How can I check my account balance?

With the tool lpquota you can check your account balance on the Sun Solaris cluster

Why does my account balance not change after I print?

The printing costs are currently updated with a delay (up to 3 hours). Therefore, you may overdraw your account considerably. Please note that if your account is overdrawn, you will not be able Get more Comp Points -- balance your account in time!

How can I send print jobs from outside the SCI cluster?

When it comes to printing at the SCI from third-party computers, it is always necessary to strike a balance between convenience, costs and security (of the SCI systems and against the misuse of print accounts and points by third parties).

The most favorable solution is via ssh. This has the advantage that no additional service needs to be opened (security) and the reliable user/server authentication is already included free of charge. Via public keys and ssh-agents everyone can also find his personal mix of security and comfort.

• Transfer the PS file with scp and then print it with lpr via ssh.

  This works, but admittedly it is a bit impractical. But when printing a large number of short files via lpr (only one job, so cheaper), this is the best way to start, especially since you only have to authenticate 1-2 times and we only have to put out one job (instead of e.g. 10 jobs with one sheet and one cover sheet each).

• SSH pipe to lpr. Just pipe the print data into a remote SSH call of lpr, so:

      cat DATEI.ps | ssh -q NAME@tux1.informatik.uni-kl.de "lp -d scid"
     

  You only need to authenticate yourself once (e.g. login password). Instead of cat you can also use your PS generating program (e.g. psnup) and output the PS file to stdout.

      psnup -2 DATEI.ps | ssh ....
      cat DATEI.pdf | acroread -toPostScript | ssh ....
     

  If you create the whole thing as a small script, you can easily build your own "lpr-sci", "lpq-sci", etc. for remote access ...