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1PyKota's FAQ :
2
3  # $Id$
4 
5  * How can I diagnose the problem when something goes wrong ?
6 
7    Put "LogLevel debug2" in cupsd.conf (usually in /etc/cups/).
8    Then put "logger: stderr", "debug: yes" and
9    "crashrecipient: youremailaddress" in /etc/pykota/pykota.conf.
10    Finally restart CUPS.
11    CUPS' error_log file will now contain many informations which
12    will help diagnose your problem. You will receive failure
13    notices by email, and you can send all this to us for
14    diagnostic. Please send complete files and not some sparse
15    parts of them. Also please send the log files as gzipped
16    (or bzip2-ed) attachments.
17   
18    For LPRng, better to put "logger: system" in pykota.conf so
19    that all debug messages for PyKota will go to syslog's
20    destination for the LPR syslog facility.
21 
22  * Nothing prints when my printer is in PowerSave mode, what
23    can I do ?
24    This happens if you use hardware accounting with SNMP, because
25    some (all ?) printers don't say they are idle when they are
26    in PowerSave mode.
27    For now your best bet is to disable PowerSave mode in
28    your printer. In the future, PyKota will modified to
29    handle such problems.
30 
31  * I've installed all correctly, I've created users
32    and printers, but when printing nothing works.
33    What is the problem ?
34    The most probable cause for this is that you didn't
35    adapt /etc/pykota/pykota.conf to your own configuration.
36    The file installed by default is just an example, you
37    have to modify it. See the rest of this document to
38    learn how to really diagnose what went wrong.
39   
40  * I've downloaded PyKota from CVS using a Windows based CVS 
41    tool, and now nothing works at all. What happened ?
42   
43    Some (all?) Windows based CVS tools translate *nix line endings
44    (character Line Feed, ASCII code 10) into Windows line endings
45    (character Carriage Return, ASCII code 13, followed with
46    character Line Feed). This breaks the software which has
47    to run under *nix compatible systems. Set correct options
48    in your CVS software so that it doesn't do any translation,
49    or use an Unix-like version of CVS, download again and
50    reinstall the software. It should work.
51   
52  * Why doesn't CUPS under Debian Woody automatically
53    detects PyKota managed devices ?
54   
55    The CUPS version in Debian Woody is 1.1.14 which is a bit
56    too old. To use PyKota with this version, just install
57    your printers as usual in CUPS web interface, and ensure
58    they work fine, then save your changes, and modify
59    /etc/cups/printers.conf manually as explained in
60    PyKota's toplevel README file. Finally restart CUPS,
61    and your printers should be managed by PyKota.
62    Another solution is to install a newer CUPS release.
63   
64  * Is print accounting ever exact ?
65 
66    No. Print accounting is **never** exact, because it depends
67    on external factors like the presence of paper in the printer,
68    the quantity of remaining ink in the print cartridge, paper
69    jams, etc... All these things are very difficult to account
70    for correctly, and no print accounting package deals with
71    these artefacts correctly in all situations.
72    We are however confident that PyKota is one of the more
73    exact print accounting software, because by default it
74    asks the printers for how many pages they have really printed.
75   
76  * Can PyKota account for ink usage ? 
77 
78    No. Actually PyKota doesn't account for ink usage, but this
79    may come in a future release. PyKota only accounts for pages
80    printed and/or money spent.  If ink accounting is a necessity
81    for you, PrintBill is recommended instead of PyKota. PrintBill
82    allows you to bill differently per color, and to bill depending
83    on the percent of the ink covered part of the pages.
84   
85  * What is a 'dumb printer' ?
86 
87    In PyKota, the term 'dumb printer' defines a printer which doesn't
88    natively understand PostScript, PCL5 (up to), PCLXL (aka PCL6), PDF
89    or ESC/P2 and doesn't have an internal page counter, and for which
90    you don't know how to compute a job's size in number of pages by
91    analyzing its content.
92    Any printer which is not a 'dumb printer' according to the above
93    definition is supported by PyKota.
94
95  * How can I make PyKota work with my non-postscript printer under
96    CUPS ? 
97 
98    From version 1.16alpha7, PyKota includes a CUPS backend which
99    allows you to use any type of printer and any driver, provided
100    your printer is not a 'dumb printer' (see above).
101   
102  * How can I use my 'dumb printer' with CUPS and PyKota. 
103 
104    You have to use a software accounter directive, and
105    create a script which understands your printer's
106    Page Description Language.
107   
108    PyKota natively understands DSC compliant PostScript,
109    PCL3, PCL4, PCL5, PCLXL (aka PCL6), PDF and ESC/P2. Support
110    for Binary PostScript is done through GhostScript. More PDLs
111    will be added in the future. 
112    However you can always plug your own PDL analyzer in PyKota.
113         
114  * I've got a great number of users. How can I automatically
115    set an initial print quota for them on first print ?
116   
117    You have to define an external policy for unknown users,
118    to automatically add them to the Print Quota database.
119    The sample configuration file contains examples to do this.
120   
121  * What does the --prototype command line option to edpykota do ?
122 
123    This option currently (v1.20) only copies the soft and hard
124    page limits from a template user to other users. This option
125    needs to be updated to new PyKota functionnalities, because it
126    currently lacks.
127   
128  * How can I share print quota between some printers only (not all) ?   
129 
130    To do this you have to put the printers into a printers group, and
131    set quota on the printer group, instead of (or in addition to)
132    the printers themselves.
133   
134  * What is a printer group ?
135 
136     A printer group is exactly like a normal printer, but is
137     unknown by the printing system. You can use printer groups
138     to share print quota between printers.
139   
140  * How can I create a printer group ?   
141 
142    Just use pkprinters, like for normal printers, then create
143    quota entries for users or users groups on it using the
144    edpykota command
145 
146  * How can I put a printer into a printer group ?
147 
148    Use the pkprinters command to do this.
149   
150      $ pkprinters --help
151     
152    Will print the complete help and tell you how to do.
153   
154  * How quota checking and update is done with printer groups ?   
155 
156    Print accounting and quota checking is done for a printer and
157    all the printers groups it belongs to, recursively.
158    If quota is reached on ANY of these printers for the current user,
159    printing is denied.
160   
161  * Is this feature robust ?
162 
163    It should be. However, beware of integrity problems. LDAP has no
164    sense of database integrity, and PostgreSQL constraints have not
165    yet been fully implemented. The code actually *tries* to forbid
166    circular printers groups, but if you create printer groups with
167    another tool (e.g. psql or gq), then you are mostly on you
168    own to not create infinite loops.
169   
170  * How is computed the job's price ? 
171 
172    A job's price is computed with this formula :
173   
174      SUM((NbPages * PricePerPage) + PricePerJob)
175     
176    For current printer and all the printers groups it is
177    a member of, if any, recursively.
178    This may be difficult to grasp, but offers unprecedented
179    flexibility.
180
181  * My question isn't answered there, can you help ? 
182 
183    Sure. Ask your question to the mailing list. If this is a
184    frequently asked question, or if your problem is on the contrary
185    very specific, it will probably be added to this document.
186   
187    You can also ask questions by IRC :
188   
189        /server irc.freenode.net
190        /join #pykota
191       
192Send any new questions to Jerome Alet - <alet@librelogiciel.com>
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