root / pykota / trunk / FAQ @ 1688

Revision 1688, 6.7 kB (checked in by jalet, 20 years ago)

Added note about ESC/P2 support.
Added note about lack of support for HP Deskjet printers.

  • Property svn:eol-style set to native
  • Property svn:keywords set to Author Date Id Revision
RevLine 
[1175]1PyKota's FAQ :
2
3  # $Id$
4 
[1412]5  * I've installed all correctly, I've created users
6    and printers, but when printing nothing works.
7    What is the problem ?
8    The most probable cause for this is that you didn't
9    adapt /etc/pykota/pykota.conf to your own configuration.
10    The file installed by default is just an example, you
11    have to modify it. See the rest of this document to
12    learn how to really diagnose what went wrong.
[1538]13   
14  * How can I diagnose the problem when something goes wrong ?
[1412]15 
[1538]16    Put "LogLevel debug2" in cupsd.conf (usually in /etc/cups/).
17    Then put "logger: stderr", "debug: yes" and
18    "crashrecipient: youremailaddress" in /etc/pykota/pykota.conf.
19    Finally restart CUPS.
20    CUPS' error_log file will now contain many informations which
21    will help diagnose your problem. You will receive failure
22    notices by email, and you can send all this to us for
23    diagnostic.
[1688]24   
25    For LPRng, better to put "logger: system" in pykota.conf so
26    that all debug messages for PyKota will go to syslog.
[1538]27 
[1388]28  * Why doesn't CUPS under Debian Woody automatically
29    detects PyKota managed devices ?
30   
31    The CUPS version in Debian Woody is 1.1.14 which is a bit
32    too old. To use PyKota with this version, just install
33    your printers as usual in CUPS web interface, and ensure
34    they work fine, then save your changes, and modify
35    /etc/cups/printers.conf manually as explained in
36    PyKota's toplevel README file. Finally restart CUPS,
37    and your printers should be managed by PyKota.
[1389]38    Another solution is to install a newer CUPS release.
[1388]39   
[1175]40  * Is print accounting ever exact ?
41 
42    No. Print accounting is **never** exact, because it depends
43    on external factors like the presence of paper in the printer,
44    the quantity of remaining ink in the print cartridge, paper
45    jams, etc... All these things are very difficult to account
46    for correctly, and no print accounting package deals with
47    these artefacts correctly in all situations.
48    We are however confident that PyKota is one of the more
49    exact print accounting software, because by default it
50    asks the printers for how many pages they have really printed.
51   
52  * Can PyKota account for ink usage ? 
53 
54    No. Actually PyKota doesn't account for ink usage, but this
55    may come in a future release. PyKota only accounts for pages
56    printed and/or money spent.  If ink accounting is a necessity
57    for you, PrintBill is recommended instead of PyKota. PrintBill
58    allows you to bill differently per color, and to bill depending
59    on the percent of the ink covered part of the pages.
60   
[1198]61  * What is a 'dumb printer' ?
62 
63    In PyKota, the term 'dumb printer' defines a printer which doesn't
[1688]64    natively understand PostScript, PCL5, PCLXL (aka PCL6), PDF or ESC/P2
65    and doesn't have an internal page counter, and for which you don't
66    know how to compute a job's size in number of pages by analyzing its
67    content.
[1578]68    Any printer which is not a 'dumb printer' according to the above
[1688]69    definition is supported by PyKota. HP Deskjet printers are
70    currently considered as "dumb" printers by PyKota.
[1198]71
[1175]72  * How can I make PyKota work with my non-postscript printer under
73    CUPS ? 
74 
[1186]75    From version 1.16alpha7, PyKota includes a CUPS backend which
[1198]76    allows you to use any type of printer and any driver, provided
77    your printer is not a 'dumb printer' (see above).
[1175]78   
[1198]79  * How can I use my 'dumb printer' with CUPS and PyKota. 
[1175]80 
[1500]81    You have to use a software accounter directive, and
82    create a script which understands your printer's
83    Page Description Language.
[1198]84   
[1622]85    PyKota natively understands DSC compliant PostScript, PCL5,
[1688]86    PCLXL (aka PCL6), PDF and ESC/P2. Support for Binary PostScript is
[1622]87    done through GhostScript. More PDLs will be added in the future.
88    However you can always plug your own PDL analyzer in PyKota.
[1198]89         
[1199]90  * I've got a great number of users. How can I automatically
91    set an initial print quota for them on first print ?
92   
93    You have to define an external policy for unknown users,
94    to automatically add them to the Print Quota database.
95    The sample configuration file contains examples to do this.
96   
[1334]97  * What does the --prototype command line option to edpykota do ?
98 
99    This option currently (v1.17) only copies the soft and hard
100    page limits from a template user to other users. This option
101    needs to be updated to new PyKota functionnalities, because it
102    currently lacks.
103   
[1268]104  * How can I share print quota between some printers only (not all) ?   
105 
106    To do this you have to put the printers into a printers group, and
[1282]107    set quota on the printer group, instead of (or in addition to)
108    the printers themselves.
[1268]109   
110  * What is a printer group ?
111 
112     A printer group is exactly like a normal printer, but is
113     unknown by the printing system. You can use printer groups
114     to share print quota between printers.
115   
116  * How can I create a printer group ?   
117 
[1441]118    Just use pkprinters, like for normal printers, then create
119    quota entries for users or users groups on it using the
120    edpykota command
[1268]121 
122  * How can I put a printer into a printer group ?
123 
[1441]124    Use the pkprinters command to do this.
[1268]125   
[1441]126      $ pkprinters --help
127     
128    Will print the complete help and tell you how to do.
[1268]129   
130  * How quota checking and update is done with printer groups ?   
131 
132    Print accounting and quota checking is done for a printer and
133    all the printers groups it belongs to, recursively.
134    If quota is reached on ANY of these printers for the current user,
135    printing is denied.
[1286]136   
[1268]137  * Is this feature robust ?
138 
139    It should be. However, beware of integrity problems. LDAP has no
140    sense of database integrity, and PostgreSQL constraints have not
141    yet been fully implemented. The code actually *tries* to forbid
142    circular printers groups, but if you create printer groups with
143    another tool (e.g. psql or gq), then you are mostly on you
144    own to not create infinite loops.
145   
[1286]146  * How is computed the job's price ? 
147 
148    A job's price is computed with this formula :
149   
150      SUM((NbPages * PricePerPage) + PricePerJob)
151     
152    For current printer and all the printers groups it is
[1500]153    a member of, if any, recursively.
[1286]154    This may be difficult to grasp, but offers unprecedented
155    flexibility.
156
[1175]157  * My question isn't answered there, can you help ? 
158 
159    Sure. Ask your question to the mailing list. If this is a
160    frequently asked question, or if your problem is on the contrary
161    very specific, it will probably be added to this document.
162   
[1186]163    You can also ask questions by IRC :
164   
165        /server irc.freenode.net
166        /join #pykota
167       
[1216]168Send any new questions to Jerome Alet - <alet@librelogiciel.com>
Note: See TracBrowser for help on using the browser.