PyKota - CUPS based Printer Quota/Costing system

[Geoff]

Spotted a Linux.com article about this, it looks pretty nifty.

 

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/08/30/1924249

 

I'll have to try it on a virtual machine some time.

 

Homepage:

 

http://www.pykota.com

 

Features:

 

* Supports both Print Accounting and Print Quota enforcement. Each can be set on a per user and/or per users group basis.

* Supports both Page based and Credits based quotas. Both can be set or reset independantly.

* Nestable printers groups. Printers groups are similar to printers but can be used to aggregate datas or define complex cost computing schemes.

* Users and Users Groups.

* Each page quota can be set on a per user per printer basis, or on a per users group per printer basis, or both.

* For a given user, credits are shared between all printers or printers groups.

* Any currency is supported.

* Cost per page and per job can be set depending on the printer being used, and soon depending on the print job's characteristics, like duplex vs simplex, color vs B&W, paper format, etc...

* It's possible to give free credits or pages to any user.

* All users can have an overcharging or undercharging factor to be applied when computing the cost of the print job.

* A passthrough mode is supported for printers, allowing people to print on them without impacting their quotas or credits.

* A maximum allowed job size can be set on a per printer basis, and soon on a per user basis as well.

* Each user can be independantly either forbidden to print, or allowed to print with no limit and no change to his credits.

* Accounting per billing code is automatic.

* Identification and Authentication can be enforced at printing time.

* Per host or per billing code print accounting and print quotas can be configured if needed.

* Several scripts can be plugged-in by the print admin, and launched automatically to fulfill almost any site-specific needs.

* Entirely configurable automated printer and user account creation.

* Entirely configurable end user notifications.

* Etc... Etc... (no joke, you should really test it !)

[dustmite]

Spotted a Linux.com article about this, it looks pretty nifty.

 

I started using this a while back as the basis of (yet another) custom system I've built at work. It's really very very good, I wrote a few pre and post hooks to extend the system some more... and, ever since a few bizarre incidents relating to images of the headteacher in a pink car (We won't go there...) we make pdf copies of the printouts, which are deleted every couple of days automagically.

 

It's a very good solution to a common problem though, certainly a helpful tool in the box.

[ChrisH]

That does look very interesting and is something we definately need.

[openhgs]

We've been using PyKota for over a year now and it works very well, much better than the built in CUPS quota system. The built it CUPS quota can only be customised at the group level, where as PyKkota can be customised at the user level. Our experienced showed that CUPS quota counts most PDF files as 1 page, regardless of length. The author of PyKota, Jérôme Alet provides excellent support. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

 

Our experiences are documented here http://www.openhgs.org.uk/it.cgi/PyKota