Changeset 3212

Timestamp:

07/24/07 09:58:17 (17 years ago)

Author:

jerome

Message:

Documented the qa-assistant part a bit.

Location:

pykota/trunk/qa-assistant

Files:

• pykota.xml (modified) (1 diff)
• README (copied) (copied from pykota/trunk/README) (1 diff)

pykota/trunk/qa-assistant/pykota.xml

@@ -48 +48 @@
     </entry>
   </category>
-  <category name="Run pykota/checkdeps.py to look for missing dependencies">
+  <category name="Look for missing dependencies">
     <description>PyKota depends on a lot of third party software.
       Some of them are required, other ones simply recommended : they don't
       prevent most of PyKota from working, but some functionnalities will
-      be unavailable to you if they are not installed.
+      be unavailable to you if they are not installed. You can see the
+      status for each of PyKota's dependencies with 
+      'python pykota/checkdeps.py'
     </description>  
     <entry name="python-egenix-mxdatetime" display="true">

pykota/trunk/qa-assistant/README

@@ -18 +18 @@
 Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
 
-====================================================================
+=============================================================================
 
-READ SPECIAL LICENSING AND REDISTRIBUTION TERMS IN THE FILE 'LICENSE'
+This directory contains checklist templates to use with Gnome's qa-assistant
+utility.
 
-====================================================================
+Just copy the XML files from this directory to /usr/share/qa-assistant/data/
 
-PyKota features :
------------------
+If you want to setup PyKota on a new machine, or help somebody do so,
+launch qa-assitant, then start a new QA review, and choose any of the 
+"PyKota Installation" templates. The other templates are unrelated
+to PyKota and are installed as part of qa-assistant.
 
-        http://www.pykota.com/software/pykota/features/
+Confirm your choice and then apply it.
 
-====================================================================
-        
-Planned features are described in the TODO file.
+qa-assistant will then display a checklist describing a step by step
+setup guide for PyKota. Moving the mouse cursor over each step will
+explain what you have to do before deciding if this particular step
+failed or passed.
 
-Actually three (or an infinity of) page accounting methods are
-implemented :
+IMPORTANT : currently a single "PyKota Installation" template is provided,
+and it is still incomplete : it doesn't contain any database related
+instructions.
 
