root / pykota / trunk / NEWS @ 1000

# $Id$

PyKota - Print Quota for CUPS

(c) 2003 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

============================================================

PyKota NEWS :

    - 1.08alpha3 :
    
        - External accounting methods were partly rewritten :
         
          - No more "broken pipe" should happen.
          
          - They now take care of the number of copies
            This may be unneeded though, if the postscript
            file already does this, because this would
            overcharge users (number of copies counted
            two times). NEEDS MORE TESTING.
            
          - The sample configuration file now contains  
            an external accounting method example which should
            work with all DSC compliant Postscript files.
            
        - Some small bugs were fixed.    
        
    - 1.08alpha2 :
    
        - Now works with net-snmp v5.0 and above.
          It already worked, but the sample configuration 
          file didn't contain appropriate values...
        
    - 1.07 : Release of the Shame !
    
        - The external accounting methods driver was left out of 
          the CVS tree. Nobody could use it since it wasn't included !
          
    - 1.06 :
    
        - Severe bug fixed : if you had a printer in 
          power saving state which couldn't answer immediately, 
          a bug was triggered.
          It was caused by a bad copy/paste which
          forgot to import a Python module at run time.
          
    - 1.05 :
    
        - External accounters are finally available !
          This means that you can plug any page accounting
          method you like by setting the appropriate
          'accounter' field in /etc/pykota.conf
          See the sample conf/pykota.conf.sample to 
          learn how to do.
          
          NB : Both 'external' and 'stupid' accounting methods
               account a job size just before *this* job is 
               sent to the printer. 
               The original 'querying' method accounts a job
               size just before *the next* job is sent to
               the printer.
        
    - 1.05alpha3 :
    
        - A 'stupid' and unreliable accounting method was
          implemented to serve as an example on how to
          do this sort of things. This method only counts
          the 'showpage' statements in the input data.
          See sample configuration file for details.
          Pluggable accounting methods work, but I advise
          you TO NOT USE THIS ONE WHICH IS JUST AN EXAMPLE.
          It is not reliable enough to be used.
          Use the 'querying' accounting method instead.
          
    - 1.05alpha2 :
    
        - Pluggable accounting methods.
        
        - Better error handling.
        
    - 1.05alpha1 :
    
        - SECURITY file added to help improve PyKota's security.
        
        - Extracting the printer's internal page counter is now
          tried several times, waiting several seconds between
          two tries. This lets the time to warm up for some printers 
          which don't answer when they are sleeping (my Apple 
          LaserWriter 16/600 PS is in this case, maybe others too)
          
        - Small display bug fixed in repykota
          
    - 1.04 :
    
        - Default print policy for users/groups unknown from 
          the print quota system is now DENY instead of ALLOW,
          since ALLOW can generate inaccurate results
          (incorrect job sizes charged to the wrong persons)
          
        - LPRng support works !
        
        - A bug was introduced some time ago wrt printers' default
          policy for unknown users. It is now corrected.
        
        - repykota now displays prices per job and per page for each
          printer, if they are defined.
          
        - Minor display bug fixed in repykota.
        
        - Problem when running repykota with an empty database was fixed.
        
    - 1.03 :
    
        - Upgrade script included for earlier versions.
          Please look inside the initscripts subdirectory.
          THE DATABASE SCHEMA HAS CHANGED, PLEASE UPGRADE.
          
        - repykota now reports account balances too.
        
        - PyKota now has a nice logo, see the logos
          subdirectory.
        
        - Manual pages were finally updated.
        
        - Group quotas seem to work now !
        
        - The new database schema allows to keep an history of all
          jobs as well as charge users per page and/or per job, 
          and track users' account balance.
          
        - edpykota now accepts much more command line options to  
          use the new functionnalities. See edpykota --help for
          details.
          
        - The installation script now allows to install the sample
          configuration file during first installation.
          
        - More group quota code works, but still not finished.  
        
        - The CGI script displays a link to PyKota's website.
        
        - The job history is now kept, this will allow per-period
          reports in the future.
          
        - After having modified the quota for an user with edpykota,
          a quota check is done to eventually warn the user/admin about
          a quota which is too low to print.
          
