Lpd enhancements, sense or non-sense ?

[X17905%BBRBFU01.BITNET at cunyvm.cuny.edu]

The Brussels Free University Computing Centre, currently operating a Cray
X-MP/14, a Sun4, and managing a campus-wide *NIX network of some 30 servers
and workstations, would like to 'enhance' the existing lpd mechanism.

The goal is to provide end-users with more information on printer status,
to provide mechanisms to 'lock' print files, to backspace files, to check and
administer paper credit.
The latter is needed because WE supply the paper to the (remote) sites.

The standard file selection algorithm of 'first come, first print' is not
very popular here. We would like to assign different priorities to small
print files, special plots, certain users, ... etc.

We currently operate a rather complex scheme on our Control Data Cyber 855,
and would like to preserve some of its functionalities.

Our current plan is to take a public domain lpd/lpr/lpc/lprm and to adapt it
to our needs. The print-server machine is likely to be a 4.3 BSD type of
Unix box. We currently only have the Unicos (Cray) sources, which we don't want
to use (copyrights). We have 'anonymous ftp' access to uunet.uu.net.

Question: does any other (academic) site have any kind of experience with
          this or related developments ? Comments ? Ideas ?

Please email directly. I'll summarize to this list if appropriate.
Thx.

Eric Luyten, Brussels Free University Computing Centre, Belgium.
BITNET: X17905 at BBRBFU01