-  - The 'hardware' method consists in querying the printer (via SNMP
-    or Netatalk or any other method of your choice) for its internal 
-    pages counter.
-    This is done both at the beginning and at the end of a
-    print job. The counters difference is then used to 
-    decrease the user's account balance or increase his quota usage.
-    
-  - The 'software' method consists in delegating the computation of the
-    job's size in number of pages to any external command of your choice.
-    The command can read the job's data from its standard input and MUST
-    output the job's size on its standard output. Changes to the user
-    account are reported immediately. PyKota by default internally
-    uses the code from pkpgcounter which can handle
-    several Page Description Languages : DSC compliant and binary PostScript,
-    PDF, PCLXL (aka PCL6), PCL3/4/5, ESC/P2, DVI, TIFF, OpenDocument,
-    Zenographics ZjStream, Samsung QPDL,Samsung SPL1, and plain text.
-    Of course this means you have to install pkpgcounter if you want to
-    use the default PDL parser.
-    
-  - The 'ink' method consists in using pkpgcounter's code to compute  
-    how much of each page is covered by ink in each color of a particular
-    colorspace chosen between CMYK, CMY, RGB, and BW (grayscale).
-    These values are then summed up together and multiplied by a set
-    of coefficients defined in PyKota's configuration files.
-    
-PyKota is known to work with most printers, excepted GDI ones (Windows
-only). At least one of the accounting methods above should work
-for you. If it's not the case, please report the problem : tell us
-the exact brand and model of the printer, if possible the driver used,
-and send some test files.
-
-============================================================
-
-SUPPORT CONTRACTS:
-==================
-
-  You can now purchase 8x5x365@NextBusinessDay Technical
-  Support Contracts from us. The yearly fee is computed with  
-  the following formula :
-
-  (100.0 * NbPrintServers) + (2.5 * NbPrinters) + (0.04 * NbUsers) EUROS.
-  
-  This fee includes the VAT, and a free subscription to Official
-  PyKota packages.
-
-  Please send an email to alet@librelogiciel.com if you're
-  interested in purchasing such a contract.   
-
-  Remember that purchasing a support contract for Free Software like PyKota
-  is a great way to show your appreciation for the work already being done 
-  on this project, and will help to improve this software in the future.
-
-============================================================
-
-INSTALLATION:
-=============
-
-NB :
-====
-
-  PyKota's documentation is available as DocBook SGML sources
-  files in the pykota/docs directory. If you obtained an
-  Official package, in the same directory you'll also find
-  the documentation in HTML and PDF formats. Otherwise you
-  have to compile it into HTML or PDF yourself by using
-  the appropriate tools as installed on your system.
-  
-  PyKota's collaborative documentation is available from :
-  
-    http://www.pykota.com/wiki/
-    
-  You may learn more about PyKota, if it fits your own organization,
-  its internal working, and some potential performance drawbacks and
-  how to avoid them, in a document created by Ryan Suarez at :
-  
-    http://archive.macosxlabs.org/forum/webcrossing_archive/documentation/Pykota_and_CUPS/Pykota_and_CUPS.html
-
-  You may also find the following document interesting :
-  
-    http://es.tldp.org/Tutoriales/doc-openldap-samba-cups-python/
-    
-  This document, written in Spanish by Sergio Gonzalez Gonzalez,  
-  describes the integration of PyKota into an OpenLDAP + Samba
-  + CUPS installation. Even for people who can't read spanish 
-  this document is really interesting, and contains lots of
-  screenshots.
-  
-  
-Prerequisite : 
---------------
-   
-  See :
-  
-    http://www.pykota.com/wiki/Dependencies
-    
-  for an up-to-date list, or see below (maybe not up-to-date) :
-  
-  You need to have the following tools installed on the CUPS Server :
-  
-    - CUPS (http://www.cups.org)
-    - Python v2.3 or higher (http://www.python.org)
-    - eGenix' mxDateTime Python extension (http://www.egenix.com)
-    - The pkpgcounter command line tool, version 1.56 or higher. This
-      tool is now mandatory for PyKota to work. 
-      (http://www.pykota.com/software/pkpgcounter)
-    - The pkipplib Python library (http://www.pykota.com/software/pkipplib)  
-    - The JAXML Python module to be able to dump datas in the XML format.
-      (http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/)
-    - The Python-PAM module if you need the pknotify command to be able  
-      to check usernames and passwords. (http://www.pangalactic.org/PyPAM)
-    - The Python-SNMP module to query printers for their page counter.
-      (http://pysnmp.sourceforge.net) 
-      IMPORTANT : version 3.4.2 or higher is REQUIRED.
-      Versions 2.x won't work. Versions 4.x now work (tested with v4.1.5a).
-    - The Python-OSD module to use the graphical print quota reminder.
-      (http://repose.cx/pyosd/)
-    - The Python-chardet module to autodetect user's character set when  
-      printing. (http://chardet.feedparser.org)
-    - SNMP tools (specifically the snmpget command) if you prefer to
