[Samba] sizing a print server for 10'000 users

[Felipe Augusto van de Wiel]

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On 09/13/2006 11:18 AM, Charles Bueche escreveu:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm building a print-to-PDF queue system for a customer. A 
> Samba queue pass jobs to Ghostscript. The PDF output is
> then provided back to the user (by email or web URL).

	Do you really need to use samba for that? You can
have CUPS working as a print-to-PDF system. I don't have
anything against Samba, but you could reduce one layer in
your design.


> My question is on server sizing. It will be on Linux 
> (SLES 9) and will only host the print queue, nothing
> else. Samba will be joined in the ADS domain, so I can
> recognize the submitting user (%u).

	Hmmm, ok, it answer partially the above question,
perhaps you can have the same behaviour using IPP.


> Every Windows client will have the print queue defined. 
> What happen with the connection ? do I assume Samba
> will see 10'000 permanent connections ? Or only when
> printing ?

	AFAIR, printer shares don't stay "open", which
means that the share will be _really_ used when you
print to it.


> And then, when several client submit print jobs at the 
> same time, does Samba serialize the calls to my script ?
>  Or should I assume I can be called 10'000x in parallel
> (assuming 10'000 users click "Print" at the same time) ?

	I think you will have bottlenecks in Samba and
Ghostscript itself, because you need time to generate
the PDFs and you will also have the bottleneck of write
to disk and send e-mails.

	Depends on the implementation of your script,
but you can easily figure that out testing with only
two clients and big files, I don't think your problem
will be related to the number of clients but with the
size of files.


> I'm as well interested at building a small "admin" web 
> page where one can see the queue, the last 10 job
> entries, the load, possibly a usage graph, etc.

	Sounds like CUPS to me. :)


> Hints from a similar setup are welcome. 
> TIA,
> Charles

	I think you can extend CUPS to what you need.

	Kind regards,

- --
Felipe Augusto van de Wiel <felipe at paranacidade.org.br>
Coordenadoria de Tecnologia da Informação (CTI) - SEDU/PARANACIDADE
http://www.paranacidade.org.br/           Phone: (+55 41 3350 3300)
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