root / pykota / trunk / NEWS @ 1404

# $Id$

PyKota - Print Quota for CUPS

(c) 2003-2004 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 :

    - 1.18beta :
    
        - Better tracebacks on error conditions
        
        - Improved translations
        
        - Improved documentation
        
    - 1.18alpha15 :

        - waitprinter.sh replaced by a new and possibly faster
          and more powerful one.
    
        - Names can now begin with a digit.
        
        - Stability improvement for quotas set on printers groups.
        
    - 1.18alpha14 :
    
        - Catches more (all ?) problems with SMTP servers instead
          of breaking.
          
        - Italian translation added.
        
    - 1.18alpha13 :
    
        - Pre and Post hooks are now available in the pykota
          filter as well.
          
        - The pykota filter doesn't check last user's quota
          anymore when delayed hardware accounting is used : 
          this will be done anyway the next time the last 
          user will print again. This saves some database
          queries which are unneeded.
        
    - 1.18alpha12 :
    
        - Pre and Post hooks to external commands with many 
          many environment variables available are useable 
          from the cupspykota backend.
          See sample configuration file for details and help.
          
    - 1.18alpha11 : 
    
        - Hopefully final fix wrt groups (users and printers)
        
    - 1.18alpha10 :
    
        - Fixed nested printer groups accounting.
        
        - Fixed user groups + printer groups problem.
        
    - 1.18alpha9 :
    
        - Fix for LDAP problem when job price was 0.
        
        - Fix for empty user groups with LDAP.
        
        - Preliminary version of the snmpprinterstatus command added.
        
    - 1.18alpha8 :
    
        - Don't retrieve data when not needed.
          This avoids many database queries.
        
    - 1.18alpha7 :
    
        - New experimental ldapcache directive to improve
          LDAP caching.
          
    - 1.18alpha6 :
        
        - New configuration directive added : maildomain
          to specify the domain to send mail to when user 
          email address is not set in PyKota database.
          
        - More complete email message headers.  
          
    - 1.18alpha5 :
    
        - Debian packaging specific files, contributed by
          Peter Hawkins are now included in the project's tree.
          
        - Preliminary work on future low-level LDAP caching to speed
          up modifications (at least).
          
    - 1.18alpha4 :
    
        - Applied some of the modifications suggested by
          Peter Hawkins, for better Debian integration.
          Most notably cupspykota, pykota, and the shell
          scripts are now installed into /usr/share/pykota
          instead of into /usr/bin
          BEWARE : double check that your symbolic link
          to cupspykota is correct, and that your pykota.conf
          file use correct path for the shell scripts like
          waitprinter.sh and al.
          
        - pkhint command added, to help in configuring correct
          accounting method for PyKota.
          
    - 1.18alpha3 :
    
        - Fixed a rare bug in cupspykota backend which gave 
          incorrect "CUPS backend died abnormally" messages.
        
    - 1.18alpha2 :
    
        - Added the pkprinters command line tool to manage printers
          exclusively.
        
    - 1.18alpha1 :
    
        - Preliminary work on Relationnal Database Independance.
        
        - Sample report made from OpenOffice.org added as PDF and SXC.
        
    - 1.17 :
    
        - Finalized release.
        
    - 1.17alpha2 : 
    
        - Fix stupid software accounting bug in the CUPS backend.
        
    - 1.17alpha1 :
    
        - User/Group deletion code in edpykota rewritten.
        
    - 1.16 :
    
        - Preliminary documentation on how to use OpenOffice.org
          to create personnalized reports for PyKota + PostgreSQL.
          
        - Spanish installation guide for CUPS+PyKota+PostgreSQL
          added to the documentation. Doesn't yet document v1.16
          though.
        
        - Portuguese Portuguese translation replaces Brasilian 
          Portuguese Translation. Brasilian portuguese 
          translation is still available under the 'br' locale.
        
    - 1.16beta3 :
    
        - Swedish translation added.
        
        - Small fix in documentation.
        
    - 1.16beta2 :
    
        - Small fix for job cancelling code while job already
          printing in CUPS backend.
          
        - Big fix wrt printing policies for unknown users.  
        
