Enabling and viewing the print server auditing log

The print server auditing log provides information about all jobs that have been printed. Auditing records are retained as ASCII files so that they can be read with any text editor. The log can be viewed in PCONSOLE as well as NetWare Administrator.

In designing the auditing log, it has been recognized that companies do accounting in a variety of ways. For this reason, the auditing log provides a basic default format based on ASCII and a fixed record length. Both characteristics are designed to make it as easy as possible to write a customized program to retrieve the information it needs in a format determined by a particular company.

The auditing log is sufficiently flexible to record whatever information a printer sends to it. Regardless of printer type, the log will record how many bytes a job took to print, the user who submitted the job, when the job entered the print queue, when the job was printed, and what printer serviced the job.

If the printer is an XNP type used by Macintosh or UNIX, the log might also indicate how long it took to print the job, how many pages were printed, when the job was printed, and when the job was submitted.

To enable the auditing log from PCONSOLE, use the following procedure:

1. From the Available Options menu, select Print Servers and select a print server.

   The ``Print Server Information'' screen appears.

2. Select ``Audit''.

   At the Print Services Auditing menu, the following options are available:

   • Configuration

   • View Auditing Log

   • Delete Auditing Log

3. Select Configuration.

   The ``Auditing Information'' screen appears.

4. Specify ``Yes'' in the ``Enable auditing'' field.

   If you enable auditing, the print server maintains a log of the operations it performs. If the print server is already running, it needs to be brought down and loaded again for this change to take effect.

   If you do not enable auditing, the print server will not write to the log. If the print server is already running, it needs to be brought down and loaded again for this change to take effect.

   If the auditing log file becomes full, either by using all available disk space or by reaching the size limit set with the ``Limit Size'' option, the print server ceases storing auditing information. To avoid losing valuable accounting information, process or archive the information and delete the auditing log file on a regular basis.

5. Specify whether you want to ``Limit size of log file''.

   If you select Yes, a field appears for the maximum size (in kilobytes) that the auditing log file can reach before the print server stops appending auditing information. In this field, you should specify the maximum size (in kilobytes) that the auditing log file can reach before the print server stops appending auditing information. Without this limit it is possible for the file to grow until all available disk space is used.

6. After auditing has been enabled, unload and then reload the print server.

7. (Optional) Submit a print job to ensure that the log is recording information on print jobs properly.

8. To view the Auditing Log, select View Auditing Log from the Print Services Auditing menu.

9. To delete the Auditing Log, select Delete Auditing Log from the Print Services Auditing menu.