gmane.comp.printing.pykota.user

PyKota users groups

2008-10-04T19:19:02

Hi there, Does anyone have use for PyKota users groups which are orthogonal to the system users groups ? PyKota users groups were implemented this way : there was absolutely no relation between PyKota users groups and system users groups. Now I'm not so sure it was a good idea, because it confuses people who begin to use PyKota. Does someone like this feature ? Does someone still need this ? Does someone really use PyKota users groups ? Any other comment about this subject ? bye Jerome Alet

Re: Problem setting up printer

Joseph Haig — 2008-10-03T11:58:10

2008/10/3 public.gmane.org>: Yes. I still have more configuration to do, but I have successfully charged myself 5 pence for a test page.

Re: Problem setting up printer

2008-10-03T11:36:09

So does it work now ? bye Jerome Alet

Re: Problem setting up printer

Joseph Haig — 2008-10-02T22:25:48

Thank you for your quick reply. 2008/10/2 public.gmane.org>: INFO: Using default SNMP Address < at >LOCAL INFO: Using default SNMP Community public direct cupspykota:scsi "PyKota+Unknown" "PyKota managed SCSI Printer" network cupspykota:ipp "PyKota+Unknown" "PyKota managed Internet Printing Protocol (ipp)" network cupspykota:lpd "PyKota+Unknown" "PyKota managed LPD/LPR Host or Printer" direct cupspykota:parallel:/dev/lp0 "PyKota+Unknown" "PyKota managed LPT #1" network cupspykota:http "PyKota+Unknown" "PyKota managed Internet Printing Protocol (http)" network cupspykota:socket "PyKota+Unknown" "PyKota managed AppSocket/HP JetDirect" serial cupspykota:serial:/dev/ttyS0?baud=115200 "PyKota+Unknown" "PyKota managed Serial Port #1" serial cupspykota:serial:/dev/ttyS1?baud=115200 "PyKota+Unknown" "PyKota managed Serial Port #2" direct cupspykota:// "PyKota+Nothing" "PyKota managed Virtual Printer" Thanks. I have followed these steps and successfully set up a printer. While I had the pykota backend link it seemed to hang at the final stage of creating a printer but removing the link I could add the printer and then edit the config file as you advised. Regards, Joe Haig

Re: Problem setting up printer

2008-10-02T19:49:48

As root, could you do the following commands and send the output to me after having plugged your printer in and switched it on, and after having put both "debug: yes" and "logger: stderr" in pykota.conf : cd /usr/lib/cups/backend ./cupspykota If in your output you can see the // port, the permissions on cupspykota are incorrect, make it owned by root.root and chmod 0700. If the device doesn't appear, but other do, this means that you've probably found a bug in PyKota's autodetection code, that's why I want the output of the commands above. That being said, you simply have to ensure your printer works without PyKota, then stop CUPS. Once CUPS is stopped, modify printers.conf so that instead of reading, for example, "socket://yourprinter:9100" you read "cupspykota://socket://yourprinter:9100" this is ONLY an example, depending on your existing (and working) DeviceURI line, you need to adapt the settings above. Now add your print queue and username to PyKota's database : pkprinters --add --charge 0.1 YourPrintQueue pkusers --add --limitby balance --balance 10.0 YourUserName edpykota --add --printer YourPrintQueue YourUserName Finally, restart CUPS and print, it should work. bye Jerome Alet

Problem setting up printer

Joseph Haig — 2008-10-02T19:33:21

I have just downloaded and installed pykota but I am having problems setting up a printer. From the CUPS configuration screen (administration page), I see: * Add This Printer HP LaserJet 1200 (HP LaserJet 1200 LPT parport0 HPLIP) * Add This Printer HP Fax (no_device_found) * Add This Printer PyKota+Unknown (PyKota managed AppSocket/HP JetDirect) * Add This Printer PyKota+Unknown (PyKota managed Internet Printing Protocol (http)) * Add This Printer PyKota+Unknown (PyKota managed Internet Printing Protocol (ipp)) * Add This Printer PyKota+Unknown (PyKota managed LPD/LPR Host or Printer) * Add This Printer PyKota+Unknown (PyKota managed SCSI Printer) * Add This Printer PyKota+Unknown (PyKota managed Serial Port #1) * Add This Printer PyKota+Unknown (PyKota managed Serial Port #2) * Add This Printer PyKota+Nothing (PyKota managed Virtual Printer) The printer I want is the one shown connected to LPT parport0, and I could alternatively have it connected by usb (this, in fact, is how it was originally) but there is no option with "PyKota managed". Is there something else I need to configure first. I don't know how much information I need to provide. I am using CentOS 5 and I have set up pykota for MySQL following the instructions in /usr/share/doc/pykota/pykota.pdf. I have installed from the megapack (downloaded yesterday) and ising the MRH PyKota Prerequisites repository for things that I couldn't find in the official Centos repositories or Dag. Regards, Joe Haig

