pqm - manage printbill's various databases.

pqm --options --more-options

pqm is the management interface to printbill(8) It is used to make administrative changes to the databases and to extract useful information from them. Monetary changes (inc and dec operations) are (at your option) logged (see printbillrc(5)). pqm requires a fully functional printbill installation, and all that that entails.

Please see the accompanying README file for installation instructions. Chances are if you're reading this it's correctly installed.

--add user

will add user to the system, if user is a valid account on the machine. You do not need to do this before trying to give a user credit, since that operation will create the database entry first. The test for account validity can be over-ridden with the --sloppy option.

--del user

will remove user from the system. --inc user --amount N will increase user's quota by N dollars, dinars, roubles etc. (not necessarily an integer).

--dec user --amount N

will decrement user's quota by N dollars, dinars, roubles etc. (not necessarily an integer).

--set user --amount N

will set user's quota to N dollars, dinars, roubles etc. (not necessarily an integer). Correct adjustments to misc database and finance log are maintained.

--display [user]

shows how much credit each user has left, plus the total number of pages printed and the total amount of money paid. If a user is specified, only the information for that user is printed.

--pages [user]

shows the number of pages printed by each user, or by the specified user. --init will re-initialise the database to no users, total of zero pages printed, total of zero currency units paid. It's dangerous, so unless --ask_no_questions is specified it will ask for confirmation.

--paid [user]

shows how much each user (or the specified user) has paid into the system.

--spent [user]

shows how much money each user (or the specified user) has actually spent (i.e. how much has been printed).

--used [printer]

shows the percentage of black (and colour, for colour printers) toner or ink has been used on all printers or the specified printer. Printers will only be listed if they have been printed to or if pqm --updateprinters has been run, so it is strongly recommended that you run this after adding new printers to /etc/printcap.

--ppages [printer]

shows how many pages this printer has printed since the last reset on all printers or the specified printer. Printers will only be listed if they have been printed to or if pqm --updateprinters has been run.

--resetblack [printer]

resets the black toner or ink usage level for all printers or the specified printer. Printers will only be reset if they have been printed to or if pqm --updateprinters has been run.

--resetcolour [printer]

resets the colour toner or ink usage level for all printers or the specified printer. Printers will only be reset if they have been printed to or if pqm --updateprinters has been run.

--updateprinters

Finds any printers in /etc/printcap for which we are billing and initialises databases for them in /var/lib/printbill/printers.

--webadduser user

adds a user to the web users database. It prompts for a password, which must be entered twice as per usual UNIX password procdures. The password is not stored in plain text, it uses the standard UNIX password scheme.

--infinitise user

gives user an infinite print quota (god mode).

--deinfinitise user

takes away the infinite print quota of user, if possible.

--webdeluser user

removes a user from the web users database.

--webpasswd user

interactively resets the password for user.

noninteractively resets the password for user.

--resetpages [printer]

resets the page count for all printers or the specified printer.

--web

generate terse output for the CGI script.

--ask_no_questions

hear no lies? Actually, turn off prompting.

--sloppy

doesn't check whether or not a user really exists in /etc/passwd before adding print quota etc. Useful for systems where the users do not have real accounts on the print billing server.

--help

prints out brief informative help message.

--version

gives you the version number.

printbill and the accompanying utilities were written by Daniel Franklin (d.franklin@ieee.org). The web interface was written by Phil Ciufo (phil@snrc.uow.edu.au) and Daniel Franklin.

You can always grab the latest and greatest version from http://ieee.uow.edu.au/~daniel/software/printbill

/var/lib/printbill/printquotas.db

Database containing current print quota levels.

/var/lib/printbill/pages_printed.db

Database containing total pages printed by each user.

/var/lib/printbill/paid_user.db

Database containing total amount paid into the system by each user.

/var/lib/printbill/spent_user.db

Database containing total amount actually spent on printing by each user.

/var/lib/printbill/web_admin.db

Database containing web administration accounts.

/var/lib/printbill/misc.db

Database containing global statistics.

/var/lib/printbill/printers/*.db

Individual printer information.

/etc/printbill/printbillrc

Config file. See printbill(8) and printbillrc(5)

printbill(1), printbill(8), printbilld(1), printbill_configure(8), printbill_grapher(1), percentblack(1), percentcolour(1), percent_cmy(1), pqcheck(1), printquote(1), printbill_printer(1), printbillrc(5), printcap(5), init_from_passwd(8).