Changeset 3104

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Timestamp:
12/01/06 23:31:23 (18 years ago)
Author:
jerome
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Improved the toplevel README file a lot.

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1 modified

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  • pykota/trunk/README

    r3081 r3104  
    3333Planned features are described in the TODO file. 
    3434 
    35 Actually two (or an infinity of) page accounting methods are 
     35Actually three (or an infinity of) page accounting methods are 
    3636implemented : 
    3737 
    3838  - The 'hardware' method consists in querying the printer (via SNMP 
    39     or Netatalk or any other method of your choice) for its total pages  
    40     counter. 
     39    or Netatalk or any other method of your choice) for its internal  
     40    pages counter. 
    4141    This is done both at the beginning and at the end of a 
    42     print job. The counters difference is then immediately used to  
     42    print job. The counters difference is then used to  
    4343    decrease the user's account balance or increase his quota usage. 
    4444     
    … …  
    4747    The command can read the job's data from its standard input and MUST 
    4848    output the job's size on its standard output. Changes to the user 
    49     account are reported immediately. 
    50      
    51     PyKota featured an internal software accounting method which handles  
     49    account are reported immediately. PyKota by default internally 
     50    uses the code from pkpgcounter which can handle 
    5251    several Page Description Languages : DSC compliant and binary PostScript, 
    53     PDF, PCLXL (aka PCL6), PCL3/4/5, ESC/P2, DVI, TIFF, OpenOffice.org Writer 
    54     and OpenOffice.org Impress. This software is now distributed separately 
    55     as 'pkpgcounter', and not included anymore in PyKota, so you must now 
    56     download and install it before running PyKota. 
    57      
    58 PyKota is known to work fine with most laser printers, either with 
    59 software accounting, or with hardware accounting if the printer 
    60 supports this. 
     52    PDF, PCLXL (aka PCL6), PCL3/4/5, ESC/P2, DVI, TIFF, OpenDocument, 
     53    Zenographics ZjStream, Samsung QPDL,Samsung SPL1, and plain text. 
     54    Of course this means you have to install pkpgcounter if you want to 
     55    use the default PDL parser. 
     56     
     57  - The 'ink' method consists in using pkpgcounter's code to compute   
     58    how much of each page is covered by ink in each color of a particular 
     59    colorspace chosen between CMYK, CMY, RGB, and BW (grayscale). 
     60    These values are then summed up together and multiplied by a set 
     61    of coefficients defined in PyKota's configuration files. 
     62     
     63PyKota is known to work with most printers, excepted GDI ones (Windows 
     64only). At least one of the accounting methods above should work 
     65for you. If it's not the case, please report the problem : tell us 
     66the exact brand and model of the printer, if possible the driver used, 
     67and send some test files. 
    6168 
    6269============================================================ 
    … …  
    9299  files in the pykota/docs directory. If you obtained an 
    93100  Official package, in the same directory you'll also find 
    94   the documentation in HTML and PDF formats. 
     101  the documentation in HTML and PDF formats. Otherwise you 
     102  have to compile it into HTML or PDF yourself by using 
     103  the appropriate tools as installed on your system. 
    95104   
    96105  PyKota's collaborative documentation is available from : 
    … …  
    113122  this document is really interesting, and contains lots of 
    114123  screenshots. 
    115    
    116   Finally, SuSe users may find the following document to best describe 
    117   how to install PyKota on their favorite distribution. It's a Spanish 
    118   document written by Dennis Romero, and is mostly outdated now : 
    119    
    120     http://www.cvr.espol.edu.ec/people/dennis/Pykota1.19-SuSE9.1.pdf 
    121124   
    122125   
    … …  
    224227  or      
    225228   
    226     - MySQL 4.1 or higher. 
     229    - MySQL 4.1 or higher. 5.x is recommended. 
    227230     
    228231  This list of prerequisite software may change in the future, when 
    … …  
    243246    of PyKota dependencies are already included, excepted 
    244247    the pkpgcounter utility which for now have to be downloaded 
    245     and installed separately. 
     248    and installed separately, and maybe one or two other dependencies, 
     249    depending on the version of Debian you are using. 
     250    We recommend you to use Debian's Etch distribution or 
     251    more recent. PyKota works fine on Sarge, but some additional 
     252    dependencies are missing in Sarge and have to be installed 
     253    manually. 
    246254 
    247255Then :    
    … …  
    287295    Please adapt this to your own system. 
    288296 
    289 Go to the initscripts subdirectory of PyKota's sources, and choose 
     297Go to the initscripts/ subdirectory of PyKota's sources, and choose 
    290298the appropriate storage backend for your configuration. Read carefully 
    291 the associated README file and execute the initialization script 
     299the associated README file, modify the initialization script to 
     300change the passwords, or, in the case of the LDAP backend, adapt it 
     301to your own LDAP DIT, and execute the initialization script 
    292302to create an empty PyKota database. Upgrade scripts may be  
    293303provided as well. NB : if you use PostgreSQL, a good way to 
    … …  
    295305to allow the 'trust' database connection mode. However once PyKota 
    296306works it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO CHANGE THIS TO A MORE SECURE 
    297 VALUE. 
     307VALUE. Look at the SECURITY document, PyKota's Official documentation 
     308and PostgreSQL's documentation for details on this subject. 
    298309 
    299310Copy the conf/pykota.conf.sample and  conf/pykotadmin.conf.sample  
    300 sample configuration files to /etc/pykota/pykota.conf and  
    301 /etc/pykota/pykotadmin.conf   
     311sample configuration files to ~pykota/pykota.conf and  
     312~pykota/pykotadmin.conf   
    302313The installation script usually copies these files into /usr/share/pykota 
