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| Newer page: | version 2 | Last edited on Sunday, June 13, 2004 11:28:40 pm | by DanielLawson | Revert |
| Older page: | version 1 | Last edited on Sunday, June 13, 2004 11:24:02 pm | by DanielLawson | Revert |
@@ -19,5 +19,7 @@
I set up [PyKota|http://www.librelogiciel.com/software/PyKota/action_Presentation] to do some simple accounting. Pykota is really a quota/billing system, but I don't care about quotas or billing, so just set it up to give everyone large quotas and forget about it.
Pykota handles accounting in a couple of possible ways. It can do naive page counting, if you pass it PostScript. This isn't the best method, as it doesn't actually tell you how many pages were printed! It also has a couple of methods of asking the printer itself how many pages were printed. This will only work with network-attached printers, and only if the device attaching the printer to the network has some page accounting stuff itself (ie, any HP Jetdirect card, or any printer at all with a network card in it).
-The first method involves an snmp poll of the printer after the job finishes, which inspects the page counter. The second involves sending some PJL or PS code to the printer, to do the same thing. Both of these are nicer than the naive method in that they account for the number of pages actually printed, however they rely on this cups/accounting server being the only machine that directly talks to the printers in question
+The first method involves an snmp poll of the printer after the job finishes, which inspects the page counter. The second involves sending some PJL or PS code to the printer, to do the same thing. Both of these are nicer than the naive method in that they account for the number of pages actually printed, however they rely on this cups/accounting server being the only machine that directly talks to the printers in question.
+
+While a bit confusing at first, PyKota looks like a really good system. Its billing information is currently stored in SQL, so I can easily write scripts to generate custom reports. It also supports LDAP, which I might look into as it will tie in with my authentication system. It doesn't really seem suited for generating weekly usage reports, as it is more focussed as a quota/billing system, however it does keep job histories, so I might investigate using that information to generate periodical usage reports.
