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1# $Id$
2
3PyKota - Print Quota for CUPS and LPRng
4
5(c) 2003-2004 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
22READ SPECIAL LICENSING AND REDISTRIBUTION TERMS IN THE FILE 'LICENSE'
23
24====================================================================
25
26PyKota features :
27-----------------
28
29    Operating systems :
30   
31        - Any Unix-like system as print server.
32           
33        - Any operating system as client.
34           
35    Printing systems :
36   
37        - Supports both CUPS and LPRng as the printing system.
38       
39    Databases :
40   
41        - Supports PostgreSQL as the Quota Storage backend.
42          Complete database creation script in SQL is included.
43       
44        - Supports any LDAP server as the Quota Storage backend.
45          Complete LDAP schema and sample empty tree are included.
46          Plugging PyKota into your existing LDAP infrastructure
47          is really easy thanks to PyKota's great configurability.
48           
49    Printers :       
50   
51        - Hardware or Software accounting methods are completely
52          configurable.
53         
54        - Supports any printer which can report its internal
55          page counter. Can ask printers for their internal
56          page counter via SNMP, Netatalk, PJL, PS, or any
57          other way.
58          This is completely configurable.
59         
60        - Supports DSC compliant and binary PostScript, PDF, PCL5 (up to),
61          PCLXL (aka PCL6) and ESC/P2 printers natively for software
62          accounting methods. More formats to come.
63           
64    Quota systems :       
65   
66        - Supports printers and printers groups quotas.
67       
68        - Supports users and users groups quotas.
69       
70        - Supports page quotas.
71          Page quotas can be set differently on a per printer
72          and per user/group basis.
73       
74        - Supports account balance quotas in any currency.
75          Account balance quotas can be set on a per user
76          basis. The account balance is shared amongst
77          all printers. The history of payments (positive
78          or negative credits to an user account) is kept.
79         
80        - Page quotas and account balance can be set/reset
81          independantly.
82         
83        - Page quotas and account balances can be set on
84          a per user or per group basis.
85         
86        - Price per page and per job can be set differently 
87          on any printer.
88       
89        - Low level of page quota or account balance are
90          configurable.
91         
92        - Both soft and hard limit with configurable grace delay 
93          can be set for page quota.
94         
95        - Possibility to disable quota enforcement for any user
96          or group, while still keeping page accounting.
97             
98    Administration :       
99   
100        - Powerful administration tools can be used to
101          automate setting or resetting of quotas or
102          account balances at specific intervals.
103         
104        - Administration tools can modify several users, 
105          groups, or printers at once.
106         
107        - Account balances can be set, incremented, or 
108          decremented. History of payments is kept.
109         
110        - Both printers and users can be automatically added on
111          first print in a completely configurable way.
112         
113        - Quota report generator available either from the 
114          command line or in any web browser.
115          The web-based quota report generator can be
116          user/password protected.
117         
118        - Print quote generator can tell users how much 
119          a print job will cost them in advance.
120         
121        - Policy with regard to unregistered users can   
122          be configured for each printer to either deny
123          printing, allow printing, or delegate the
124          decision to any external tool.
125         
126        - Warning and error messages can be automatically 
127          sent via email to the administrator, the user,
128          both, or none.
129         
130        - Warning and error messages' content is completely
131          configurable.
132         
133        - Configuration can be changed without needing to 
134          restart the printing system.
135       
136        - Complete print job history is kept. This can be
137          disabled if needed.
138         
139        - Automated low quota or balance remainder can be
140          scheduled regularly or launched manually.
141         
142        - Powerful data dumper to export datas to other
143          software (spreadsheets for example). Actually
144          supported formats are :
145         
146            - Comma separated values ;
147           
148            - Semicolon separated values ;
149           
150            - Tab separated values ;
151           
152            - XML.
153         
154    User Interface :         
155   
156        - All the command line tools accept the -h | --help
157          command line option which prints all the available
158          options and show usage examples.
159         
160        - Completely internationalized. Actually supports the 
161          English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Brasilian, Swedish,
162          Thai, Greek, German, Italian and Norwegian (Bokm� languages.
163          More to come.
164
165====================================================================
166       
167Planned features are described in the TODO file.
168
169Actually two (or an infinity of) page accounting methods are
170implemented :
171
172  - The 'hardware' method consists in querying the printer (via SNMP
173    or Netatalk or any other method of your choice) for its total pages
174    counter.