    - 1.16beta1 :
    
        - Manpages upgraded.
        
    - 1.16alpha26 :
    
        - Job price is now computed like this :
        
          SUM((NbPages * PricePerPage) + PricePerJob)
          
          For current printer and all the printers groups it is 
          a member of, if any.
          
          This may be difficult to grasp, but offers unprecedented
          flexibility.
          
    - 1.16alpha25 :
    
        - Email address can be set at user creation time,
          using the following syntax : 
          
            $ edpykota --add username/email@yourdomain.com
        
    - 1.16alpha24 :
    
        - CGI script now can show the printing history.
        
        - Bug wrt number of copies should be fixed.
        
        - Major code refactoring => It is now possible to
          automatically add printers on first print.
        
    - 1.16alpha23 :
    
        - Fixed potential accuracy problem if a user printed on
          several printers at the very same time.
        
    - 1.16alpha22 :
    
        - edpykota now allows adding printers to printer groups
        
    - 1.16alpha21 :
    
        - Allows the dot in user and printer names.
        
        - Printer groups are now cached too.
        
    - 1.16alpha20 :
    
        - Fixed several small bugs with the help of PyChecker.
        
    - 1.16alpha19 :
     
        - Fixed a bug in PostgreSQL backend's code.
        
    - 1.16alpha18 :
    
        - Initial code for printer groups support. Printer groups have
          to be added with external tools like psql or gq for example.
          Printer groups seems to work fine with users. Untested with user 
          groups for now.

        - Several minor visual problems fixed in reports.
        
        - Fixed a bug in LDAP date handling.
        
        - Fix for LDAP problem with some combination of OpenLDAP + Python-LDAP
          + some particular settings.
          
        - mailandpopup.sh shell script added. See sample configuration file
          for details.
        
        - Several environment variables are now exported when executing 
          external commands (accounters, requesters, mailers) :
           
            PYKOTAUSERNAME => user who is printing
            PYKOTAPRINTERNAME => printer on which the job is being sent
            PYKOTATITLE => Job's title
            PYKOTAFILENAME => Job's filename
            PYKOTACOPIES => number of copies asked
            PYKOTAOPTIONS => print command options (-o with CUPS)
          
    - 1.16alpha17 :
    
        - Added portugues translation.
        
        - Major code refactoring in accounters.
        
    - 1.16alpha16 :
    
        - Code refactoring, and addition of a real HTML reporter, to 
          have nice looking and useful web based reports (in the future).
        
        - Added utolower configuration option to convert all usernames
          to lowercase during printing. 
          
    - 1.15alpha15 :
    
        - Now includes the papwaitprinter.sh shell script to wait for
          AppleTalk enabled printers.
          
    - 1.16alpha14 :
    
        - Now printing on a printer not defined in the Quota Storage,
          results in the job being cancelled or stopped, depending
          on the printing system.
          
    - 1.16alpha13 :
    
        - Small bugfix wrt Python v2.1
        
        - If username is an empty string, user root is assumed.
        
        - 'postgresql' is not recognized anymore as a storage backend,
          you have to use 'pgstorage' instead. 'postgresql' used to
          be supported for compatibility with very old PyKota versions,
          this is not the case anymore.
          
    - 1.16alpha12 :
    
        - Job price added to job history, to keep accounting correct
          if a printer price per page or per job is modified and the
          history is not reset : the history would have given a false
          amount of money charged before the printer's prices were
          modified, this addition solves the problem.
          
    - 1.16alpha11 :
    
        - Some preliminary modifications to the database structure for 
          PostgreSQL and OpenLDAP. A script to upgrade a PostgreSQL
          database is now provided. LDAP attributes now support
          eq, pres and sub indexes. 
          
        - Job history now contains additional informations :  
          number of copies, filename, title and print options.
          
    - 1.16alpha10 :
        
        - Some modifications done to external policy handling.
          See sample configuration file for details.
    
        - Spanish translation added.
        
    - 1.16alpha9 :
    
        - mailto can be set to external(...) to warn users above
          quota with any command of your choice (e.g. linpopup).
          Several parameters are available, see sample configuration
          file for details.
          
