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        <th colspan="3" align="center">LPRng Reference Manual: 24
        Sep 2004 (For LPRng-3.8.28)</th>
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    <h1 class="SECT1"><a name="AEN9884" id="AEN9884">18.7.
    <b class="APPLICATION">LPRng</b> accounting.pl Utility</a></h1>
    <p>The <b class="APPLICATION">LPRng</b> <tt class=
    "FILENAME">accounting.pl</tt> utility provides the basic
    framework for using the <tt class="LITERAL">:as=|</tt>,
    <tt class="LITERAL">:ae=|</tt>, and pagecounter information
    written to the accounting file to do reliable accounting, and
    may be found in the <b class="APPLICATION">LPRng</b>
    distribution <tt class="LITERAL">UTILS</tt> directory. Usually
    this is modified according to local site needs and installed in
    the filter directory.</p>
    <p>The utility maintains the accounting file by inserting a
    <tt class="LITERAL">START</tt> record at the start of a job and
    an <tt class="LITERAL">END</tt> record at the end of the job.
    It is assumed that the last <tt class="LITERAL">END</tt> record
    in the file marks the last place that accounting was
    completed.</p>
    <p>The following shows the printcap entry for using the
    <tt class="LITERAL">accounting.pl</tt> utility. The <tt class=
    "LITERAL">start</tt> and <tt class="LITERAL">end</tt> options
    are used to specify that the utility is being called at the job
    start or end.</p>
    <div class="INFORMALEXAMPLE">
      <a name="AEN9902" id="AEN9902"></a>
      <pre class="SCREEN">
printer
 :af=acct
 :as=|/usr/local/libexec/filters/accounting.pl start
 :ae=|/usr/local/libexec/filters/accounting.pl end
</pre>
    </div>
    <p>At the start of each job the utilty writes a <tt class=
    "LITERAL">START</tt> record into the accounting file. This
    record can contain information suitable for use by local site.
    The exit code and information written to the utility
    <acronym class="ACRONYM">STDOUT</acronym> is used by the
    <tt class="LITERAL">lpd</tt> server to determine if the job is
    to be printed. This allows job quotas to be implemented in a
    simple way by having the <tt class="LITERAL">accounting.pl</tt>
    utility query a database with the user quotas and reject the
    job if the user's quota is exceeded.</p>
    <p>At the end of the job, the utilitity will read the
    accounting file and use the recorded information to update the
    accounting information. In order to make this reliable, the
    following steps are taken.</p>
    <ol type="1">
      <li>
        <p>The accounting file is read and scanned for the last
        <tt class="LITERAL">END</tt> record. If there is none, then
        the next step starts at the beginning of the accounting
        file.</p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>The file is scanned for <tt class="LITERAL">START</tt>
        lines and <tt class="LITERAL">pagecounter</tt> information
        determined at the start of a job.</p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>If the last line in the accounting file does not
        indicate successful completetion of the job and contain
        pagecounting information, then the accounting procedure is
        abandoned until the next job completes successfully.</p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>If the last line in the accounting file indicates
        successful completion, then its pagecounter value is used
        as the last page counter value.</p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>Job information is updated by finding the start and end
        pagecounter values for each job. It is possible that a job
        will not have a pagecounter value recorded at its start; in
        this case the page usage will be 0, as it did not even get
        initialized.</p>
      </li>
      <li>
        <p>After determining the accounting information, the
        procedure will then update and databases and the accounting
        file. During this update, interrupts should be disabled and
        the amount of time taken to update the accounting
        information and/or file should be minimized.</p>
      </li>
    </ol>
    <p>Administrators can use this script as a starting point for
    more advanced accounting. For example, rather than just
    recording the information, at the job start the script can
    query either a local database or a remote server to see if the
    user has permissions to access the printer. At the end of the
    job or when an <acronym class="ACRONYM">END</acronym> line is
    written to the accounting file, the local database or remote
    accounting server can be updated.</p>
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