| 29 | | Free Software : |
| 30 | | |
| 31 | | - Licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. |
| 32 | | |
| 33 | | Commercially Supported : |
| 34 | | |
| 35 | | - Support Contracts are available from http://www.pykota.com/technical-support/ |
| 36 | | |
| 37 | | Operating systems : |
| 38 | | |
| 39 | | - Any Unix-like system as print server. |
| 40 | | |
| 41 | | - Any operating system as client. |
| 42 | | |
| 43 | | Printing systems : |
| 44 | | |
| 45 | | - Supports both CUPS and LPRng as the printing system. |
| 46 | | NB : LPRng is only supported with versions |
| 47 | | of PyKota <= v1.22HotFix1, but support for LPRng |
| 48 | | may be reintroduced at a later date. |
| 49 | | This version DOES NOT support LPRng ! |
| 50 | | |
| 51 | | Databases : |
| 52 | | |
| 53 | | - Supports PostgreSQL as the database backend. |
| 54 | | An SQL script to create the database is included. |
| 55 | | |
| 56 | | - Supports any LDAP server as the database backend. |
| 57 | | Complete LDAP schema and sample empty tree are included. |
| 58 | | Plugging PyKota into your existing LDAP infrastructure |
| 59 | | is really easy thanks to PyKota's great configurability. |
| 60 | | |
| 61 | | - Supports SQLite as the database backend. |
| 62 | | An SQL script to create the database is included. |
| 63 | | |
| 64 | | - Supports MySQL as the database backend. |
| 65 | | An SQL script to create the database is included. |
| 66 | | |
| 67 | | - The print jobs history can be stored in any database |
| 68 | | of your choice (or in plain text files) if needed. |
| 69 | | |
| 70 | | - Master and slave databases are supported : master |
| 71 | | in read+write mode, slave in readonly mode. |
| 72 | | Master and slave databases can be of different types ! |
| 73 | | |
| 74 | | Printers : |
| 75 | | |
| 76 | | - Hardware or Software accounting methods are completely |
| 77 | | configurable. |
| 78 | | |
| 79 | | - Supports any printer which can report its internal |
| 80 | | page counter. Can ask printers for their internal |
| 81 | | page counter via SNMP, Netatalk, PJL, PS, or any |
| 82 | | other way. |
| 83 | | This is completely configurable. |
| 84 | | |
| 85 | | - Supports DSC compliant and binary PostScript, PDF, PCL5 (up to), |
| 86 | | PCLXL (aka PCL6), ESC/P2, DVI, TIFF, OpenDocument (ISO/IEC DIS 26300), |
| 87 | | Zenographics ZjStream, and Samsung QPDL (aka SPL2) natively through |
| 88 | | the direct use of pkpgcounter's code for software accounting methods. |
| 89 | | More formats to come. |
| 90 | | |
| 91 | | - Supports any other Page Description Language for which you |
| 92 | | have a parser which can be scripted. |
| 93 | | |
| 94 | | Quota systems : |
| 95 | | |
| 96 | | - Supports printers and printers groups quotas. |
| 97 | | |
| 98 | | - Supports users and users groups quotas. |
| 99 | | |
| 100 | | - Supports page quotas. |
| 101 | | Page quotas can be set differently on a per printer |
| 102 | | and per user/group basis. |
| 103 | | |
| 104 | | - Supports account balance quotas in any currency. |
| 105 | | Account balance quotas can be set on a per user |
| 106 | | basis. The account balance is shared amongst |
| 107 | | all printers. The history of payments (positive |
| 108 | | or negative credits to an user account) is kept. |
| 109 | | |
| 110 | | - Supports high granularity periodic print quotas : down |
| 111 | | to one minute intervals if needed. |
| 112 | | |
| 113 | | - Page quotas and account balance can be set/reset |
| 114 | | independantly. |
| 115 | | |
| 116 | | - Page quotas can be set on a per user or per group basis |
| 117 | | for a particular printer. |
| 118 | | |
| 119 | | - Price per page and per job can be set differently |
| 120 | | on any printer. |
| 121 | | |
| 122 | | - Price depending on ink/toner usage is supported |
| 123 | | with many printer drivers. |
| 124 | | |
| 125 | | - Low level of page quota or account balance are |
| 126 | | configurable. |
| 127 | | |
| 128 | | - Both soft and hard limit with configurable grace delay |
| 129 | | can be set for page quota. |
| 130 | | |
| 131 | | - Both soft and hard limits can be increased or decreased at will. |
| 132 | | |
| 133 | | - Possibility to disable quota enforcement for any user |
| 134 | | or group, while still keeping page accounting. |
| 135 | | |
| 136 | | - Each user can have an overcharging (or undercharging) factor, |
| 137 | | which is applied whenever PyKota computes the cost of a |
| 138 | | print job. |
| 139 | | |
| 140 | | - Specific pages and credits counters can be defined per billing code, |
| 141 | | and can be reset independantly of the printing history. |
| 142 | | |
| 143 | | - Supports a passthrough mode for printers, which doesn't modify |
| 144 | | users quota when they print. |
| 145 | | |
| 146 | | - Supports a maximum number of pages per job, configurable for each |
| 147 | | printer. |
| 148 | | |