    - 1.16alpha8 :
    
        - Now cupspykota transmits SIGTERMS to the original  
          backend when the user deletes a job being processed.
          
        - The documentation is now licensed under the terms of the
          GNU GPL too.
          
    - 1.16alpha7 :
    
        - The CUPS backend is now fully functionnal (it seems).
        
        - From now on, the use of the pykota filter with CUPS 
          is deprecated. The pykota filter still has to be
          used with LPRng though.
        
    - 1.16alpha6 :
    
        - Bug fixed : when edpykota was used to add a printer
          with no user or group name, a bad user/group name "*" was
          added to the database.
          
    - 1.16alpha5 :
    
        - New CUPS backend supports device enumeration !
          This means that NO manual CUPS configuration has to
          be done. All can now be done from CUPS web interface.
        
    - 1.16alpha4 :
    
        - New CUPS backend added. 
        
    - 1.16alpha3 :
       
        - Minimal FAQ document added.
        
    - 1.16alpha2 :
    
        - CGI script now partially supports browser's language preference
        
    - 1.16alpha1 :
    
        - Ensures that the LDAP connection is really closed at end.
        
        - More complete error messages in case of LDAP operation failure.
        
    - 1.15 :
     
        - Documentation improved.
        
    - 1.15beta :
    
        - Command line tools now accept multiple printer
          names or wildcards, separated with commas.
          
    - 1.15alpha9 :
    
        - External policy can be used to auto-add unknown users 
          and any other interesting things you may want to do. 
          WARNING : You can't auto-add printers for now. 
          They have to be created manually before.
          Look at sample configuration file for examples.
          
    - 1.15alpha8 :
    
        - Job history can be disabled if needed.
          This feature may be useful for people who use the LDAP
          backend and don't want their LDAP tree to grow out of
          control.
        
    - 1.15alpha7 : 
    
        - More work done on caching wrt groups.
        
    - 1.15alpha6 :
    
        - Performance bottleneck with LDAP solved.
        
    - 1.15alpha5 :
    
        - Caching mechanism for all database queries.

    - 1.15alpha4 :
    
        - Problem with Python 2.3 fixed. Needs some definitive 
          modification.
          
    - 1.15alpha3 :
    
        - CGI script now tries to restrict view when the 
          REMOTE_USER environment variable is set. This allows
          people to protect its use with .htaccess files.
          When unprotected, or if REMOTE_USER is 'root', then 
          unrestricted access is granted.
          NB : REMOTE_USER is automatically set by the web server
          (e.g. Apache) when a page with restricted access is viewed.
          
    - 1.15alpha2 :
    
        - Better detection of LPRng.
        
        - Outputs a warning if printing system is unknown.
        
    - 1.15alpha1 :
    
        - Bug fix in SQL code.
        
    - 1.14 : 
    
        - The PostgreSQL database connection is now always closed before
          exit. The LDAP database connection too, but it didn't suffer
          from the problem anyway, AFAICT.
        
    - 1.14beta2 :
    
        - An LDAP-specific configuration field was introduced, usermail.
          Use it to specify which LDAP attribute contains a valid email
          address for the user. See sample configuration file for
          details. 
        
    - 1.14beta :
    
        - Two new LDAP-specific configuration fields were introduced,
          newuser and newgroup. Use them to specify if you want to add
          quota information to existing entries or elsewhere.
          See sample configuration file for details.
          
    - 1.14alpha9 :
    
        - Documentation improved.
        
        - pykotme now also prints the user's account balance value
          if the user is registered in the Quota Storage and his
          limiting factor is "balance".
          
    - 1.14alpha8 :
    
        - bin/waitprinter.sh is now included to wait for
          SNMP enabled printers to be idle again before
          asking for their internal page counter.
          See sample configuration file for details.
          
    - 1.14alpha7 :
    
        - edpykota now doesn't check if the user/group is above
          quota. The check is only done at print time. This 
          prevents the sending of email messages when creating
          user quotas if quota is already reached at creation
          time.
          
