The Problem
Brother scanners are not detected out of the box on Fedora. The open-source SANE backends don’t include Brother’s proprietary protocol, so scanimage -L returns nothing even after the printer is set up perfectly.
The Solution
Install brscan5 (Brother’s SANE backend for current DCP/MFC models) and register the scanner by IP address.
1. Download and install brscan5:
# Download the RPM from Brother's Linux support page
# https://support.brother.com → search your model → Linux driver
sudo rpm -i brscan5-*.x86_64.rpm
2. Register the scanner on the network:
# Replace MODEL with your exact model (e.g. DCP-T520W) and IP with your scanner's IP
sudo brsaneconfig5 -a name=SCANNER model=DCP-T520W ip=192.168.1.X
3. Verify it’s detected:
brsaneconfig5 -q # shows registered devices
scanimage -L # should list brother5:net1;dev0
4. Do a test scan:
scanimage -d "brother5:net1;dev0" --resolution 100 --format=tiff -o /tmp/test.tif
Useful scan aliases to add to ~/.bashrc:
# 600 DPI A4 TIFF
alias scan600='scanimage -d "brother5:net1;dev0" -x 210 -y 297 --resolution 600 --format=tiff -o scan_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).tif'
# 1200 DPI (interpolated) for small prints
alias scan1200='scanimage -d "brother5:net1;dev0" -x 210 -y 297 --resolution 1200 --format=tiff -o scan_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S).tif'
The Brother scanner will also appear in GUI apps like GNOME’s Document Scanner (simple-scan) once brscan5 is installed — no additional configuration needed there.