Re: pcl6 not instaled in pkpgcounter

2008-09-30T15:55:12

If you want to use ink based print accounting, AND you are using PCL3/4/5 or PCL/XL printer drivers, then you need to install the GhostPCL (aka GhostPDL) software, which used to be freely downloadable but not Free Software. I think now it is really Free Software, unless I'm mistaken. This software provides the 'pcl6' executable, which is needed by pkpgcounter ONLY in the use case described above, to convert from PCL or PCLXL to TIFF, before doing ink accounting. If you don't need ink accounting, don't install GhostPCL/GhostPDL. bye Jerome Alet

pcl6 not instaled in pkpgcounter

Ricardo dos Santos Paula — 2008-09-30T14:54:21

Dear, I / var / log / cups / error_log did contain: pcl6 is missing or not executable. You MUST install it for pkpgcounter to be able to do what you want. Tmp files is generating empty in / tmp

Re: PyKota not counting correct number of pages

2008-09-29T21:32:10

Strange ! I'll look into this. I've got it now. Thanks. I'll reply on list if you don't mind, precisely for the reasons you mention. I should have said "mostly ready" instead of "mostly there". The only link which applies is http://trac.pykota.com/ticket/2 Unfortunately these files are detected as Canon BJ/BJC file format, and they appear to be BJL (looked at content with hexcurse) Right now I don't have any information about BJL, so I guess it's unsupported. It's too late today for me to see if this is very or not very different from BJC, but I'll try to give it a deeper look tomorrow. If you had bought the MP970 instead, linuxprinting.org indicates it supports Ethernet and SNMP, and PyKota would probably work at least with SNMP accounting. Unfortunately the MP830 doesn't. Sorry to not be more helpful right now. bye Jerome Alet

Re: [Pykota] pkturnkey can not input correct Printer nameto database

2008-09-26T17:28:18

I fear they are not, probably because the mailing list server stripped them out. I've specifically asked to you to send them to me : Please do this. Sending huge log files to the mailing list is a bad idea, because they can contain sensitive information, and I don't like to waste other people's bandwidth. So please send the files privately, but keep the discussion in the mailing list. bye Jerome Alet

Re: [Pykota] pkturnkey can not input correct Printer nameto database

Yang Darren — 2008-09-26T01:52:52

Hi Alet, The file are attached. Thanks and Regards, pigsign 2008/9/25 librelogiciel.com>

Re: [Pykota] pkturnkey can not input correct Printer nameto database

2008-09-25T11:14:37

In pykota.conf could you set "logger: stderr" and "debug: yes" Then launch pkturnkey again, redirecting stderr to a file. Send this file, as well as pkturnkey.args and pykota.conf files to me. This looks like a bug, but I'd like to be sure. bye Jerome Alet _______________________________________________ Technical Support : http://www.pykota.com/technical-support/ Trouble Ticketing System : http://otrs.librelogiciel.com/otrs/customer.pl Download : http://www.pykota.com/software/pykota/download/tarballs pykota mailing list pykota< at >lists.pykota.com http://lists.pykota.com/mailman/listinfo/pykota DON'T POST IN HTML !

[Pykota] pkturnkey can not input correct Printer name todatabase

Yang Darren — 2008-09-25T10:46:45

Hi all, My softwares version list below.. 1. pykota-1.26_fixes_official 2. python-2.5.2 3. cups-1.3.8-1 4. samba-server-3.2.3-2 I add a new printer name 7C-test on Cups and use 'lpstat -a' to check Printer name is correct. ---------- #lpstat 7C-test ---------- But when I type 'pkturnkey' then found the printer name is not correct in /tmp/pkprinters.args. show below.. ----- #pkturnkey #cat /tmp/pkturnkey --add --cups --skipexisting --description "printer created from pkturnkey" "7C-test：cupspykota" ------ It append ":cupspykota" string. Is someone have idea can resolve this ? Thanks and Regards, pigsign _______________________________________________ Technical Support : http://www.pykota.com/technical-support/ Trouble Ticketing System : http://otrs.librelogiciel.com/otrs/customer.pl Download : http://www.pykota.com/software/pykota/download/tarballs pykota mailing list pykota< at >lists.pykota.com http://lists.pykota.com/mailman/listinfo/pykota DON'T POST IN HTML !