        - A workaround is provided for HP Printers : their internal
          page counter is only saved to NVRAM in a 10 increment, so
          if you switch them off and then on, the reported page counter
          may be lower than the real number of pages printed.
          See http://web.mit.edu/source/third/lprng/doc/LPRng-HOWTO-15.html
          We unconditionnally set the last job's page count to 
          abs(int((10 - abs(lastcounter(snmp) - lastcounter(storage)) / 2))
          in this case. 
          For a more accurate accounting, never switch your HP printers
          off.
          
        - A fix is provided for printers which only have a volatile  
          page counter (reset to 0 every time you switch the printer on)
          This should allow PyKota to work reasonably fine with HP Laserjet
          4L/5L/6L, not perfect, but better than nothing.
          See http://web.mit.edu/source/third/lprng/doc/LPRng-HOWTO-15.html
          For a more accurate accounting, never switch your HP printers
          off. This is untested, please report any problem.
          
        - A bug was fixed when edpykota --add was used with users who already
          had a quota on the specified printer.
          
        - A small display bug in repykota was introduced in preliminary 
          1.03 versions, and fixed later on.
          
        - Some minor bugs which happened in rare situations were fixed.
        
        - Support for AppleTalk printers was added, see sample configuration
          file for details.
          
        - Users and group printing can now be controlled (limited) either by  
          print quota or by account balance.
        
    - 1.02 :
    
        - The installation script now checks for software availability
          and in case a software is missing asks the user if he
          wants to continue with the installation or abort it.
          
        - The configuration file pykota.conf is now expected to be 
          found in /etc instead of in /etc/cups
          The installation script prompts the user to see if he
          wants to move an old configuration file to the new location
          if needed.
          
        - Improved documentation.
        
        - You can now set the tcp/ip port on which the Quota Storage
          Server is listening, see sample configuration file for details.
        
        - Better general error handling.
        
        - Upgrade script for pre 1.01 PostgreSQL database schema is now
          included as well.
        
    - 1.01 :
    
        - The configuration file now accepts an option   
          to choose the recipient(s) of the email messages :
          
            - DevNull means no one will receive them.
            - User means only the user will receive them.
            - Admin means only the admin will receive them.
            - Both means the User and the Admin will receive them.
            
        - The configuration file now uses hard-coded default values
          when an option is not set. See sample configuration file
          for details.
          
        - Manual pages are included since 1.00, but I forgot to    
          add this information to this file.
          
        - Redistribution terms for the official package have  
          softened and are now fully GPL compatible : 
          unrestricted modification is now allowed even for
          the version number.
          
    - 1.00 :
    
        - edpykota now accepts a --noquota option. This
          disable quota checking while still doing page
          accounting. This is really useful for people
          who don't want to limit their users but want
          to know how much pages they print.
          
        - Some untested scripts were added to retrieve
          the life time page counter of non-SNMP printers.
          
        - Every directory now has a specific README file.  
        
    - 0.99 :
    
        - Under some circumstances while the user wasn't allowed
          to print, he didn't receive any email message. It is
          now fixed.
          
        - When an user wasn't allowed to print, the quota for
          the previous user wasn't updated. This is now fixed.
          
    - 0.98 :
    
        - Correctly handle the case where the printer is switched off.
        
        - Small bug wrt syslog fixed.
        
    - 0.97 :
    
        - edpykota accepts wildcards on its command line for users/groups too
          if the --add option is not set, e.g. :
          
              $ edpykota --printer lp --softlimit 50 --hardlimit 100 "jer*"
              
        - If no user name is passed at all, then a default wildcard of "*"
          which means apply the command on ALL users for this printer is used.
          
        - Small bug fixes.
        
    - 0.96 :

        - Options requester, policy, admin, adminmail and gracedelay can now
          be set either globally or per printer. The printer option has
          priority if both are defined.

        - More powerful configuration parser.
        
        - If all options are defined globally, there's no need to 
          define a section for each printer in the configuration
          file anymore. Just define a [global] section and it's ok.

    - 0.95 :

        - External requesters for printers finally added.

        - Full internationalization (english and french are supported)
 
        - More complete quota usage report

        - CGI script to access to the quota usage report

        - Several bugs fixed.


    - 0.9 : 

        - First public version