175   
176    This is done both at the beginning and at the end of a
177    print job. The counters difference is then immediately used to
178    decrease the user's account balance or increase his quota usage.
179   
180  - The 'software' method consists in delegating the computation of the
181    job's size in number of pages to any external command of your choice.
182    The command can read the job's data from its standard input and MUST
183    output the job's size on its standard output. Changes to the user
184    account are reported immediately.
185   
186PyKota is known to work fine with most laser printers, either with
187software accounting, or with hardware accounting if the printer
188supports this.
189
190============================================================
191
192INSTALLATION:
193=============
194
195NB :
196====
197
198  You may learn more about PyKota, if it fits your own organization,
199  its internal working, and some potential performance drawbacks and
200  how to avoid them, in a WiKi administered by Ryan Suarez at :
201 
202    http://webcrossing.macosxlabs.org/webx?14@30.QAu3a5k0c4z.7@.26bf4661
203
204  You may also find the following document interesting :
205 
206    http://es.tldp.org/Tutoriales/doc-openldap-samba-cups-python/
207   
208  This document, written in Spanish by Sergio Gonzalez Gonzalez, 
209  describes the integration of PyKota into an OpenLDAP + Samba
210  + CUPS installation. Even for people who can't read spanish
211  this document is really interesting, and contains lots of
212  screenshots.
213 
214Prerequisite :
215--------------
216   
217  You need to have the following tools installed on the CUPS Server :
218 
219    - CUPS (http://www.cups.org) or LPRng (http://www.lprng.com)
220    - Python v2.1 or above (http://www.python.org)
221    - eGenix' mxDateTime Python extension (http://www.egenix.com)
222    - The JAXML Python module to be able to dump datas in the XML format.
223      (http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/)
224    - The Python-SNMP module to query printers for their page counter.
225      (http://pysnmp.sourceforge.net)
226    - The Python-OSD module to use the graphical print quota reminder.
227    - SNMP tools (specifically the snmpget command) if you prefer to
228      use your own script to request query printers.
229    - Netatalk (specifically the pap command) if you plan to
230      request your printer's lifetime page counter via AppleTalk.
231      (http://netatalk.sourceforge.net)
232    - PostgreSQL's PygreSQL Python extension and the PostgreSQL client
233      libraries if you plan to use PostgreSQL as the Quota Storage
234      backend.
235      (http://www.postgresql.org and http://www.pygreql.org)
236 or     
237    - python-ldap Python module and the OpenLDAP client libraries 
238      if you plan to use an LDAP server as the Quota Storage backend.
239      (http://www.openldap.org and http://python-ldap.sourceforge.net)
240   
241  On Intel i386 architecture, and for performance reasons, it is
242  strongly suggested that you install the Python accelerator Psyco,
243  available at :
244 
245      http://psyco.sourceforge.net
246     
247  Under Debian :   
248 
249      $ apt-get install python-psyco
250     
251  Other architectures may be supported as well in the future, check   
252  this on Psyco's website.
253 
254  Installing Psyco is not mandatory, but it will speedup PCL5 parsing
255  by almost 3 times. PostScript and PDF parsing can also benefit,
256  but in an almost unnoticeable manner since this part of the code
257  is already optimal. For PCL5 this is a completely different matter,
258  and if you install Psyco you will never regret it !
259  Same remark applies for PCL6 (aka PCLXL) : the parser is completely
260  different, but the performance gain with Psyco is impressive.
261 
262  You may also benefit from having the following tools installed to
263  deal with some printers :
264 
265    - npadmin
266    - netcat
267    - ghostscript
268   
269  You need to have the following tools installed on the Quota Storage 
270  Server :
271 
272    - PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org)
273   
274  or 
275 
276    - OpenLDAP, or any other LDAP server (http://www.openldap.org)
277   
278NB :   
279
280  PygreSQL must be linked with the PostgreSQL client libraries on
281  the Print Server. The PostgreSQL client libraries' version must
282  match the PostgreSQL version used on the Quota Storage Server.
283 
284or 
285
286  python-ldap must be linked with the OpenLDAP client libraries on the
287  Print Server. The OpenLDAP client libraries' version should match the
288  OpenLDAP version used on the Quota Storage Server, if applicable.
289 
290  This list of prerequisite software may change in the future, when
291  PyKota will support more functionnalities you will be given
292  alternatives.
