[695] | 1 | # $Id$ |
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| 2 | |
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| 3 | PyKota - Print Quota for CUPS |
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| 4 | |
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| 5 | (c) 2003 Jerome Alet <alet@librelogiciel.com> |
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| 6 | You're welcome to redistribute this software under the |
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| 7 | terms of the GNU General Public Licence version 2.0 |
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| 8 | or, at your option, any higher version. |
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| 9 | |
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| 10 | You can read the complete GNU GPL in the file COPYING |
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| 11 | which should come along with this software, or visit |
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| 12 | the Free Software Foundation's WEB site http://www.fsf.org |
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| 13 | |
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[761] | 14 | ==================================================================== |
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[695] | 15 | |
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[761] | 16 | READ SPECIAL LICENSING AND REDISTRBUTION TERMS IN THE FILE 'LICENSE' |
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| 17 | |
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| 18 | ==================================================================== |
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| 19 | |
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[695] | 20 | PyKota is a complete Print Quota system for the Common Unix Printing |
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| 21 | System (aka CUPS), which works by directly querying the printers |
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| 22 | for the number of pages they have printed. |
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| 23 | |
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[739] | 24 | Actual working features : |
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| 25 | |
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| 26 | - Per printer user quotas. |
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| 27 | |
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| 28 | - Automated email warning of users above quota to the |
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| 29 | user himself and to the print quota administrator. |
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| 30 | |
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| 31 | - CUPS filter for quota accounting : pykota |
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| 32 | |
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| 33 | - Command line print quota editor : edpykota |
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| 34 | |
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| 35 | - Command line print quota report generator : repykota |
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| 36 | |
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| 37 | - Command line print quota automated warning sender : warnpykota |
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| 38 | |
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[760] | 39 | - Command line tools mimic the disk quota utilities for |
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| 40 | easier mastering. |
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| 41 | |
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[739] | 42 | - Centralized storage of quotas : you can manage quotas for |
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| 43 | different printers on different print servers and store them all |
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| 44 | on the same quota storage server. |
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| 45 | WARNING : actually all your printers must have an unique name, |
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| 46 | but this may change in a future version. |
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| 47 | |
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[794] | 48 | - SNMP querying of any networked SNMP-enabled printer. |
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[739] | 49 | |
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[794] | 50 | - External command querying of any printer : you can use |
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| 51 | you own querying command, e.g. to query a printer via |
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| 52 | the serial port, sending it a special PJL job and |
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[840] | 53 | reading the result. See the example scripts in the |
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| 54 | "untested" directory and try to adapt them to your |
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| 55 | configuration. |
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[794] | 56 | |
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[739] | 57 | - Special scripts included for a seamless integration of |
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| 58 | PyKota on Debian machines. |
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| 59 | |
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| 60 | All the command line tools accept the -h | --help command line option |
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| 61 | which prints all the available options and show usage examples. |
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| 62 | |
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| 63 | Planned features are described in the TODO file. |
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| 64 | |
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[724] | 65 | Actually only the lazy quota method is implemented. What do I call |
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| 66 | lazy method ? |
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[695] | 67 | |
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[739] | 68 | The lazy method consists in querying the printer (actually via SNMP) |
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| 69 | for its total pages counter, just before the beginning of a job, and |
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[724] | 70 | use this to modify the *preceding* user's quota. So you're |
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| 71 | always late of one print job, but this is generally ok, especially |
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| 72 | because a check is also done to see if the current user is allowed |
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| 73 | or not to print. |
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| 74 | |
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[851] | 75 | Problem may theorically arise in batches of successive print jobs by |
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| 76 | different users when there's no sleep time between two jobs : the |
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| 77 | used pages may theorically be attributed to an incorrect user in the |
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| 78 | case that the printer is asked for its page counter at the beginning |
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| 79 | of a new job and before the end of the previous job. This depends on |
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| 80 | the printer speed and time between jobs, but so far I've not seen |
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| 81 | any problem with moderately used printers. This also depends on CUPS |
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| 82 | internal behavior : if CUPS doesn't begin to send a job to a printer |
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| 83 | before the previous one is completely printed, then there's no |
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| 84 | problem. |
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[724] | 85 | |
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[851] | 86 | Other querying methods which won't suffer from this possible |
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| 87 | problem, but probably from other ones ;-) will be implemented in the |
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| 88 | future. |
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[724] | 89 | |
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[726] | 90 | PyKota is known to work fine with HP Laserjet 2100 and 2200 |
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[739] | 91 | networked printers, and should work with any SNMP-enabled |
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| 92 | network printer capable of outputing its lifetime printed pages |
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| 93 | number. |
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[724] | 94 | |
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[695] | 95 | ============================================================ |
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| 96 | |
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| 97 | INSTALLATION: |
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| 98 | ============= |
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| 99 | |
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[714] | 100 | Prerequisite : |
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| 101 | -------------- |
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| 102 | |
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| 103 | You need to have the following tools installed on the CUPS Server : |
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| 104 | |
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| 105 | - CUPS |
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[809] | 106 | - Python v2.1 or above |
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[714] | 107 | - eGenix' mxDateTime Python extension |
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| 108 | - PostgreSQL's PygreSQL Python extension and the PostgreSQL client |
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| 109 | libraries. |
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| 110 | - SNMP tools (specifically the snmpget command) |
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| 111 | |
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| 112 | You need to have the following tools installed on the Quota Storage |
