The ECN No Name Newsletter is no longer being published. This is an archived issue.
[previous article] [next article]Laser printers are wonderful, but expensive, additions to any department. The ECN was asked to design an accounting package that would report page count usage for a laser printer on a user and account basis. The result was the accounting package called lpa.
The lpa program keeps a database of information for the printer it is installed on. The information in the database includes logins and lpa accounts for each of these logins. Departments that have lpa installed may decide to use the data collected as a basis for charge-back or simply as a report on who is making use of the equipment.
Each lpa account has a number of pages allotted for printing and how to account for these pages. The pages printed are placed in three categories: paynow, paylater, and paynever. Paynow deducts for each page printed from a prefunded account and this account is not allowed to go negative (i.e. printing requests are refused when funding is exhausted). Paylater will deduct an amount for pages printed, but will not prevent the user from printing when the account balance goes negative. Paynever records the number of pages printed, but never actually changes the indicated account.
The lpa database can be accessed remotely from other machines. Those users interested in the status of their lpa accounts can type "lpa -Pprinter-name" (i.e. lpa -Pei). This command connects a user to an interactive "shell" that accesses the database. After linking this "shell" with the desired printer, there are two ways to list information concerning your lpa accounts. One method gives general information for all accounts and the other method provides detailed information on one account. To get a listing of all of the accounts that a user owns, type "list account". Note in this command the word "account" is literally the word to use, not the name of an account. To get detailed information on a certain account, type "status account-name". For example, in this command "account-name" might be general, research, or personal. When this command is issued, all the information stored for that particular "account-name" will be listed (i.e. status research). More information is available on the lpa program by typing "help lpa". Questions should be directed to your site specialist or you can communicate with me directly. My office is EE348D and my login is "kechkayt".
HTML