293 
294  Of course the Print Server and the Quota Storage Server can be the
295  very same machine if you've got a tiny network, or you can have
296  multiple Print Servers all storing their quotas on the same Quota
297  Storage Server if you've got a bigger network.
298 
299Hint : 
300------
301
302  - The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is to our knowledge the
303    easiest distribution to install PyKota on, because all
304    of PyKota dependencies are already included, excepted
305    for the PySNMP (http://pysnmp.sourceforge.net) module
306    which for now has to be downloaded separately.
307
308Then :   
309------
310 
311Download the latest PyKota version from the CVS tree on :
312
313    http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/pykota
314
315Just type :
316
317    python setup.py install
318
319You may need to be logged in with sufficient privileges (e.g. root)
320
321The installation script will now automatically check if some software
322is missing and ask you if you still want to proceed with the
323installation or abort it completely.
324
325Go to the initscripts subdirectory of PyKota's sources, and choose
326the appropriate storage backend for your configuration. Read carefully
327the associated README file and execute the initialization script
328to create an empty PyKota Storage. Upgrade scripts may be
329provided as well.
330
331Copy the conf/pykota.conf.sample and  conf/pykotadmin.conf.sample
332sample configuration files to /etc/pykota/pykota.conf and
333/etc/pykota/pykotadmin.conf (the installation script tries to do
334this for you if needed and you agreed to this action). You need to
335adapt these files to your own needs. Especially you may have to create
336sections named after your own printers, and change the
337administrator's email address which by default is root@localhost.
338Read and try to understand these two very well commented files,
339so that you'll encounter less problems later.
340
341Also be sure to double check that commands that query printers
342for their internal page counter work from the command line
343before using them in PyKota's configuration.
344
345The rest of the installation depends on your printing system :
346
347  - CUPS Printing System :
348 
349    Once and for all :
350   
351        Create a symbolic link to the cupspykota backend
352        in CUPS's backend directory :
353       
354          $ cd /usr/lib/cups/backend
355          $ ln -s /usr/share/pykota/cupspykota cupspykota
356         
357        Restart CUPS so that the new backend can be detected.
358       
359          $ /etc/init.d/cupsys restart
360         
361        or :   
362     
363          $ /etc/rc.d/init.d/cupsysrestart
364         
365        or any similar command depending on your operating system. 
366         
367    For new printers :
368   
369        Go to CUPS management interface (http://localhost:631)
370        and choose the appropriate PyKota managed device depending
371        on the type of printer you use. For example, if your
372        printer is waiting on :
373       
374            socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
375           
376        Then choose :   
377       
378            cupspykota:socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
379           
380        Configure your printer as usual.   
381       
382        Now double check /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
383       
384        You should manually create a section named after the
385        printer you've just added, unless you have set
386        all options globally.
387       
388        The new pkhint command can help you with correct settings
389        for your printers, but don't rely on it because it is still
390        experimental work. To use pkhint, you have to feed it with
391        CUPS' printers.conf file this way :
392       
393          $ pkhint </etc/cups/printers.conf
394       
395        pkhint will try to tell you what is the best accounting
396        method for each printer and will print some lines you'll
397        just have to copy&paste in the appropriate sections in
398        /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
399       
400        That's all.
401   
402    For existing printers :
403   
404        If you had already installed a version of PyKota earlier
405        than 1.16alpha7, then remove the *cupsFilter lines in your
406        PPD files for each printer already managed printers. Each
407        line to remove is of the form :
408       
409          *cupsFilter: "application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 /usr/share/pykota/pykota"
410       
411        This means that each time the pstops filter will be executed, it will
412        pass the job's data through the pykota filter which is present in
413        /usr/share/pykota
414       
415        Don't touch anything else, especially any other *cupsFilter line.
416        Then save each of these files.
417       
418        Then, the easiest is to directly modify the DeviceURI lines
419        in /etc/cups/printers.conf, you just have to put
420        'cupspykota:' in front of what is already on these lines.
421        For example, replace :
422   
423            DeviceURI socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
424       
425        with :   
426   
427            DeviceURI cupspykota:socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
428           
429        or :   
430       
431            DeviceURI cupspykota://socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
432       
433        Save the file and restart CUPS.
434       
435        Here too, you may find it interesting to use the pkhint command as
436        described above to help with manual configuration of the file
437        /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
438
439  - LPRng Printing System :
440 
441    For each printer on which you want to use PyKota :
442   
443        Modify the printer's entry in /etc/printcap : you have to add
444        the three following lines :
445       
446          :achk=true:\
447          :as=/usr/share/pykota/lprngpykota:\
448          :ae=/usr/share/pykota/lprngpykota:\
449         
450        This will tell LPRng to activate accounting, and use the lprngpykota
451        accounting filter both at the start and at the end of printing.