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| 113 | Server : |
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| 114 | |
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| 115 | - PostgreSQL |
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| 116 | |
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| 117 | PygreSQL and the PostgreSQL client libraries's versions on the CUPS |
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| 118 | Server must match the PostgreSQL version used on the Quota Storage |
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| 119 | Server. |
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| 120 | |
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| 121 | This list of prerequisite software may change in the future, when |
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| 122 | PyKota will support more functionnalities you will be given |
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| 123 | alternatives. |
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| 124 | |
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[851] | 125 | Of course the CUPS Server and the Quota Storage Server can be the |
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| 126 | very same machine if you've got a tiny network, or you can have |
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| 127 | multiple CUPS Servers all storing their quotas on the same Quota |
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| 128 | Storage Server if you've got a bigger network. |
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| 129 | |
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[714] | 130 | Then : |
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| 131 | ------ |
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| 132 | |
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[724] | 133 | Download the latest PyKota version from the CVS tree on : |
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[695] | 134 | |
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[725] | 135 | http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/pykota |
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[695] | 136 | |
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[714] | 137 | Just type : |
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[695] | 138 | |
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[725] | 139 | python setup.py install |
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[695] | 140 | |
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| 141 | You may need to be logged in with sufficient privileges (e.g. root) |
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| 142 | |
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| 143 | Go to the initscripts subdirectory of PyKota's sources, and choose |
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| 144 | the appropriate storage backend for your configuration. Read |
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| 145 | the associated README file and execute the initialization script |
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| 146 | to create an empty PyKota Storage. |
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| 147 | |
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| 148 | Copy the conf/pykota.conf.sample sample configuration file to |
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| 149 | CUPS' configuration directory, usually /etc/cups, under the |
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[714] | 150 | name pykota.conf, and adapt this file to your own needs and |
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| 151 | configuration. |
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[695] | 152 | |
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| 153 | Modify the PPD files for each printer on which you want to manage |
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| 154 | print quotas, for example /etc/cups/ppd/lp.ppd : |
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| 155 | |
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| 156 | --- Add the line below exactly as-is somewhere near the top --- |
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[702] | 157 | *cupsFilter: "application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 /usr/bin/pykota" |
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[695] | 158 | --- Add the line above exactly as-is somewhere near the top --- |
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| 159 | |
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[724] | 160 | Modify the path to the pykota executable if needed, unfortunately |
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| 161 | you have to supply the correct absolute path here due to CUPS |
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| 162 | internals, or put the pykota executable into /usr/lib/cups/filter |
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| 163 | instead of into /usr/bin. |
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[702] | 164 | |
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[724] | 165 | Do this for each ppd file present in this directory if you want |
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[695] | 166 | to enable quota on every printer. |
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| 167 | |
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[851] | 168 | WARNING : In the case you've got a non-postscript printer, chances |
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| 169 | are that the *cupsFilter is already filled-in and points |
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| 170 | to cupsomatic or such a print filter. In this case please |
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| 171 | check if you can switch your printer to PostScript mode |
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| 172 | or if there's a way to make it accept PostScript jobs. |
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| 173 | If yes then ensure that your workstations uses a PostScript |
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| 174 | printer driver, and replace the *cupsFilter line with the |
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| 175 | one pointing to the pykota filter. This should work, but |
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| 176 | is currently untested. |
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| 177 | If your printer really needs the original *cupsFilter line |
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| 178 | then you may not be able to use PyKota easily for now. |
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| 179 | |
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[716] | 180 | Add printers and users to the quota system and set their quota values : |
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[695] | 181 | |
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[725] | 182 | $ edpykota --add -P printer -S softlimit -H hardlimit user1 ... userN |
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[724] | 183 | |
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[725] | 184 | launching edpykota without any argument or with the --help |
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| 185 | command line option will show you all the possibilities. |
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[695] | 186 | |
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| 187 | Restart CUPS, for example under Debian GNU/Linux systems : |
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| 188 | |
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[725] | 189 | $ /etc/init.d/cupsys restart |
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[695] | 190 | |
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| 191 | Your users now should be able to print but not exceed their |
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| 192 | printing quota. |
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| 193 | |
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[794] | 194 | To see printer command usage, you can use : |
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| 195 | |
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| 196 | $ repykota --printer lp |
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| 197 | |
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| 198 | or : |
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| 199 | |
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| 200 | $ repykota |
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| 201 | |
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| 202 | which will print quota usage for all users on all printers, |
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| 203 | along with totals. |
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| 204 | |
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[724] | 205 | WARNING : as of today, 2003-02-06, group quotas are not |
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| 206 | implemented. |
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| 207 | |
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[741] | 208 | SECURITY : You should ensure that only the print quota administrator |
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[739] | 209 | can run the warnpykota command, but this is actually not |
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| 210 | enforced in the program. Any user able to launch warnpykota |
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| 211 | could flood over-quota users' email boxes. |
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[741] | 212 | |
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| 213 | You should ensure that only the print quota administrator |
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| 214 | can run the edpykota command, but this is actually not |
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| 215 | enforced in the program. Any user could modify his/her |
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| 216 | or other people's print quota. |
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[739] | 217 | |
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[741] | 218 | launching : chmod 750 /usr/bin/warnpykota /usr/bin/edpykota |
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| 219 | should make you reasonably safe. |
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| 220 | |
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[695] | 221 | ============================================================ |
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| 222 | |
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| 223 | Please e-mail bugs to: alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet) |
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