Equitrac Office/Express 5.5

Red Hat Print Server Guide

Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide Version 0.0.1

Document History

© 2015 by Equitrac Corporation

All rights to this document, domestic and international, are reserved by Equitrac Corporation. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of Equitrac.

Trademarks

Equitrac®, Equitrac Express®, Equitrac Office®, Follow-You Printing® and Scan-to-Me® are registered trademarks of Equitrac Corporation.All other brands and their products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders, and should be noted as such.

Symbols used in this guide:

The following symbols are used in the margins of this guide:

Revision Date Revision List

June, 2015 Document Created

Caution The accompanying text provides key information about a step or action that might produce unexpected results if not followed precisely.

Note The accompanying text provides cross-reference links, tips, or general information that can add to your understanding of the topic.

Warning Read the accompanying text carefully. This text can help you avoid making errors that might adversely affect program behavior.

Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide 3

Contents

1. Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Red Hat Print Server Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Integrating Equitrac Office/Express and Red Hat Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

The Equitrac Office/Express Print Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2. Server Installation and Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Service Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Uninstallation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3. Printer Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

General Printer Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Adding CUPS Printers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Printer Registration Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Red Hat Utility Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Contents

4 Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide

Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide 5

Overview

This guide is intended to help you to install and configure the Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server. It assumes you are familiar with Red Hat and Windows network administration.

The Red Hat Print Server enables accounting by monitoring printing and reporting printer usage to an Equitrac Office/Express accounting server.

Before installing the Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server, configure core Equitrac Office/Express components on your network.

For information on installing and configuring Printer Accounting Server, please see the Equitrac Office or Equitrac Express Installation Guide and the Equitrac Office or Equitrac Express Administration Guide.

TopicsEquitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Support

System Requirements

Red Hat Print Server Terminology

Integrating Equitrac Office/Express and Red Hat Servers

The Equitrac Office/Express Print Server

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Chapter 1: Overview

6 Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide

Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server SupportThe Red Hat Print Server supports network print-tracking and charging for print devices shared on a Red Hat print server, including Data Stream Interpreter page counting. The Equitrac Office/Express version 5.5 Red Hat Print Server supports secure printing and Follow-You Printing.

You should be using the standard Red Hat printing subsystem. While Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat printing supports CUPS subsystems, it does not support some third-party printing subsystems, such as PDQ (Print, Don’t Queue).

The Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server does not support the following:

• pop-up billing codes

• PJL and SNMP page counting

System RequirementsThe following Equitrac Office/Express, Microsoft, and Red Hat components are requirements in order to configure printer tracking on a Red Hat Print Server.

On the Red Hat ServerYour Red Hat server must host one of the following operating systems before you install the Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server component:

• RedHat Enterprise 6.5 or 7

On the Equitrac Office/Express Accounting Server• Equitrac Office/Express 5.5 Core Accounting Server installed and configured

Server LicensingThe Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server is licensed per server. Each server uses a print server license on the Equitrac Office/Express core accounting server. If the number of print servers or devices exceeds the number of licenses you have, the unlicensed components will not record any printing activity.

For information on licensing components with Equitrac Office/Express, refer to the Equitrac Office/Express Administration Guide.

Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide 7

Chapter 1: Overview

Red Hat Print Server TerminologyBefore you install Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server, you should be familiar with the following terms:

Integrating Equitrac Office/Express and Red Hat ServersThe Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server integrates a Red Hat server with the Equitrac Office/Express print tracking environment. You can accomplish this integration by installing a number of cooperating software components on your network. The following table provides an overview of the required components.

Red Hat Print Server Term Definition

Equitrac Office/Express printer registration

information about a logical printer definition stored in the Equitrac Office/Express database to track usage. A registration includes a printer name, a user-defined description and the printer’s assigned costs.

physical printer the actual printing device.

print queue a logical definition that represents a physical printer on a Red Hat server.

