Subject: Does Netatalk allow printer accounting and licence managing ?

From: Tony Watson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 18:33:07 +1000 (EST)

Hi,

I'm sorry to repeat this posting, but I've only had one reply.
(That could be because I managed to wreck my sendmail later in the day
(after the original post -- sorry about any bounces). )

I'm getting rather desperate to know the answer to this, because I
don't want to have to become an expert on netatalk and CAPS just to
find the answer.

Surely someone must know ...

I've inherited a site that runs a little bit of netatalk and a little
bit of CAPS and I'd like to "iron out" the system, by reinstalling one
or the other.

Two of my requirements are:

  - to be able to do per-user printer accounting,
  - to be able to do licence metering (on applications),
      (CAPS appears to be able to do this.  That is, to have
      applications installed on the server, but limited in usage by netatalk
      according to how many licences I tell it we have for each application.)

I've had a look in the FAQ, etc  and I can't see the answers there.

Could someone let me know if netatalk can do this, so that I know
which way to go  (I'd prefer to go with netatalk if possible -- it appears
to be superior in many other ways).

-- 
Thanks in advance,
Tony Watson                               e-mail: [email-masked]
IT Manager
Dept of Electrical Engineering
ADFA    Canberra     Australia

---

From: Wes Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 08:00:36 -0400 (EDT)

> Surely someone must know ...

Well, from looking at the UMich pages I concluded that they were running
something that does accounting on the printing.
 (http://www.umich.edu/~rsug/umce-dev/#acct)

I am still trying to get the Kerberized printing to work here.
Information on Netatalk is out there, but I have only found a few
places.
 http://www.umich.edu/~rsug/netatalk/
 http://thehamptons.com/anders/netatalk/
 http://artoo.hitchcock.org/~flowerpt/projects/linux-netatalk/
 http://garnet.berkeley.edu/~weugster/appleprint.html

> to be superior in many other ways).

Wes
---
Wes Brown
[email-masked]		[email-masked]
http://prozac.cwru.edu/wes/About.me.html
KB8TGR

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 01:46:46 -0400

> From:    Tony Watson <[email-masked]>
> To:      [email-masked]

> - to be able to do per-user printer accounting,

We certainly do it, at some 10 public sites, with several printers
each, for over 10 million pages each year.  We're distributing most,
but not all, pieces, as well.  Some of the pieces are just too
embarrassingly ugly.

> - to be able to do licence metering (on applications),

We also do this, but we use something called Key Serve, I think.
netatalk definitely doesn't do this.  In fact, it's not possible for a
file server to do it reliably, since to run an application implicitly
gives one the ability to copy it.  Key Serve, and the custom software
that we used to use, works like a virus, infecting licensed software,
so it can't run out of our public site environment.

:wes

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From: Mario Klebsch DG1AM <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 13:50:21 +0200

Hi!

>  - to be able to do per-user printer accounting,

Since the netatalk afp server runs as a UNIX process under the
identity of the user, it should work (without any configuration) if
the UNIX spool system does per user accounting. This depends on your
spool system and not on netatalk. I know, that the plp (public line
printer) software does support accounting, but the spool system
backends do have to support it.

>      according to how many licences I tell it we have for each application.)

I don't know, hos this can be done. The users always can copy the
files on their local disk and after cpying them, they are not busy
anymore, on the server.

73, Mario
-- 
Mario Klebsch, DG1AM, [email-masked]		+49 531 / 391 - 7457
Institut fuer Robotik und Prozessinformatik der TU Braunschweig
Hamburger Strasse 267, 38114 Braunschweig, Germany