452       
453    When all modifications are done, just save the /etc/printcap file and   
454    restart LPRng :
455   
456          $ /etc/init.d/lprng restart
457         
458        or :   
459     
460          $ /etc/rc.d/init.d/lprng restart
461         
462        or any similar command depending on your operating system. 
463       
464    NB : the pkhint command can't be used with LPRng for now, so you   
465         have to modify /etc/pykota/pykota.conf carefully. The comments
466         in this file will help you.
467     
468Now you can begin to populate the PyKota's database with printers,
469users and groups :
470 
471Add printers and users to the quota system and set their quota values :
472
473Starting from version 1.18alpha2, the preferred command to manage
474printers is named pkprinters
475
476    $ pkprinters --help
477   
478    will tell you how to create, manage or delete printers and
479    printers groups.
480   
481    $ pkprinters --add --charge 0.05 hp2100
482   
483    would add the printer named hp2100 with a price per page
484    of 0.05 unit.
485
486Now set quotas for users on this printer :     
487
488    $ edpykota --add -P hp2100 -S 40 -H 50 user1 ... userN
489       
490    launching edpykota without any argument or with the --help
491    command line option will show you all the possibilities.
492   
493    by default, each user is limited by "quota", this means that on
494    each printer he can have a different soft and hard limit.
495    You may want to limit the user by his account balance value,
496    in which case, the print quota is shared between all printers
497    instead of being different. To do this, use the following :
498   
499    $ edpykota --add -P hp2100 --limitby balance --balance 10 user1 ... userN
500   
501    This will put 10 $ (or Euros, PyKota doesn't care) on each user's account
502    balance, and tell PyKota to limit them by their account balance value.
503    Whenever they print on any printer, their account balance value is
504    decreased by an amount which depends on the particular price per page
505    and per job that you may have defined on the printer with edpykota's
506    --charge command line option.
507    Soft and Hard limits are not used if "--limitby balance" is used,
508    but you can define a "poorman"'s threshold in /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
509    to obtain a similar result (warning message when quota is low).
510
511Restart CUPS or LPRng, for example under Debian GNU/Linux systems :         
512
513    $ /etc/init.d/cupsys restart
514   
515  or :
516 
517    $ /etc/init.d/lprng restart
518       
519Your users now should be able to print but not exceed their
520printing quota.
521
522To see printer quota usage, you can use :
523
524    $ repykota --printer lp
525   
526or :
527
528    $ repykota
529   
530    which will print quota usage for all users on all printers,
531    along with totals, if you are the root user. If you are
532    a regular user, only your own quota report will be produced.
533   
534Quota reports are also available remotely by using the CGI script
535printquota.cgi provided in the cgi-bin/ subdirectory. You can
536also use the CSS stylesheet present in the stylesheets/ subdirectory
537and put it at your web server's DocumentRoot, to benefit from a nicer
538look, especially quota violations will appear in different colors.
539
540For different security concerns, please give a look at the SECURITY
541file which is part of this software.
542           
543============================================================
544
545Mailing list :
546--------------
547
548  A mailing list is dedicated to Pykota, you can subscribe to it
549  or consult its archives at :
550 
551    http://cgi.librelogiciel.com/mailman/listinfo/pykota
552   
553  The mailing list is the preferred way to obtain support, because 
554  all members can help and can also benefit from the solutions
555  proposed by other members.
556 
557  Posts by non-members are usually rejected.
558 
559  The mailing list language is english and only english.
560   
561IRC :   
562-----
563
564  You can also chat with us :
565 
566        /server irc.freenode.net
567        /join #pykota
568       
569  Preferred language on this channel is english, but french     
570  is also accepted. Try to avoid exposing complex problems
571  in french because english speaking people on the channel
572  wouldn't benefit from the solutions.
573 
574  PyKota's main author is known as 'tamere' on IRC.
575   
576============================================================
577   
578Please e-mail bugs to the mailing list at : pykota@librelogiciel.com
579or to the main author at : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
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