Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!cornell!murthy
From: murthy@algron.cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Printer accounting and cutoff from UNIX: is it possible?
Message-ID: <37951@cornell.UUCP>
Date: 1 Mar 90 16:55:42 GMT
References: <1156@dutrun.UUCP>
Sender: nobody@cornell.UUCP
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept. Ithaca NY
Lines: 21

winfave@dutrun.UUCP (Alexander Verbraeck) writes:

>At our department (information systems) a large number of students
>are working on Unix systems (Sun, HP). These systems are connected 
>via ethernet. On the system we have a number of laser printers. At
>the moment, students are wasting enormous amounts of paper using the
>laser printers. We would like to limit their use of the printers.

>Unix does accounting for the printers. Question: is it possible to
>check for the number of printed pages and perform a "budget cutoff" 
>when the allowed number of pages is surpassed? Does anyone have
>software for this? 

>BTW: Why does UNIX have a cutoff for disk usage (quota) but not for 
>printer usage?

On SUNs, there's the "af" field in the /etc/printcap file, which turns
on printer accounting. You then use the "pac(8)" filter to format and
sort the file.
	--chet--
	murthy@cs.cornell.edu