ddaniel@lindy.Stanford.EDU (D. Daniel Sternbergh) (09/19/90)
I administer two small Mac networks in my department here, including
one departmental (semi-public) cluster. I've discovered that none of
the commercial software available for managing security or access to
the machines is useful in the type of University environment that I
deal with, and as a result there are some great applications written
within universities to fill the gap. For example, Attribute Editor
and WipeOut are extremely useful for just the sort of needs I have.
As a result, I'm sending out a request for suggestions for software to
help solve a problem with usage of the cluster LaserWriter. The
cluster includes both an ImageWriter and a LaserWriter. Of course,
ideally, people are responsible and print draft copies on the
ImageWriter, and, when everything is in final form and WYSIWYG assures
them that all is set, they print a final draft on the LaserWriter.
Ideally, people don't print copies of papers, resumes, and other
things for friends in other departments, and they *certainly* don't
print 50 copies of things for other people.
However, in practice things are quite different. Short of locking the
LaserWriter in another room and having someone collect money for
printer output, I'm looking for some way to bring this under control.
Has anyone out there written something for this purpose, or found a
good solution to a problem similar to this one? I suppose an ideal
solution is something which would require someone to enter a name and
account number in order to print to the LW, saving the information in
a relatively secure file for end-of-the-month billing per page
purposes. Even requiring people to enter a name and setting a limit
on the number of pages per month, or a name with the threat of having
LW access cut off for abuse would be better than nothing. And there
may be other, more reasonable solutions I haven't though of yet.
Anyway, if there are any people out there who have faced and solved
this problem, or have faced and patched an acceptable interim fix, I'd
greatly appreciate hearing about it.
Many thanks in advance,
== Daniel == Daniel Sternbergh
ddaniel@lindy.stanford.edu
Local Network Administrator
Materials Science & Engineering