PyKota v1.25 Released

Summary of changes :

* Support for the accounting of ink usage through the introduction of the 'ink(colorspace, resolution)' value for the 'preaccounter' and 'accounter' directives in pykota.conf
* Locking mechanism rewritten to allow several print servers, or several print queues on the same server to access to the very same printer device without disturbing hardware accouting.
* Introduced the pkrefund command line tool to refund jobs.
* Modified the pkinvoice command line tool so that it accepts advanced filtering just like dumpykota and pkrefund.
* Modified the pkusers command to accept a --email parametrized command line option.
* Modified the pkprinters command line too to accept the --cups command line option, allowing transparent redirections of CUPS' print queues through (and from) PyKota.
* Modified the pknotify command line tool to accept a --noremote command line option which controls if the jobs should proceed or be denied whenever there's no PyKotIcon running on the client host.
* Introduced the 'askconfirmation' directive to ask for confirmation to the end user through pknotify+PyKotIcon.
* Introduced the 'noprintingmaxdelay' directive to control the timeout used when faulty SNMP printers are used.
* Several bug fixes all over the place.

Download :

http://www.pykota.com/software/pykota/download/tarballs

@Geoff: Have you used Pykota in a 'real-life' environment?

Would be interesting to see how somebody has found it.

We've been running it for 2 years and we are extremely happy with it. At the mo, we are running version 1.24. Since we first installed it, we've seen an 80% reduction in paper usage. We have a very strict quota policy; once you've used up your weekly allowance, that's it - no more pages until next week. Pykota is very easy to install and upgrade. Jerome Alet's support is second to none. The perfect adjunct to CUPS.

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Have you used Pykota in a 'real-life' environment?

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I don't currently have it in service any where. However I'm planning to ressurect it at work some time in the new year. I have to finish off some lose ends on my dansguardian web filter (blacklist/whitelist/phraselist tuning) and upgrade the Moodle VLE to 1.7 first.

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Originally Posted by Ric_

Would be interesting to see how somebody has found it.

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I've been using it for quite a while now, I dread to imagine how long infact. What I have found is that it's proving invaluable to provide decent audit trails. One feature that was specifically requested is that we keep a PDF copy of the printouts from certain printers and users, in relation to an issue we had with lots of print-outs of the head attached to a pink car (less said about that one the better.). The pre and posthooks that PyKota permits are exceptionally useful for this and many other such requests that my SMT have. Admittedly this isn't quite the use that PyKota was created for, but still.

We don't really use it for quota tracking, as our current Head of ICT is against quotas, but, the Head herself likes quotas. So the functionality is there as I imagine at some point I shall be instructed by the Head to implement it.

As I explained in my previous post. I'm now in a position to implement this. Helpfully the W2k based printer server has expired. Giving me the perfect opportunity to convert it to CUPS.