engber@shorty.CS.WISC.EDU (Mike Engber) (04/27/89)
We want to have a network of Mac+'s hooked up to laserwriter (via AppleShare), but we want to limit access to the laserwriter. Ideally we'd like to keep some sort of paper quota on each user (each user has an id and a password), but we'd might settle for a single password for the laserwriter. I know this has been previously discussed, but I wasn't paying attention (seemed like a silly problem at the time) Would someone please e-mail me a summary. New ideas are welcome too. If no such software exists, how hard would it be to write a program that intercepts the call the the printer driver and prompts the user for a password. I'd be willing to take a hack at it using LSP or LSC. Any suggestions, welcome. Please reply via e-mail and I'll post a summary -ME
jtwarden@pawl.rpi.edu (Joseph T. Warden) (04/28/89)
I would be interested in suggestions for controlling printer access as well. Thanks. Joseph Warden Department of Chemistry Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Troy, NY arpa: jtwarden@charis.chem.rpi.edu bitnet: jtwarden@rpitsmts
jackiw@cs.swarthmore.edu (Nick Jackiw) (04/28/89)
In article <7452@spool.cs.wisc.edu> engber@shorty.cs.wisc.edu (Mike Engber) writes: > [** Password-protected Laserwriter Desire Expressed **] > If no such software exists, how hard would it be to write a program that > intercepts the call the the printer driver and prompts the user for a > password. I'd be willing to take a hack at it using LSP or LSC. > It shouldn't be that difficult, provided you have a server somewhere (a Mac which could answer authorization-requests and actually log the transaction). If you're running Appleshare, you could either have a "controller," installed by an INIT, which could answer these questions, or conceivably you could have the whole password-lookup and use-registration aspect be carried out by your print-trap-patch (in which case the server would just provide a database of passwords, quotas, etc.). The problem with the second notion above is that the database would have to be modifiable by the user (because it would be the user's job which was logging the page usage), and thus the user could modify it to eliminate his or her traces. All of this assumes you have some way also of ensuring that the user's print calls will BE patched by your security system. If they boot from a floppy, you're out of luck. Ideally, you'd want to add your patch installer to all copies of your server-mounter init, so that people couldn't get onto your system to begin with unless they accepted your patches. Any scheme you come up with can probably be defeated in far less time by an able programmer with ResEdit. You'll have to decide whether your user base is one of sufficient technical ignorance to justify your efforts. > -ME -- _ _|\____ Nick Jackiw | Visual Geometry Project | Math Department / /_/ O> \ ------------+-------------------------+ Swarthmore College | O> | 215-328-8225| jackiw@cs.swarthmore.edu| Swarthmore PA 19081 \_Guernica_/ ------------+-------------------------+ USA