Identity Vs Authentication Popup for PaperCut Client

The PaperCut User Client has the ability to remember your identity when using Unauthenticated Computers such as a laptops or workgroup machines, which makes it quick and easy to see your balance and other minor details.

There is also a second Authentication window which can be displayed, this Authentication window is used to securely validate a user when printing. These two windows are not linked to one another in regards to user Authentication and do not override the operating system authentication between client workstation and the print server.

If you’re seeing issues with the Popup not appearing head over to the Client not popping up troubleshooting guide.

Identity Popup

The Identity Popup is used by the PaperCut User Client to the display current user’s balance. If a user is logged in that does not have a user set up in PaperCut, it will ask for a Username and Password, shown below.

This Authentication Screen (Identity popup) can be avoided by starting the PaperCut User Client with several command line or config options.

Windows

[app-path]\client\win\pc-client-local-cache.exe --neverrequestidentity --minimized --silent

Other operating systems

Click here to view the User Client options and configuration settings, and how to add them to your config.properties file.

To hide the identity popup you will need to remove the proceeding # from the line neverrequestidentity=y. Like so:

# Configure the client to never display the "confirm identity" dialog if the
# user account does not in the database.
#
neverrequestidentity=Y

These parameters or config options start the PaperCut User Client so it will not ask for a login, and will show the following in the system tray on Windows.

Authentication Popup

If you are making use of PaperCut’s unauthenticated user or print queue functionality, when a user prints they will be presented with a login prompt. For more information about when to use unauthenticated users or printers, please review our manual here.

The user can select a Remember time period, which can be configured to have different values, this is known as the TTL value.

TTL(time-to-live) is configured using the user client’s config.properties file. This overrides the values configured on the server. See the section called Popup Authentication.

Authentication popup frequency

- -auth-ttl-values

Comma-separated list of authentication time-to-live values in minutes. This option can also be set by adding or enabling the auth-ttl-values= line in the client config.properties file.

The default values are: auth-ttl-values=1,5,15,30,60,−1

Special values are:

• The value of 0 indicates that the authentication is remembered just for that print job - handy if you don’t want to set a time limit, but want the authentication to appear each time someone prints!
• The value of −1 indicates that the authentication is remembered until the user logs out or exits the client.
• The value of −2 indicates that the authentication is remembered indefinitely, even after restarting the client. Note: for the −2 setting to work in the client’s config.properties file, you must also set this in the config editor - see the ‘Remember Always’ option not working section for more details.

The default time-to-live value automatically selected when the login authentication window displays. This overrides the value configured on the server. This option can also be set by adding or enabling the auth-ttl-default= line in the client config.properties file.

The default value is: auth-ttl-default=5

A full list of User Client options is given here.

It is possible to configure TTL values on a global level for all user clients. This can be done by changing the config keys described here.

The config keys that need to be changed are:client.config.auth.ttl-values and client.config.auth.ttl-default-minutes.

‘Remember Always’ option not working

NOTE: If you’re finding that the ‘Always’ option is not working (i.e. you’re finding that after restarting the workstation you’re getting prompted for authentication again) - make sure that the config key client.config.auth.ttl-values under Options → Actions → Config Editor, contains the −2 option. For security reasons, if −2 is not a valid TTL value on the server side, it will not be honoured on the client side.