[cups.general] CUPS raw + accounting

[Paul Ortman]

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jimmy j. wrote:
> Just asking to make sure, but there is no way to account for raw
> printing from cups right? So a win client prints as many pages as
> they want and cups counts this as 1 page if cups was set up as raw.
> 
> Also, is there any way for cups to view the client's print queue
> which would have the number of pages printed. We would like to
> implement a quota and accouting system for windows, but use raw mode
> for the printing.

I'm not sure exactly what CUPS can do, but I use an external package
called Pykota to do what you want.

You'll have to contact Pykota [1] to make sure, but I'm pretty sure that
Jerome has Pykota configurable so that you can use RAW printing from
windows clients and the Pykota accounting package can account for them
correctly.  His software can parse PCL5/6 and PS and Pykota can also
query the printer's hardware counter using either PJL or SNMP, so that
accounting package is mighty versatile.  (I use software accounting for
some crappy color inkjets, but generally use SNMP where I can and then
fall back to PJL for a few old 4m and 4m+ printers.)  This seems to give
me very accurate accounting for my ~70 printers and ~1000 users.

[1] http://www.pykota.com/

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Paul Ortman

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