Chapter 1: Overview

8 Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide

Equitrac Office/Express Core Components on a Red Hat Server

Equitrac Office/Express Components on a Windows Server

Workstation Administrative Applications

Equitrac Office/Express Component Integration

eqdred Communicates with the Core Accounting Server service on the Windows server (UNIX version of Equitrac’s Document Routing Engine).

equitrac Equitrac CUPS backend, which handles documents sent through CUPS based on instructions from DRE.

Equitrac Office/Express Component Integration

Core Accounting Server • Functions as a Windows service.• Coordinates the activity of all Equitrac Office/Express components.• Handles account management requests; controls database access.• Calculates charges, assigns them to correct accounts.

Equitrac Office/Express Database

Stores information about printing transactions, printing accounts and balances, printers, printer costs, and scheduled events.

Equitrac Office/Express Component Integration

System Manager Enables the system administrator to:

• configure and monitor Windows server components• assign costs to printers and copiers

Accounts Manager Enables the financial administrator to:

• manage user, department and billing code accounts• perform account transactions

Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide 9

Chapter 1: Overview

The following diagram illustrates one way in which you can configure Equitrac Office/Express components and administrative applications on your network:

• Equitrac System Manager• Equitrac Accounts Manager

Components

• Equitrac CUPS backend• Utilities: eqdred, eqcascfg,

eqaddprint, eqviewprinters, eqdeleteprinter

• Core Accounting Server• Equitrac Database

Windows Equitrac Server

Database

Red Hat Server

Printer 1

Printer 2

Printer 3

Windows Management Workstation

Components

Components

Chapter 1: Overview

10 Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide

The Equitrac Office/Express Print ServerThe Equitrac Office/Express print server components perform two functions on the Red Hat server: printer control and printer tracking.

Printer ControlOn a Red Hat server, the Equitrac Office/Express print server monitors and controls printing activity. When you configure an Equitrac Office/Express print queue, the Equitrac print monitors associated with that queue prevent unauthorized users from accessing network printers. When the print server receives a print request, it checks with the Equitrac Office/Express accounting server to ensure that the user sending the request has a valid printing account. The accounting server checks the Equitrac Office/Express database for the administrator-defined list of valid printing accounts and indicates when print jobs are authorized to proceed.

Printer TrackingThe Equitrac Office/Express print server also monitors printing traffic to determine the size and attributes—such as page color, duplexing, page size, and so on—of each print job. The print server passes this detailed information back to the accounting server. Based on the print job’s page count and document attributes, and the administrator-defined costs assigned to the destination printer, the accounting server calculates printing charges and levies them against the appropriate printing account.

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Server Installation and Configuration

Equitrac Office/Express supplies the set of port monitors as a native install package specific to the Red Hat variant on which you will run the software. The automated installation uses /usr/local/eq as the base directory for the software.

TopicsInstallation

Service Control

Uninstallation

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Chapter 2: Server Installation and Configuration

12 Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide

InstallationTo complete the installation, you require the equitrac-cups-5.5.x.y-1.x86_64.rpm, and administrative (root) access to the computer upon which the installation is performed. The file resides on your installation DVD, and can also be obtained from the Equitrac Partner Portal at https://partners.equitrac.com/.

1 Copy the equitrac-cups-5.5.x.y-1.x86_64.rpm to a file location accessible to the administrator, for example, /tmp.

2 As root, execute the following command: yum install equitrac-cups-5.5.x.y-1.x86_64.rpm.3 Configure the firewall to allow connections to eqdred on TCP port 2938.

4 As root, execute /usr/local/eq/setup5 Provide the name or IP address of the Equitrac accounting server when prompted.

Service ControlYou can start, stop or restart the service, as well as obtain the status of the service.

• If you are using Red Hat 6.5, execute the command logged in as root: /etc/init.d/equitrac.com-eqdred <command> where <command> is one of start, stop, restart, or status.

• If you are using Red Hat 7, execute the command logged in as root: service equitrac.com-eqdred <command> where <command> is one of start, stop, restart, or status.

UninstallationTo remove the Red Hat print server from the computer, execute the following command logged in as root: yum remove equitrac-cups.x86_64.