Re: PyKota not counting correct number of pages

2008-09-24T21:18:14

This one couldn't work since for SNMP the port is mandatory, it's 161 UDP IIRC, and you don't have to specify it. PyKota doesn't use CUPS' page_log file to compute the size of a print job so the two are only related in that PyKota was written because CUPS sucks big time as far as print accounting is concerned. As you can see both have a similar problem with your print job. By reading the following link, you'll see that someone reported an accounting accuracy bug in pkpgcounter in December of 2007, and that I haven't fixed it yet... (I'm a very very lazy bastard). The code is mostly there, but not in subversion, and is still not working as expected currently... I'm not sure this is the problem you are encountering, but it's quite possible if your printer driver produces PCL3/4/5 or PCLXL (aka PCL6) datas. If you want to be sure, set 'keepfiles: yes' in pykota.conf and send to me the cupspykota-* files which are present (after printing) in the directory pointed to by the 'directory' directive in pykota.conf (send several of them, and for each one give me the expected page count), I'll double check what the problem is. It could also be due to your printer's Page Description Language not being recognized at all. If you do this right now, I'll try to answer before tomorrow evening. bye Jerome Alet

PyKota not counting correct number of pages

Alan Murrell — 2008-09-24T21:08:26

Hi There, I have PyKota running and working OK. The only problem I have, currently, is that PyKota is not counting the correct number of pages in a print job; it seems to be counting only print jobs themselves. For example, as a test, I sent a tw-page document to the printer, but repykota only shows "1" under the "Used" column. In my '/etc/pykota/pykota.conf' file, I have the accounter as the following: accounter: software(/usr/bin/pkpgcounter "$PYKOTADATAFILE") The printer I am using is a Canon MP830 connetced to a D-Link USB printer server (so not attched directly to the PyKota.CUPS server). I am fairly certain that I cannot query the printer via SNMP, as I have tried the following using 'snmpget' on the command line: snmpget -v1 -c public -Ov 192.168.10.230:9102 mib-2.43.10.2.1.4.1.1 | cut -f 2,2 -d " " snmpget -v1 -c public -Ov 192.168.10.230 mib-2.43.10.2.1.4.1.1 | cut -f 2,2 -d " '192.168.10.230' is the IP of the print server, and in the first example, the '9102' is the port assigned to the USB connection on it. Both of the above result in a timeout (as I thought they might have) Is there a different "software()" command I can use that will give me the correct count? Actually, when I look in the CUPS web interface and show all completed jobs, the page count for all of them is "1" as well, so it may be a CUPS issue; I am not sure. Thanks, in advance, for your help. Sincerely, Alan Murrell IT Support

Re: pykota+openldap status

Darin Perusich — 2008-09-23T21:07:17

alet-/5ZRO4h8pWPt3Uwzc2GATQC/G2K4zDHf< at >public.gmane.org wrote: I ran into this with Sun Directory Server and it caused DS to stop accepting queries, the history maxed out some sizing limits. I disable history since I don't need it and haven't had an issue since.

Re: pykota+openldap status

2008-09-23T20:35:25

I'm not aware of any trouble with either, but the some command line tools in the trunk don't work as expected due to ongoing (but slow) development. I advise you however about the fact that PyKota currently stores its printing history in LDAP as well when you use an LDAP backend, and this may (or may not) be problematic for you. If this is a problem you can disable PyKota's history, and create a script to save it elsewhere (look into pykota/contributed/mysql_history/ for an example) bye Jerome Alet

pykota+openldap status

Costas Drogos — 2008-09-23T20:23:12

Hello from Greece, We are planning to deploy pykota in our University labs. We have almost 2000 users, 6 printers and 1 print server to rule them all :) We are going to use the existing openLDAP server for accounting so I would like to know about any known glitches/issues or advice you have over Pykota+openldap setup.We are going to use the SVN repository, either the latest tagged version or from the trunk if is needed. Thanks in advance, Costas Drogos

Re: redirect the job

2008-09-23T12:15:08

Currently this is not possible with PyKota alone. However you can combine Tea4CUPS and PyKota to make this work. Define a single public print queue to which all print jobs will be sent, and make this print queue be managed by Tea4CUPS (Device URI tea4cups://). In tea4cups.conf you'll define a prehook which launches a script of yours which re-prints $TEADATAFILE to the more economic print queue, you can use a number of TEA* prefixed environment variables in your script to help it decide what to do. You can of course launch any other command from your script, like pkpgcounter, if you want to reroute jobs based on number of pages. All other print queues are private, and can only be seen from the CUPS server. All of them are managed through PyKota (and not Tea4CUPS). hth Jerome Alet

redirect the job

Ricardo dos Santos Paula — 2008-09-23T12:03:32

Allet, please. How to configure pykota to redirect the job to the printer more economical? I remember having seen this already somewhere. Are you like me to let that set in Pykota.conf? I know that in Cups do this manually when the job is active, but in and Pykota? Thank you, Ricardo

Re: Maximum job size

2008-09-23T08:36:34

You can't do this with PyKota, but you can do this in CUPS. So you will have two levels of control : one in CUPS, which takes precedence, and the other one in PyKota. PyKota will only receive jobs which were not already filtered out by CUPS because of job's size in kb. See CUPS documentation for details. bye Jerome Alet