-      use your own script to request query printers.
-      (http://www.net-snmp.org)
-    - Netatalk (specifically the pap command) if you plan to
-      request your printer's lifetime page counter via AppleTalk.
-      (http://netatalk.sourceforge.net)
-    - The ReportLab Python module (http://www.reportlab.org) if you want  
-      to have PyKota generate nice banners for you.
-    - The Python Imaging Library (aka PIL) module 
-      (http://www.pythonware.com/downloads) if you want to have PyKota 
-      generate nice banners for you.
-    - PostgreSQL's PygreSQL Python extension and the PostgreSQL client
-      libraries if you plan to use PostgreSQL as the database backend.
-      (http://www.postgresql.org and http://www.pygreql.org)
- or     
-    - python-ldap Python module and the OpenLDAP client libraries  
-      if you plan to use an LDAP server as the database backend.
-      (http://www.openldap.org and http://python-ldap.sourceforge.net)
- or 
-    - SQLite v3.2.7 and the SQLite libraries if you plan to use SQLite
-      as the database backend (http://www.sqlite.org). You also need the 
-      PySQLite module v2.0.5 or higher (http://www.pysqlite.org)
- or
-    - The MySQL-python bindings. 
-      IMPORTANT: If you are using MySQL 4.1, then MySQL-python must be 
-      version 1.2 or greater. Version 1.0 does not work correctly with 4.1.
-      
-    
-  On Intel i386 architecture, and for performance reasons, it is
-  strongly suggested that you install the Python accelerator Psyco, 
-  available at :
-  
-      http://psyco.sourceforge.net
-      
-  Under Debian :    
-  
-      $ apt-get install python-psyco
-      
-  Other architectures may be supported as well in the future, check    
-  this on Psyco's website.
-  
-  Installing Psyco is not mandatory, but it will speedup PCL5 parsing
-  by almost 3 times. PostScript and PDF parsing can also benefit,
-  but in an almost unnoticeable manner since this part of the code
-  is already optimal. For PCL5 this is a completely different matter,
-  and if you install Psyco you will never regret it !
-  Same remark applies for PCL6 (aka PCLXL) : the parser is completely
-  different, but the performance gain with Psyco is impressive.
-  
-  You may also benefit from having the following tools installed to
-  deal with some printers :
-  
-    - npadmin
-    - netcat
-    - ghostscript
-    
-  You need to have the following tools installed on the database
-  server :
-  
-    - PostgreSQL (http://www.postgresql.org)
-    
-  or  
-  
-    - OpenLDAP, or any other LDAP server (http://www.openldap.org)
-    
-  or   
-  
-    - SQLite, v3.2.7 or higher (http://www.sqlite.org).
-      Beware : with SQLite the database server and the print
-      servers MUST be the very same machine.
-      
-  or     
-  
-    - MySQL 4.1 or higher. 5.x is recommended.
-    
-  This list of prerequisite software may change in the future, when
-  PyKota will support more functionnalities you will be given 
-  alternatives.
-  
-  Of course the Print Server and the database server can be the 
-  very same machine if you've got a tiny network, or you can have 
-  multiple Print Servers all storing their quotas on the same database
-  server if you've got a bigger network. (NB : with SQLite, the database
-  can't be shared between several print servers)
-  
-Hint :  
-------
-
-  - The Debian GNU/Linux distribution is to our knowledge the 
-    easiest distribution to install PyKota on, because almost all
-    of PyKota dependencies are already included, excepted
-    the pkpgcounter utility which for now have to be downloaded
-    and installed separately, and maybe one or two other dependencies,
-    depending on the version of Debian you are using.
-    We recommend you to use Debian's Etch distribution or
-    more recent. PyKota works fine on Sarge, but some additional
-    dependencies are missing in Sarge and have to be installed
-    manually.
-
-Then :   
-------
- 
-Download the latest PyKota version from the Subversion tree :
-
-    $ svn co svn://svn.librelogiciel.com/pykota/trunk pykota
-
-You can now check if the dependencies are correct by typing :
-
-    $ python checkdeps.py
-    
-    An availability report for all the software needed by PyKota
-    will be displayed : you'll have to install the missing
-    software if you want PyKota to work correctly.
-    
-To install the software, just type :
-
-    $ python setup.py install
-
-You may need to be logged in with sufficient privileges (e.g. root)
-
-If you use Debian or Ubuntu, and want to use PostgreSQL as the
-database backend, just type :
-
-    $ pksetup debian
-    
-or :    
-
-    $ pksetup ubuntu
-    
-and follow the instructions to install PyKota in interactive mode, then
-skip the remaining of the section below.
-
-Otherwise, you have to setup manually :
-
-Create a system user for PyKota :
-
-    $ adduser --system --group --home /etc/pykota --gecos PyKota pykota
-    
-Put the user your printing system is run as in the pykota system group :
-
-    $ adduser lp pykota
-    
-    NB : on our system, the CUPS printing system runs as system user 'lp'.
-    Please adapt this to your own system.
-