    303314 
    304315NB : You can move PyKota's configuration files elsewhere, they will 
    305 be searched first in user pykota's home directory. 
     316be searched first in user pykota's home directory, then in /etc/pykota. 
    306317 
    307318You need to adapt these files to your own needs. Especially you may  
    … …  
    311322commented files, so that you'll encounter less problems later.  
    312323 
    313 Also be sure to double check that commands that query printers 
    314 for their internal page counter work from the command line 
    315 before using them in PyKota's configuration. 
    316  
    317324The rest of the installation depends on your printing system : 
    318325 
    … …  
    339346          $ /etc/init.d/cupsys restart 
    340347           
    341         or :     
    342        
    343           $ /etc/rc.d/init.d/cupsys restart 
    344            
    345         or any similar command depending on your operating system.   
     348          for example under Debian, or any similar command depending  
     349          on your operating system of choice. 
    346350           
    347351    For new printers : 
    … …  
    367371         
    368372        The new pkturnkey command can help you with correct settings  
    369         for your printers, but don't rely on it because it is still 
    370         experimental work. To have pkturnkey give you some hints 
    371         about what to put into pykota.conf, just use its --doconf 
    372         command line switch : 
    373          
    374           $ pkturnkey --doconf 
     373        for your printers. To have pkturnkey give you some hints 
     374        about what to put into pykota.conf for a particular 
     375        print queue, just use its --doconf command line switch : 
     376         
     377          $ pkturnkey --doconf TheNameOfThePrintQueue 
    375378         
    376379        pkturnkey will try to tell you what is the best accounting 
    … …  
    387390        That's all. 
    388391     
    389     For existing printers : 
    390      
    391         The easiest is to directly modify the DeviceURI lines  
    392         in /etc/cups/printers.conf, you just have to put  
    393         'cupspykota:' in front of what is already on these lines.  
    394         For example, replace : 
     392    For existing print queues : 
     393     
     394        You want to route the print queue through PyKota, 
     395        and you can do this in several manners. 
     396         
     397          $ pkprinters --add --cups TheNameOfThePrintQueue 
     398           
     399        or    
     400         
     401          if your printer's DeviceURI is something like : 
     402           
     403              socket://myprinter.example.com:9100 
     404               
     405          then you can do this :     
     406           
     407          $ pkprinters --add TheNameOfThePrintQueue 
     408          $ lpadmin -p TheNameOfThePrintQueue \ 
     409                    -v cupspykota://socket://myprinter.example.com:9100 
     410           
     411        Finally, you could do it manually by modifying the  
     412        the DeviceURI lines in /etc/cups/printers.conf : 
     413        You would have to preprend 'cupspykota://' in front  
     414        of what is already on these lines. For example, replace : 
    395415     
    396416            DeviceURI socket://myprinter.example.com:9100 
    … …  
    398418        with :     
    399419     
    400             DeviceURI cupspykota:socket://myprinter.example.com:9100 
     420            DeviceURI cupspykota://socket://myprinter.example.com:9100 
    401421             
    402422        or :     
    … …  
    404424            DeviceURI cupspykota://socket://myprinter.example.com:9100 
    405425         
    406         Save the file and restart CUPS. 
     426        Save the file and restart CUPS for the changes to take effect. 
    407427         
    408428        Here too, you may find it interesting to use the pkturnkey command as 
    … …  
    439459Create users : 
    440460 
    441     $ pkusers --add --limitby balance --balane 10.0 jerome 
     461    $ pkusers --add --limitby balance --balance 10.0 jerome 
    442462     
    443463    would create user jerome and give him ten credits to spend 
    … …  
    446466Finally create print quota entries : 
    447467 
    448     $ edpykota --add -P hp2100 jerome 
    449          
    450     This will create a print quota entry for user jerome on     
     468    $ edpykota --add --printer hp2100 john paul george ringo 
     469         
     470    This will create print quota entries for The Beatles on     
    451471    printer hp2100. The print quota entry holds the number of 
    452472    pages printed on a particular printer for a particular 
    … …  
    455475    pages for details. 
    456476     
    457 Restart CUPS, for example under Debian GNU/Linux systems :           
    458  
    459     $ /etc/init.d/cupsys restart 
    460      
    461477Your users now should be able to print but not exceed their  
    462478printing quota. 
    … …  
    473489    along with totals, if you are a PyKota Administator. If you are 
    474490    a regular user, only your own quota report will be produced. 
     491     
     492You can also use these commands :     
     493 
     494    $ pkusers --list  
     495    $ edpykota --list 
     496     
     497    $ pkusers --list john paul george ringo 
     498    $ edpykota --list --printer hp2100 john paul george ringo 
    475499     
    476500Quota reports are also available remotely by using the CGI script 
    … …  
    484508 
    485509To diagnose a problem when something doesn't work as expected, 
    486 please read the very first entry in the FAQ document. 
     510please read this FAQ entry : 
     511 
     512  http://otrs.librelogiciel.com/otrs/public.pl?ID=2 
    487513            
    488514============================================================ 
    … …  
    508534    PyKota commands to be present to successfully manage 
    509535    PyKota's database.  
     536     
     537    However this tool is very old now and doesn't work 
     538    with more recent versions of PyKota. It could be 
     539    a good starting point if you planned to develop such 
     540    a web user interface though. 
    510541   
    511542Additionnal software will be listed here when they will be