root / pykota / branches / specialauth / docs / autopykota.sgml @ 3273

<!-- $Id$ -->

<chapter>
  <title>Automate user account creation with autopykota</title>
  <para>Last modified on $Date$</para>
  
  <para>
    If you want to automate the users account and quota entries creation on first print,
    you can do this easily with the <literal>policy: external( your command here )</literal>
    directive in <filename>pykota.conf</filename>.
    You just have to put your command of choice there.
  </para>
  
  <para>
    <command>autopykota</command> was designed to automatically set
    an initial account balance value to newly added users, while taking
    care of not resetting the balance value if the user already exists 
    but doesn't have a quota entry on the current printer. 
  </para>
  
  <para>
    If you want to limit your users by page quota then you must not use
    this command. Just use some form of the <command>edpykota</command>
    command and it will work just fine. On the other hand, if you want
    to limit your users by their account balance, this command was
    made to ease your life : you don't have to design a complex shell
    script to check if user already exists or have a quota entry on
    the current printer before deciding if you have to set the initial
    balance value or not : <command>autopykota</command> takes
    care of all this automagically.
  </para>
  
  <sect1>
    <title>Reference</title>
    <para>
      <cmdsynopsis>
        <command>autopykota</command>
        <group choice="opt"><arg>-v</arg><arg>--version</arg></group>
        <group choice="opt"><arg>-h</arg><arg>--help</arg></group>
        <group choice="opt">
          <arg>-i <replaceable>value</replaceable></arg>
          <arg>--initbalance <replaceable>value</replaceable></arg>
        </group>
      </cmdsynopsis>
    </para>
  </sect1>
</chapter>