NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/unix/admin/7261

Text File | 1993-01-28 | 2.7 KB | 51 lines

Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin
Path: sparky!uunet!ferkel.ucsb.edu!taco!gatech!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!torn!mcshub!nimios!krasnor
From: [e-mail] (Carl Krasnor)
Subject: Automated page-counting PostScript printer accounting (again!)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Keywords: printer accounting
Sender: [e-mail] (Carl Krasnor)
Nntp-Posting-Host: nimios.eng.mcmaster.ca
Organization: Communications Research Laboratory, McMaster Univ
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 16:23:38 GMT
Lines: 38

Some weeks ago I posted a request for recommendations on products and
procedures for automated page-oriented printer accounting. The responses I
received were helpful but covered such a scope I realized I had not defined our
needs clearly enough. I am using net resources to deal with this issue again
because many other sysadmins have a similar and unsatisfied requirement.

We have several PostScript printers distributed throughout our building which
are fed from print queues on a Sun IPC which we use as a print server. We
want automated accounting software to keep track of printing by each user
with the following features:

   - Software runs on the IPC and logs to disk the number of pages printed
       by each user on each queue.
   - Page counting must be performed by a robust method such as querying the
       printer's page counter before and after each job.
   - It's OK if the system requires a serial line to the printer for polling
       the page counter but it cannot be required that the print data be sent
       by serial line (too slow!)
   - System must not require magnetic cards or similar ID item. People here
       print from their desks should continue to do so. Besides, they have
       to identify themselves to log in so they are already known to the
       system.
   - The purpose of this product is to bill users for printing services at
       intervals chosen by the system administrator with a minimum of
       additional processing of the information.
   - Product must be a fully professional quality, debugged product.

Any suggestions, product recommendations or commercial contacts would be
greatly appreciated. But please, no more e-mail suggesting that we do a
grep showpage on the PostScript files!! No simple parsing of a PostScript
program will tell you what its output will be any more that you could tell
what a C program will do with a one line grep command!

--
===============================================================================
Carl Krasnor, Communications Research Lab, McMaster U., Hamilton, Ont. CANADA
[e-mail]   VE3EGK   Tel:[phone] x4171    FAX:[phone]
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