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Printer Configuration

Prior to defining the printers in Equitrac Office/Express, you must define the printers in your operating system. This chapter also provides information for troubleshooting potential printer registration errors.

TopicsGeneral Printer Configuration

Adding CUPS Printers

Printer Registration Errors

Red Hat Utility Programs

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Chapter 3: Printer Configuration

14 Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide

General Printer Configuration

Adding Printers using eqaddprinterTo define printers so that Equitrac Office/Express can use them, use the eqaddprinter command, as shown in the following examples.

NOTE: eqdred should be running before you register printers on the Red Hat server.

Adding an LPR-based Printer

1 At the command line, type eqaddprinter.

2 Specify the new printer name.

3 Specify the device host name/IP address.

4 Specify whether or not the server should Hold port open.

5 Specify whether the printer is LPR based (in this case, type Y for Yes).

6 Type the queue name to create for this printer.

7 Confirm the printer data using the eqviewprinters command.

NOTE: Additional settings, such as assigned price lists, rule sets, and so forth can be customized via System Manager after "eqaddprinter" has completed.

Adding a Non-LPR Printer

1 At the command line, type eqaddprinter.

2 Specify the new printer name.

3 Specify the device host name/IP address.

4 Specify whether or not the server should Hold port open.

5 Specify whether the printer is LPR based (in this case, type N for No).

6 Select a manufacturer by number. If your printer manufacturer is not listed, you must know the port number on which the printer accepts jobs. You can then select "9999 Unknown" as the printer manufacturer, and eqaddprinter will prompt for the port number.

7 Specify the model by number.

8 Confirm the printer data using the eqviewprinters command.

Deleting Printers using eqdeleteprinterYou can delete any printer created on this server using the following procedure.

1 At the command line, type eqdeleteprinter.

2 Type the name of printer to delete.

3 Confirm that you want to delete this printer (type Y or N for Yes or No).

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Chapter 3: Printer Configuration

Adding CUPS Printers1 Install printers.

a Launch the CUPS Admin web site at http://localhost:631

Note: You need not install the CUPS backend feature. The CUPS backend is properly installed when you execute the .rpm file. See Installation on page 12.

b Use the CUPS Administration web pages to add a CUPS printer. When filling in the relevant fields:

• Equitrac Document Accounting for Network Printer Type

• _name_ for the Printer Name

• equitrac://_name_ for the printer URI where _name_ exactly matches the printer name supplied to eqaddprinter

c After adding the device URI, select the type of device. You can continue installing your printer as you normally would under CUPS.

2 Define each printer.

Run the eqaddprinter utility, and ensure that the printer name(s) match the name(s) used on the CUPS Admin web site.

NOTE: You can run eqaddprinter before adding the printer in CUPS, but both steps must be run before printing functions.

Printer Registration ErrorsAfter creating your printers, if you encounter “Printer not registered” errors, it is likely due to a mismatch in the “registered” system name through System Manager, and the System Name that eqdred sends to the Equitrac Office/Express accounting server when validating the user.

The name you use in System Manager for registering a printer to the accounting server must match identically.

eqdred reports the SystemName as the value that is also returned if you run “hostname” on the Red Hat server. If this name is not accessible from System Manager then you must add a hosts file entry in system32\drivers\etc\hosts, or modify the hostname on the Red Hat box.

Chapter 3: Printer Configuration

16 Equitrac Office/Express Red Hat Print Server Guide

Red Hat Utility Programs

Use the utilities outlined in the table below to configure printers and the print servers.

Program Description Usage

eqaddprinter Add a new printer. no parameters, completely interactive

eqviewprinters Show the current configuration for all defined printers.

no parameters, completely interactive

eqdeleteprinter Delete a currently defined printer. no parameters, completely interactive

eqcascfg Show/set current Equitrac Office/Express Core Accounting Server.

eqcascfg -e <server> [set the server]

eqcascfg -i [prompt user interactively for input rather than specifying on the command line]

eqcascfg -s [show current server]

where server = IP address or name of server