A simple print server for onsite programming contests and similar events. It helps you to restrict users from direct access to printers by providing a simple web-UI.
This project is built on Django. It doesn't require any specific Python version, but I recommend the latest one. Check the Github tests to see which versions are passing. You may find the dependencies in requirements.txt.
You can compile and set up the project using
GNU make.
The system must have lpr installed from
CUPS for submitting the jobs to
the actual printers.
The following command creates a Python virtual environment at .venv and
installs the required packages. Note that it uses python3 -m venv command.
make install
To create and apply migrations to update database schema, run the following command:
make migrate
This project is set up to make Django serve static files. Unless you are serving
the static files by other means, run the following command to collect your
static files in the designated location.
See STATIC_ROOT in settings.py for more.
make collectstatic
Utilize the Django createsuperuser command to create an admin user for the
server.
. .venv/bin/activate
./manage.py createsuperuser
Run the following command to run the server at port 8000:
make run
Make sure that the printers are accessible from the system on which the server is being run.
Login to an admin account and head over to /admin/accounts/siteuser/add-users/
to add users in bulk. The text field accepts the details of an user per line in
a CSV format, separated by commas.
The details of an user:
username: Login username of the user.password: Login password for the user. It must contain at least 8 characters and cannot be entirely numeric.name: The full name of the user.organization: The organization of the user. This is optional and may be left empty.printer-name: The printer to assign user's prints to. It must contain the exact name of the desired printer. It may be left empty as well to use the system default printer.
An example input to the text field may look like the following:
foo,fooPasswd,Team Foo,The Foo University,foo-printer
bar,barPasswd,Team Bar,The Bar Org,
tmp,tmpPasswd,Team TMP,,
This will create three users foo, bar and tmp with the specified details.
The printer named foo-printer will print foo's prints while the default
printer will be used for bar and tmp.
Note that leading and trailing spaces are not trimmed.
You can find a list of configuration in settings.py.
This project by default uses a sqlite3 database. You
may find the database file as db.sqlite3 in your project root.
Should you want to use other database engines, change the DATABASES variable
accordingly. The
Django documentation
may help you.
This project is set up to make Django serve static files. You can change this behavior and serve static files yourself. Take a look at the documentation to learn how to do so.
DEBUG is by default set to True for the sole purpose of not bothering to
serve static files by ourselves. Set DEBUG=False if you don't need
Django to serve static files as the debug-mode is unsuitable for production
(official docs).
By default, this project does not serve media files.
The uploaded text is converted into a pdf file which is kept in the MEDIA_ROOT
directory. The pdf file is named with the sha256 hash of the content and sent
to the designated printer.
Set PROJECT_TITLE to your preferred header. Default is "Print Server".
The maximum number of pages an user can print is set in MAX_PAGES.
The default value is 50 pages.
Additionally an user can print no more than MAX_PAGES_PER_PRINT pages in one
request. The default limit is 10 pages.
Set the LANGUAGE_CODE, TIME_ZONE, USE_I18N and USE_TZ variables.
See HACKING.md.
This project was spearheaded by @mahdihasnat. I forked his repository and re-wrote the project mostly for restructuring.
Pull Requests are welcome! Please create an issue before, so that we are not doing the same things in parallel.