root / pykota / trunk / NEWS @ 1000

Revision 1000, 11.4 kB (checked in by jalet, 21 years ago)

Big rewrite of external accounting methods.
Should work well now.

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1# $Id$
2
3PyKota - Print Quota for CUPS
4
5(c) 2003 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com>
6This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
7it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
8the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
9(at your option) any later version.
10
11This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
12but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
13MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
14GNU General Public License for more details.
15
16You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
17along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
18Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
19
20============================================================
21
22PyKota NEWS :
23
24    - 1.08alpha3 :
25   
26        - External accounting methods were partly rewritten :
27         
28          - No more "broken pipe" should happen.
29         
30          - They now take care of the number of copies
31            This may be unneeded though, if the postscript
32            file already does this, because this would
33            overcharge users (number of copies counted
34            two times). NEEDS MORE TESTING.
35           
36          - The sample configuration file now contains 
37            an external accounting method example which should
38            work with all DSC compliant Postscript files.
39           
40        - Some small bugs were fixed.   
41       
42    - 1.08alpha2 :
43   
44        - Now works with net-snmp v5.0 and above.
45          It already worked, but the sample configuration
46          file didn't contain appropriate values...
47       
48    - 1.07 : Release of the Shame !
49   
50        - The external accounting methods driver was left out of
51          the CVS tree. Nobody could use it since it wasn't included !
52         
53    - 1.06 :
54   
55        - Severe bug fixed : if you had a printer in
56          power saving state which couldn't answer immediately,
57          a bug was triggered.
58          It was caused by a bad copy/paste which
59          forgot to import a Python module at run time.
60         
61    - 1.05 :
62   
63        - External accounters are finally available !
64          This means that you can plug any page accounting
65          method you like by setting the appropriate
66          'accounter' field in /etc/pykota.conf
67          See the sample conf/pykota.conf.sample to
68          learn how to do.
69         
70          NB : Both 'external' and 'stupid' accounting methods
71               account a job size just before *this* job is
72               sent to the printer.
73               The original 'querying' method accounts a job
74               size just before *the next* job is sent to
75               the printer.
76       
77    - 1.05alpha3 :
78   
79        - A 'stupid' and unreliable accounting method was
80          implemented to serve as an example on how to
81          do this sort of things. This method only counts
82          the 'showpage' statements in the input data.
83          See sample configuration file for details.
84          Pluggable accounting methods work, but I advise
85          you TO NOT USE THIS ONE WHICH IS JUST AN EXAMPLE.
86          It is not reliable enough to be used.
87          Use the 'querying' accounting method instead.
88         
89    - 1.05alpha2 :
90   
91        - Pluggable accounting methods.
92       
93        - Better error handling.
94       
95    - 1.05alpha1 :
96   
97        - SECURITY file added to help improve PyKota's security.
98       
99        - Extracting the printer's internal page counter is now
100          tried several times, waiting several seconds between
101          two tries. This lets the time to warm up for some printers
102          which don't answer when they are sleeping (my Apple
103          LaserWriter 16/600 PS is in this case, maybe others too)
104         
105        - Small display bug fixed in repykota
106         
107    - 1.04 :
108   
109        - Default print policy for users/groups unknown from
110          the print quota system is now DENY instead of ALLOW,
111          since ALLOW can generate inaccurate results
112          (incorrect job sizes charged to the wrong persons)
113         
114        - LPRng support works !
115       
116        - A bug was introduced some time ago wrt printers' default
117          policy for unknown users. It is now corrected.
118       
119        - repykota now displays prices per job and per page for each
120          printer, if they are defined.
121         
122        - Minor display bug fixed in repykota.
123       
124        - Problem when running repykota with an empty database was fixed.
125       
126    - 1.03 :
127   
128        - Upgrade script included for earlier versions.
129          Please look inside the initscripts subdirectory.
130          THE DATABASE SCHEMA HAS CHANGED, PLEASE UPGRADE.
131         
132        - repykota now reports account balances too.
133       
134        - PyKota now has a nice logo, see the logos
135          subdirectory.
136       
137        - Manual pages were finally updated.
138       
139        - Group quotas seem to work now !
140       
141        - The new database schema allows to keep an history of all
142          jobs as well as charge users per page and/or per job,
143          and track users' account balance.
144         
145        - edpykota now accepts much more command line options to 
146          use the new functionnalities. See edpykota --help for
147          details.
148         
149        - The installation script now allows to install the sample
150          configuration file during first installation.
151         
152        - More group quota code works, but still not finished. 
153       
154        - The CGI script displays a link to PyKota's website.
155       
156        - The job history is now kept, this will allow per-period
157          reports in the future.