    - 1.14alpha6 :
    
        - Configuration file split and moved to /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
          and /etc/pykota/pykotadmin.conf to prevent simple users to
          have Read/Write access to the Quota Database.
          Don't forget to :
          
                $ chmod 640 /etc/pykota/pykotadmin.conf
                
        - storageuser and storageuserpw configuration fields reintroduced
          for the same reason.
          
        - Code cleaning for future implementation of email addresses 
          support in the PostgreSQL and LDAP backends.
          
    - 1.14alpha5 :
        
        - Big bug fixed when changing the prices for a printer
        
    - 1.14alpha4 :
    
        - When adding an user, the user itself and its account balance
          are now added in the same LDAP entry. Before they were added
          as two different LDAP entries.
          
    - 1.14alpha3 :
    
        - Email field added to PostgreSQL database. An upgrade script
          is included in initscripts/postgresql.
        
    - 1.14alpha2 :
    
        - Typo fixed when using the --prototype option to edpykota
        
    - 1.14alpha1 :
    
        - Poor man's treshold included : users with a low account
          balance (below 1.0 by default, configurable) are sent
          a warning message.
          
        - All warning messages to users are now configurable.  
          NB : Warning messages to the administrator are not.
        
    - 1.13 :
    
        - Some small fixes wrt group handling. 
        
        - The whole module code was passed through PyChecker and
          several small code inconsistencies were fixed,
          as well as a bug in the groups code.
          
    - 1.13alpha1 :
    
        - Bug fix wrt LDAP.
        
    - 1.12 :
    
        - More complete test added in edpykota.
        
    - 1.12alpha2 :
    
        - The previous bug fix was incomplete. This is corrected.
        
    - 1.12alpha1 :
    
        - Small bug fix.
        
    - 1.11 :
    
        - Now includes the pykotme command line tool, to produce
          printing quotes for users.
          
    - 1.10 :
    
        - Bug fixed wrt quota reports when print limiting is by 
          account balance.
          
    - 1.09 :
    
        - Translations finalized.
        
        - Manpages updated.
        
        - Installation documentation improved wrt LDAP support.
        
    - 1.09beta2 :
    
        - The CGI script for quota reports works again, and
          is much more powerful.
        
    - 1.09beta :
    
        - edpykota finalized
        
    - 1.09alpha2 :
    
        - LDAP schema modified a bit. Please upgrade.
        
        - LDAP backend works !
        
        - repykota and warnpykota allow the root user to pass
          users or groups names on the command line. Users 
          and groups names may contain wildcards.
          
        - repykota and warnpykota only reports or warns the
          current user when launched by non-root users.
          
        - Minor bug fixes.  
    
    - 1.09alpha1 :
    
        - More work on LDAP storage backend. Many options
          were added to /etc/pykota.conf to give some
          hints to the LDAP storage backend.
          
        - Severe database access optimizations were done by
          rewriting most of the Quota Storage backends drivers.
      
    - 1.08 :
    
        - Major bug fix wrt LPRng support for remote jobs.
        
        - Major bug fix wrt increase/decrease account balances.
        
    - 1.08alpha8 :
    
        - Code refactoring.
        
        - A single user/password pair is used to connect
          to the database backend. The storageuser configuration
          field, and its associated passwords storageuserpw, are 
          not used anymore.
          
        - You can now set PyKota in debug mode, see sample configuration  
          file for details. 
          WARNING : only Quota Storage backend queries are logged in 
          debug mode, for now.
        
    - 1.08alpha7 :
    
        - Very latest LDAP schema.
        
        - Code enhancement wrt easy pluggability of PyKota attributes
          and object classes into an existing LDAP directory.
        
    - 1.08alpha6 : 
    
        - Minor bug corrections
        
        - More work on LDAP : new schema
        
    - 1.08alpha5 :
    
        - More good work on LDAP storage.
          repykota now works reasonably well with the sample LDAP directory.
        
    - 1.08alpha4 :
    
        - LDAP schema included. 
          THIS IS JUST FOR PEOPLE TO DISCUSS ABOUT THIS.
          LDAP SUPPORT DOESN'T WORK YET, AND THE SCHEMA
          MAY CHANGE IN THE FUTURE. PLEASE TELL US
          WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THIS SCHEMA ON THE 
          MAILING LIST.
          
    - 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