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Deleting users from PaperCut NG/MF

This page applies to:

The User List in PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF is effectively a “mirror” of the underlying server or domain user list. Any new users added to the domain will subsequently appear within the application, either at the point of next user and group synchronization, or at the time of their first print (whichever comes first). Any users deleted from the domain will be removed only when the Delete users that do not exist in the selected source (on “Synchronize Now” only) option is enabled, and Synchronize Now is manually selected. This way, errors afflicting your network accounts, such as connection or permission errors rendering the domain user list temporarily inaccessible, do not automatically cause problems for your user list in the application.

Deleting users

As of version 17.3 of PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF, a list of the user accounts which will be deleted can be previewed by selecting the Delete users that do not exist in the selected source (on “Synchronize Now” only) option and then clicking to Test Settings.

Please note that deleting a user in PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF will not remove the user’s historical printing data; you can still report on the printing that the user performed, using the Reports tab to view historical information. There is more information about deleting users and how this might affect reporting on the Report Data FAQ page.

It is common in an academic environment to have to delete user accounts en masse at the end the academic year. The recommended procedure is:

  1. Delete the inactive user accounts from your domain and/or server. Large organizations will often automate this process via scripts and lists of student enrollments.
  2. During a period of low system activity, perform a backup of the system. With PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF, this can be performed via the Options->Backup area of the Admin web interface, as documented in detail here . Deleting user accounts is a destructive operation, so it’s always a good idea to take a backup beforehand!
  3. Navigate to Options->User/Group Sync and perform a test user synchronization using the Test Settings button with the Delete users that do not exist in the selected source option selected.
  4. When the Test Settings information shows the correct user and group count, and the preview listing of users pending deletion looks accurate, you are ready to perform the user synchronization. Select Synchronize Now with the option Delete users that do not exist in the selected sourceenabled.
  5. Take some time now to confirm that all is as expected.

Note: Deleting a user will not delete the user’s print history data. All historical log data will remain.

Automatically deleting users overnight

The delete users option is not “remembered” and hence will not occur when the sync occurs overnight. The only way to delete users is to do so manually via the Options > User/Group Sync page by manually enabling deletion and then synchronizing. In the past, we’d seen a few customers accidentally have their users deleted either by not remembering to turn the deletion option off, or due to an unexpected outage of their domain controller. Hence, this option is always off by default.

If automatically deleting old users overnight is important, then it is possible to do this via the server-command API . For example, a batch file could be periodically executed via the Windows Task Scheduler, with content like the following:

 cd C:\Program Files\PaperCut NG\server\bin\win
 server-command.exe perform-user-and-group-sync-advanced TRUE TRUE

We recommend running this command during a period of low system activity, such as 4:00 AM.

Manually removing users with Server Commands

If you have a list of users that need to be removed from the system, it is possible to remove these users in PaperCut NG/MF using a script running a server-command . Here is an example Windows batch file:

delete-old-users.bat

cd c:\Program Files\PaperCut NG\server\bin\win

server-command delete-existing-user chris
server-command delete-existing-user matt
server-command delete-existing-user tom
server-command delete-existing-user christine

Important:

  • If you are using User and Group syncing , you will need to remove those users from the sync source group too - otherwise PaperCut will re-import those users and re-create them again overnight. Check your sync source settings and any group configurations under Options → User/Group Sync → Sync source (or Secondary sync source) in the admin interface.
  • If you haven’t already, check the On-demand user creation settings under Options → User/Group Sync → On Demand User Creation in the admin interface. Make sure that you don’t have that set to Create the user if you don’t want it to automatically create users in the User List. See the On-demand users section of the manual for more information.

 

Keywords: schedule task , removing users , delete , user accounts , active directory , cleanup , bulk user deletion

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