-Go to the initscripts/ subdirectory of PyKota's sources, and choose
-the appropriate storage backend for your configuration. Read carefully
-the associated README file, modify the initialization script to
-change the passwords, or, in the case of the LDAP backend, adapt it
-to your own LDAP DIT, and execute the initialization script
-to create an empty PyKota database. Upgrade scripts may be 
-provided as well. NB : if you use PostgreSQL, a good way to
-make PyKota work first time is to modify PostgreSQL's pg_hba.conf
-to allow the 'trust' database connection mode. However once PyKota
-works it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO CHANGE THIS TO A MORE SECURE
-VALUE. Look at the SECURITY document, PyKota's Official documentation
-and PostgreSQL's documentation for details on this subject.
-
-Copy the conf/pykota.conf.sample and  conf/pykotadmin.conf.sample 
-sample configuration files to ~pykota/pykota.conf and 
-~pykota/pykotadmin.conf  
-The installation script usually copies these files into /usr/share/pykota
-
-NB : You can move PyKota's configuration files elsewhere, they will
-be searched first in user pykota's home directory, then in /etc/pykota.
-
-You need to adapt these files to your own needs. Especially you may 
-have to create sections named after your own printers, and change 
-the administrator's email address which by default is 
-root@localhost. Read and try to understand these two very well 
-commented files, so that you'll encounter less problems later. 
-
-The rest of the installation depends on your printing system :
-
-  - CUPS Printing System :
-  
-    Once and for all :
-    
-        Create a symbolic link to the cupspykota backend 
-        in CUPS's backend directory :
-        
-          $ cd /usr/lib/cups/backend
-          $ ln -s /usr/share/pykota/cupspykota cupspykota
-          
-        If you use CUPS v1.2 or higher, please do this as well :  
-        
-          $ chmod 700 /usr/share/pykota/cupspykota
-          
-          This allows the cupspykota backend to support other
-          backends which must be run as user root, like the
-          lpd backend for example.
-          
-        Restart CUPS so that the new backend can be detected.
-        
-          $ /etc/init.d/cupsys restart
-          
-          for example under Debian, or any similar command depending 
-          on your operating system of choice.
-          
-    For new printers :
-    
-        Go to CUPS management interface (http://localhost:631) 
-        and choose the appropriate PyKota managed device depending
-        on the type of printer you use. For example, if your
-        printer is waiting on :
-        
-            socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
-            
-        Then choose :    
-        
-            cupspykota:socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
-            
-        Configure your printer as usual.    
-        
-        Now double check /etc/pykota/pykota.conf 
-        
-        You should manually create a section named after the
-        printer you've just added, unless you have set
-        all options globally.
-        
-        The new pkturnkey command can help you with correct settings 
-        for your printers. To have pkturnkey give you some hints
-        about what to put into pykota.conf for a particular
-        print queue, just use its --doconf command line switch :
-        
-          $ pkturnkey --doconf TheNameOfThePrintQueue
-        
-        pkturnkey will try to tell you what is the best accounting
-        method for each printer and will print some lines you'll
-        just have to copy&paste in the appropriate sections in
-        /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
-        
-        For more informations about what pkturnkey can do for you,
-        see pkturnkey's manual page or use the --help command
-        line switch :
-        
-          $ pkturnkey --help | less
-        
-        That's all.
-    
-    For existing print queues :
-    
-        You want to route the print queue through PyKota,
-        and you can do this in several manners.
-        
-          $ pkprinters --add --cups TheNameOfThePrintQueue
-          
-        or   
-        
-          if your printer's DeviceURI is something like :
-          
-              socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
-              
-          then you can do this :    
-          
-          $ pkprinters --add TheNameOfThePrintQueue
-          $ lpadmin -p TheNameOfThePrintQueue \
-                    -v cupspykota://socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
-          
-        Finally, you could do it manually by modifying the 
-        the DeviceURI lines in /etc/cups/printers.conf :
-        You would have to preprend 'cupspykota://' in front 
-        of what is already on these lines. For example, replace :
-    
-            DeviceURI socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
-        
-        with :    
-    
-            DeviceURI cupspykota://socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
-            
-        or :    
-        
-            DeviceURI cupspykota://socket://myprinter.example.com:9100
-        