158         
159        - After having modified the quota for an user with edpykota,
160          a quota check is done to eventually warn the user/admin about
161          a quota which is too low to print.
162         
163        - A workaround is provided for HP Printers : their internal
164          page counter is only saved to NVRAM in a 10 increment, so
165          if you switch them off and then on, the reported page counter
166          may be lower than the real number of pages printed.
167          See http://web.mit.edu/source/third/lprng/doc/LPRng-HOWTO-15.html
168          We unconditionnally set the last job's page count to
169          abs(int((10 - abs(lastcounter(snmp) - lastcounter(storage)) / 2))
170          in this case.
171          For a more accurate accounting, never switch your HP printers
172          off.
173         
174        - A fix is provided for printers which only have a volatile 
175          page counter (reset to 0 every time you switch the printer on)
176          This should allow PyKota to work reasonably fine with HP Laserjet
177          4L/5L/6L, not perfect, but better than nothing.
178          See http://web.mit.edu/source/third/lprng/doc/LPRng-HOWTO-15.html
179          For a more accurate accounting, never switch your HP printers
180          off. This is untested, please report any problem.
181         
182        - A bug was fixed when edpykota --add was used with users who already
183          had a quota on the specified printer.
184         
185        - A small display bug in repykota was introduced in preliminary
186          1.03 versions, and fixed later on.
187         
188        - Some minor bugs which happened in rare situations were fixed.
189       
190        - Support for AppleTalk printers was added, see sample configuration
191          file for details.
192         
193        - Users and group printing can now be controlled (limited) either by 
194          print quota or by account balance.
195       
196    - 1.02 :
197   
198        - The installation script now checks for software availability
199          and in case a software is missing asks the user if he
200          wants to continue with the installation or abort it.
201         
202        - The configuration file pykota.conf is now expected to be
203          found in /etc instead of in /etc/cups
204          The installation script prompts the user to see if he
205          wants to move an old configuration file to the new location
206          if needed.
207         
208        - Improved documentation.
209       
210        - You can now set the tcp/ip port on which the Quota Storage
211          Server is listening, see sample configuration file for details.
212       
213        - Better general error handling.
214       
215        - Upgrade script for pre 1.01 PostgreSQL database schema is now
216          included as well.
217       
218    - 1.01 :
219   
220        - The configuration file now accepts an option   
221          to choose the recipient(s) of the email messages :
222         
223            - DevNull means no one will receive them.
224            - User means only the user will receive them.
225            - Admin means only the admin will receive them.
226            - Both means the User and the Admin will receive them.
227           
228        - The configuration file now uses hard-coded default values
229          when an option is not set. See sample configuration file
230          for details.
231         
232        - Manual pages are included since 1.00, but I forgot to   
233          add this information to this file.
234         
235        - Redistribution terms for the official package have 
236          softened and are now fully GPL compatible :
237          unrestricted modification is now allowed even for
238          the version number.
239         
240    - 1.00 :
241   
242        - edpykota now accepts a --noquota option. This
243          disable quota checking while still doing page
244          accounting. This is really useful for people
245          who don't want to limit their users but want
246          to know how much pages they print.
247         
248        - Some untested scripts were added to retrieve
249          the life time page counter of non-SNMP printers.
250         
251        - Every directory now has a specific README file. 
252       
253    - 0.99 :
254   
255        - Under some circumstances while the user wasn't allowed
256          to print, he didn't receive any email message. It is
257          now fixed.
258         
259        - When an user wasn't allowed to print, the quota for
260          the previous user wasn't updated. This is now fixed.
261         
262    - 0.98 :
263   
264        - Correctly handle the case where the printer is switched off.
265       
266        - Small bug wrt syslog fixed.
267       
268    - 0.97 :
269   
270        - edpykota accepts wildcards on its command line for users/groups too
271          if the --add option is not set, e.g. :
272         
273              $ edpykota --printer lp --softlimit 50 --hardlimit 100 "jer*"
274             
275        - If no user name is passed at all, then a default wildcard of "*"
276          which means apply the command on ALL users for this printer is used.
277         
278        - Small bug fixes.
279       
280    - 0.96 :
281
282        - Options requester, policy, admin, adminmail and gracedelay can now
283          be set either globally or per printer. The printer option has
284          priority if both are defined.
285
286        - More powerful configuration parser.
287       
288        - If all options are defined globally, there's no need to
289          define a section for each printer in the configuration
290          file anymore. Just define a [global] section and it's ok.
291
292    - 0.95 :
293
294        - External requesters for printers finally added.
295
296        - Full internationalization (english and french are supported)
297 
298        - More complete quota usage report
299
300        - CGI script to access to the quota usage report
301
302        - Several bugs fixed.
303
304
305    - 0.9 :
306
307        - First public version
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