What it is
The agent signs in to your organization, reports every printer the operating system exposes, and holds one authenticated TLS connection open to RocketPrint. Jobs arrive down that connection; outcomes go back up it.
- Runs as a normal desktop application with a menu-bar or tray icon.
- Needs no inbound connectivity, no port forwarding, and no VPN.
- Prints only jobs addressed to printers it registered, for the organization it signed in to.
- Keeps a local ledger of finished jobs so a redelivered job is never printed twice.
Installing
Install it on a machine that already prints to the printers you care about, and that stays awake during your working hours. One agent covers every queue that machine can see — you do not need one per printer.
$ curl -fsSL https://get.rocketprint.io | sh
$ rocketprint login
✔ Logged in as ken@example.com
✔ Station registered — bldr-wh-01
✔ Agent online — 3 printers registeredPlatform support and the current signing status are on the download page.
How it authenticates
You sign in inside the agent with your RocketPrint account. The agent receives a token and presents it when it opens its connection — authentication happens at the connection upgrade, before any job is routed. There is no API key to copy onto the machine, which means a compromised workstation does not hand someone your backend credential.
How printers register
On connect, and periodically afterwards, the agent enumerates the operating system's print queues and reports them. Each queue becomes a printer with a stable ID scoped to your organization, keyed on the station and the OS queue name.
- Rename a printer in the console and the ID stays the same — safe to store in your database.
- Presence flips to
offlinewhen the agent disconnects. - Jobs for an offline printer queue rather than fail, and dispatch on reconnect.
How it prints
For raw_base64, the agent writes your decoded bytes straight to the print queue with no driver rendering — that is how ZPL keeps its fidelity. For pdf_base64 and text, the job goes through the station's own print system using whatever driver is installed.
It then reports the outcome: printing when the OS accepts the job, then completed or failed with the reason.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause and fix |
|---|---|
| Printer missing from the console | The station's OS cannot see it either. Print a test page locally first, then restart the agent to force a re-report. |
| Station shows offline | Machine asleep, or outbound HTTPS blocked. The agent reconnects on its own and queued jobs dispatch automatically. |
Jobs stuck at pending | The owning station has not reconnected. This is the queue working as intended. |
| Raw jobs fail on Windows | Expected — raw pass-through on Windows is unfinished and errors explicitly. Use a macOS or Linux station for labels. |
| Job failed with a queue error | The print queue is paused or the printer is unreachable from the station. The job carries the exact message the print system returned. |
Multiple stations and locations
Install an agent per location, all signed in to the same organization. Every printer across every site appears in one console and one API, distinguished by printer ID and station. Adding a warehouse is an install plus a row in whatever map you keep between your locations and printer IDs.
Install it on one bench.
Five minutes, and the printers appear in the console as it connects.
Download the agent