-        Save the file and restart CUPS for the changes to take effect.
-        
-        Here too, you may find it interesting to use the pkturnkey command as
-        described above to help with manual configuration of the file
-        /etc/pykota/pykota.conf
-
-  - LPRng Printing System :
-  
-    IMPORTANT : This release of PyKota DOES NOT support LPRng.
-    
-    If you want to use PyKota with LPRng, you have to download
-    an earlier release of PyKota, for example v1.22HotFix1.
-        
-Now you can begin to populate the PyKota's database with printers,
-users and groups :
-  
-Add printers and users to the quota system and set their quota values : 
-
-You can either use pkturnkey, or do the same things manually by
-using the pkprinters, pkusers and edpykota command line tools :
-
-Create printers :
-
-    $ pkprinters --help
-    
-    will tell you how to create, manage or delete printers and
-    printers groups.
-    
-    $ pkprinters --add --charge 0.05 hp2100
-    
-    would add the printer named hp2100 with a price per page
-    of 0.05 unit.
-
-Create users :
-
-    $ pkusers --add --limitby balance --balance 10.0 jerome
-    
-    would create user jerome and give him ten credits to spend
-    on any printer.
-    
-Finally create print quota entries :
-
-    $ edpykota --add --printer hp2100 john paul george ringo
-        
-    This will create print quota entries for The Beatles on    
-    printer hp2100. The print quota entry holds the number of
-    pages printed on a particular printer for a particular
-    user, as well as optional page limits to be used instead
-    of balance limits. See pkusers and edpykota's manual
-    pages for details.
-    
-Your users now should be able to print but not exceed their 
-printing quota.
-
-To see printer quota usage on printer hp2100, you can use :
-
-    $ repykota --printer hp2100
-    
-or :
-
-    $ repykota
-    
-    which will print quota usage for all users on all printers,
-    along with totals, if you are a PyKota Administator. If you are
-    a regular user, only your own quota report will be produced.
-    
-You can also use these commands :    
-
-    $ pkusers --list 
-    $ edpykota --list
-    
-    $ pkusers --list john paul george ringo
-    $ edpykota --list --printer hp2100 john paul george ringo
-    
-Quota reports are also available remotely by using the CGI script
-printquota.cgi provided in the cgi-bin/ subdirectory. You can 
-also use the CSS stylesheet present in the stylesheets/ subdirectory
-and put it at your web server's DocumentRoot, to benefit from a nicer 
-look, especially quota violations will appear in different colors.
-
-For additionnal security concerns, please give a look at the SECURITY
-file which is part of this software.
-
-To diagnose a problem when something doesn't work as expected,
-please read this FAQ entry :
-
-  http://otrs.librelogiciel.com/otrs/public.pl?ID=2
-           
-============================================================
-
-Additionnal tools :
--------------------
-
-Some people have developped tools around PyKota, and make
-them available under the GNU General Public License :
-
-  - Kanakorn Horsiritham developped phpPykotaAdmin which is 
-    a web based database independant administrative GUI,
-    written in PHP.
-  
-      http://opensource.psu.ac.th/~kanakorn/mambo/
-      
-    He was also kind enough to write an installation guide  
-    in english for CUPS and PyKota with phpPykotaAdmin on Fedora
-    Core 3. You'll find this document on the same website.
-    
-    This great software currently at version 0.3 is a wonderful
-    basis for an administrative GUI since it only depends on 
-    PyKota commands to be present to successfully manage
-    PyKota's database. 
-    
-    However this tool is very old now and doesn't work
-    with more recent versions of PyKota. It could be
-    a good starting point if you planned to develop such
-    a web user interface though.
-  
-Additionnal software will be listed here when they will be  
-ready.
-
-============================================================
-
-Mailing list :
---------------
-
-  A mailing list is dedicated to Pykota, you can subscribe to it
-  or consult its archives at :
-  
-    http://cgi.librelogiciel.com/mailman/listinfo/pykota
-    
-  The mailing list is the preferred way to obtain support, because  
-  all members can help and can also benefit from the solutions
-  proposed by other members. 
-  
-  Posts by non-members are usually rejected.
-  
-  The mailing list language is english and only english.
-    
-IRC :    
------
-
-  You can also chat with us :
-  
-        /server irc.freenode.net
-        /join #pykota
-        
-  Preferred language on this channel is english, but french      
-  is also accepted. Try to avoid exposing complex problems
-  in french because english speaking people on the channel
-  wouldn't benefit from the solutions.
-  
-  PyKota's main author is known as 'tamere' on IRC.
-    
-============================================================
-    
-Please e-mail bugs to the mailing list at : pykota@librelogiciel.com
-or to the main author at : alet@librelogiciel.com (Jerome Alet)
+=============================================================================