| 149 | | - Each user can be completely forbidden to print, independantly from |
| 150 | | other users. |
| 151 | | |
| 152 | | - A transparent printing mode is supported for users, in which |
| 153 | | their quota is not modified when they print. |
| 154 | | |
| 155 | | Administration : |
| 156 | | |
| 157 | | - Almost turn-key solution, with the help of the pkturnkey command |
| 158 | | line tool for database initialization and initial configuration. |
| 159 | | |
| 160 | | - Powerful delegation of administrative priviledges. |
| 161 | | |
| 162 | | - Powerful administration tools can be used to |
| 163 | | automate setting or resetting of quotas or |
| 164 | | account balances at specific intervals. |
| 165 | | |
| 166 | | - Administration tools can modify several users, |
| 167 | | groups, or printers at once with the use of |
| 168 | | powerful wildcard characters. |
| 169 | | |
| 170 | | - Account balances can be set, incremented, or |
| 171 | | decremented. History of payments is kept. |
| 172 | | |
| 173 | | - Number of pages used can be set, incremented, or |
| 174 | | decremented. |
| 175 | | |
| 176 | | - Both printers and users can be automatically added on |
| 177 | | first print in a completely configurable way. |
| 178 | | |
| 179 | | - Quota report generator available either from the |
| 180 | | command line or in any web browser. |
| 181 | | The web-based quota report generator can be |
| 182 | | user/password protected. |
| 183 | | |
| 184 | | - Print quote generator can tell users how much |
| 185 | | a print job will cost them in advance. |
| 186 | | |
| 187 | | - PDF invoice generator to charge back users. |
| 188 | | |
| 189 | | - Policy with regard to unregistered users can |
| 190 | | be configured for each printer to either deny |
| 191 | | printing, allow printing, or delegate the |
| 192 | | decision to any external tool. |
| 193 | | |
| 194 | | - Warning and error messages can be automatically |
| 195 | | sent via email or via any other mean to the administrator, |
| 196 | | the user, both, or none. |
| 197 | | |
| 198 | | - Warning and error messages' content is completely |
| 199 | | configurable. |
| 200 | | |
| 201 | | - Configuration can be changed without needing to |
| 202 | | restart the printing system. |
| 203 | | |
| 204 | | - Complete print job history is kept. This can be |
| 205 | | disabled if needed. |
| 206 | | |
| 207 | | - Automated low quota or balance remainder can be |
| 208 | | scheduled regularly or launched manually. |
| 209 | | |
| 210 | | - Starting and Ending personalized dynamic banners can be |
| 211 | | generated on the fly, and accounted for or not, depending |
| 212 | | on some configuration settings. |
| 213 | | Banners can still be enabled even if the print job is denied. |
| 214 | | NB : Banners are a CUPS only feature for now. |
| 215 | | |
| 216 | | - Duplicate print jobs can be forbidden automatically. The decision |
| 217 | | can be left to any script to decide this on a per job basis. |
| 218 | | |
| 219 | | - Username and billing code can be overwritten at printing time, |
| 220 | | to allow people to login as guest users and print as authenticated |
| 221 | | users, for example. |
| 222 | | |
| 223 | | - The pknotify command can now interact with remote users who run |
| 224 | | the PyKotIcon application which is distributed separately. |
| 225 | | |
| 226 | | - Powerful data dumper to export datas to other |
| 227 | | software (spreadsheets for example). Actually |
| 228 | | supported formats are : |
| 229 | | |
| 230 | | - Comma separated values ; |
| 231 | | |
| 232 | | - Semicolon separated values ; |
| 233 | | |
| 234 | | - Tab separated values ; |
| 235 | | |
| 236 | | - XML. |
| 237 | | |
| 238 | | - CUPS' page_log format, to easily interface in |
| 239 | | real time with third party apps like phpPrintAnalyzer |
| 240 | | and similar tools. |
| 241 | | |
| 242 | | User Interface : |
| 243 | | |
| 244 | | - All the command line tools accept the -h | --help |
| 245 | | command line option which prints all the available |
| 246 | | options and show usage examples. |
| 247 | | |
| 248 | | - Completely internationalized. Actually supports at least partially |
| 249 | | English, French, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian, Swedish, |
| 250 | | Thai, Greek, German, Italian, Norwegian (Bokm�, Turkish |
| 251 | | and traditional Chinese languages. |
| 252 | | More to come. |
| 253 | | |
| 254 | | - Web enabled print quota monitor, data dumper, and quote |
| 255 | | generator. |
| 256 | | |
| 257 | | - An On Screen Display X-Window print quota monitor is included. |
| 258 | | |
| 259 | | - An email gateway to allow users to retrieve their print quota |
| 260 | | information by sending an email message to a dedicated address |
| 261 | | is included. |
| 262 | | |
| 263 | | - Third party web based management tools are available. |
| | 29 | http://www.pykota.com/software/pykota/features/ |
