" if the scan mode is set to "Computer". Setting this to the "Remote Scanner" mode should fix the issue.
[6]
Permission problem
With systemd, the
scanner
and
lp
groups are deprecated. No need to add your user to those groups. See
Users and groups#Pre-systemd groups
for detail.
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.
First 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 the scanner:
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 03f0:2504 Hewlett-Packard
. Here
03f0
is the
vendorID
and
2504
is the
productID
.
Alternatively, running
sane-find-scanner
with root permission will also give you the same
vendorID
and
productID
.
Now open
/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/65-sane.rules
and see if there is a line with the
vendorID
and
productID
of your scanner. If there is not any, create the new file
/etc/udev/rules.d/65-sane-missing-scanner.rules
, with the following contents:
ATTRS{idVendor}=="
vendorID
", ATTRS{idProduct}=="
productID
", MODE="0664", GROUP="lp", ENV{libsane_matched}="yes"
Save the file, plug out and back in your scanner and the file permissions should be now correct.
The factual accuracy of this article or section is disputed.
Reason:
The scanner needs to be added to the right backend file,
hp4200.conf
will not work for any scanner. (Discuss in
Talk:SANE
)
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
Parallel port scanners
All devices attached to a parallel port are assumed to be printers, and are given a
lp
group. Either create a
udev
rule to mark the relevant parallel port as
libsane_matched
, or add your user to the
lp
user group
. CUPS also uses the
lp
group for read-only access to configuration files, so there are potential security implications to adding users to the
lp
group - see
CUPS#Connection interfaces
for more information.
avahi-daemon is not mandatory
This article or section needs language, wiki syntax or style improvements. See
Help:Style
for reference.
Reason:
This is configuration, not troubleshooting. (Discuss in
Talk:SANE
)
Some scanner applications may require you to start the
avahi-daemon
upon startup. This is actually the cause of SANE. If for some reason you do not want to enable the
avahi-daemon
service because you use a wired scanner or do not need it because your scanner's driver supports networking already on setup, then comment out the
net
backend in the SANE configuration:
/etc/sane.d/dll.conf
# The next line enables the network backend; comment it out if you do not
# need to use a remote SANE scanner over the network -- see sane-net(5)
# and saned(8) for details.
#net
Additionally you can try and edit
/etc/sane.d/dll.d/airscan
and
/etc/sane.d/dll.d/hpaio
and comment the lines inside.
Then restart the
saned
daemon.
Error during device I/O
If you are getting
SANE: Error during device I/O (code=9)
while trying to scan using an HP scanner, make sure you have
hplip-plugin
AUR
installed (see
CUPS/Printer-specific problems#HP
).
Tips and tricks
scanimage output is not satisfying
When
scanimage
output is not satisfying, one might run
$ scanimage --all-options
to request a listing of all available options exposed by the backend. The output may hint the unsatisfying output is due to too low default values, and also state what values can be explicitly set that might improve the result.
See also
Wikipedia:WS-Discovery
, Microsoft's "driverless" protocol
ICC profiles#Scanner calibration
, ICC profiles for color management