Presto Administration

The Presto Admin UI is the command center of your printing infrastructure.  From here, you can perform the bulk of management tasks.

Note: The contents of this article are specific to Presto Server version 2.7 and later.  If you are running an earlier version of Presto 2, we encourage you to upgrade as soon as possible.  Your purchase of the Presto 2 license entitles you to free upgrades to all Presto 2.x versions.

Overview

Accessing the Presto UI

Access to the Presto service is available in the following ways:

• The Presto Application on the host computer
• A browser on a Presto Host using the loopback address in the following format: https://127-0-0-1.collobos.net:9631
• A browser pointed to the IP address of a system running either the Primary Presto instance or an Extender in the following format: https://192-168-5-1.collobos.net:9631
• The Presto App installed on a Mobile and logged in as an Administrator.

Note: If the Admin UI fails to load, see Troubleshooting the Admin UI in Presto Troubleshooting.

Communication Indicator

The triangle icon in the lower right corner indicates whether or not the Presto Application is communicating with the Presto Service on the hosting system.  If it is showing as red with a line through it, this indicates that it is not communication.

If the Presto Application is not communicating with the Service, the information in Presto will not be up-to-date and any edits will fail.

For information about troubleshooting an instance of Presto that is not communicating, see Troubleshooting Hosts in  Presto Troubleshooting.

Presto Administrator Menu

Resetting the Admin Password

To reset the Admin password to the factory default, follow these steps on the Presto Server host system:

Windows

1. Close the Presto Admin Application
2. Open a Windows command line window using "Run as administrator"
3. Navigate to the folder C:\Program Files\Collobos\Presto\Service
4. Stop the presto service with this command: .\prestod64 --stop
5. Optional: To backup backup the database, issue this command: copy .\data .\data%random:~-4%.bck
6. To reset the password, issue this command: .\prestod64 --reset-admin-password
7. Restart the presto service with this command: .\prestod64 --start

Mac OS

1. Close the Presto Admin Application
2. Open a command line window as an administrator
3. Navigate to the folder /Applications/Presto.app/Contents/usr/bin
4. Stop the presto service with this command: ./prestod --stop
5. Optional: To backup backup the database, issue this command: copy ./data ./data_ %random:~-4%.bck
6. To reset the password, issue this command: ./prestod --reset-admin-password
7. Restart the presto service with this command: ./prestod --start

Dashboard

Your Dashboard gives you an at-a-glance view of the state of your printing infrastructure.  

This information is continually being refreshed and, where applicable, reflects the last 24 hours; e.g. Finished Print Jobs.

Notifications

If there are issues or actions that you must take to enable Presto to do its job, it will appear here. Administrative Notifications will appear for all Administrative Users. 

Each Notification has the option to clear it permanently. When a Notification is cleared, it will be cleared for all Users

At A Glance

From here you get an overview of your printing infrastructure.

Alerts

The Alerts tab is where you can view, manage and configure triggers for externally delivered notifications

A set of ALERTS are pre-configured at install, but are not yet associated with printers or destinations.

Create an Alert

Select 'Create an Alert' (when there are none created) or select 'New' from the vertical ellipsis menu.  Enter settings and click 'Save' from the same menu to save the Alert.

Search for an Alert

The search bar will allow you to search within the list of existing configured Alerts.  It accepts a single, non-case sensitive term and will match the pattern across Alert names

Managing Alert Settings

To view the settings of a single Alert, select the name of the Alert.  To view the settings of multiple Alerts, use the radio buttons to multi-select. To change settings for selected Alert(s), click Edit from the vertical ellipsis menu.  To save any changes, click Save from the same menu.  To cancel changes, select Cancel from the same menu. 

Deleting an Alert

To delete an Alert, select it from the list and select 'Delete' from the vertical ellipsis menu

Alert Settings

Printers

The Printers tab is where you can view, manage and configure your printers.

Search for a Printer

The search bar will allow you to search for Printers.  It accepts a single, non-case sensitive term and will match the pattern across Printer names and tags.

Managing Printer Settings

To view the settings of a single Printer, select the name of the printer.  To view the settings of multiple Printers, use the radio buttons to multi-select. To change settings for selected Printer(s), click the vertical ellipsis from the upper-right corner and click Edit.  To save any changes, click Save from the same menu.  To cancel changes, select Cancel from the same menu. 

Adding a Printer

To add a Printer to your Presto environment, install the Printer on a printer server with an instance of Presto running on it.  This event will cause the Printer to be added to the list.  If a new print server is required, a new instance of Presto must be installed on it.  See  How to Install and Configure Presto.

Deleting a Printer

A printer can be deleted in one of two ways;

• Uninstalling the Printer from the print server.  This event will cause the Printer to be deleted from the list.
• Selecting a Printer(s), clicking the vertical ellipsis menu and clicking delete.   This will remove the Printer(s) from the list, but if it is not uninstalled from the print server the Printer(s) will reappear the next time the Presto Service runs its Printer detection process.

Description of Printer Settings

Jobs

The Jobs tab delivers full visibility of printer usage to administrators.

We recommend leaving all print jobs intact and not deleting. They will be archived automatically.

Users

The Users tab is where you can view all users, both active and inactive.

Adding Users

There are two events that cause a user to be added to the Users list, if not already on it:

• A User logs into the Presto application
• A User prints, whether or not they have authenticated.

All authenticated Users will appear as their full name, as it appears in the authentication directory.  Unauthenticated users will appear as 'Guest'.  All Users have the IP address of the most recent system on which they either logged in or printed.  When a user is authenticated, if the IP address matches the IP address of an existing Guest User, the Guest User is removed from the list.

We recommend setting printers to 'Require Authentication' to allow administrators the greatest degree of visibility and control. For more information, see  Printers.

Active vs. Inactive Users

A User will appear as active if they have either logged in the Presto application or have printed, whether authenticated or not, in the past 30 days.

A user becomes inactive when they haven't logged in the Presto application or printed in the past 30 days.

Administrator Users

An Administrator have the ability to administer Presto wherever/whenever they are logged in.  They are also able to set any other user to be an Administrator.

Search for a User

The search bar will allow you to search for Users.  It accepts a single, non-case sensitive term and will match the pattern across User names and tags.

Managing User Settings

To view the settings of a single User, select the name of the user.  To view the settings of multiple Users, use the radio buttons to multi-select. To change settings for selected User(s), click the vertical ellipsis from the upper-right corner and click Edit.  To save any changes, click Save from the same menu.  To cancel changes, select Cancel from the same menu. 

Description of User Settings

Hosts

The Hosts tab allows you to view and configure your federated instances of Presto, both the Primary and Extenders.  Initial settings for each instance will generally be determined during setup, but can be edited here.  

Adding a new Host

Steps for adding a new Host are explained in the following video:

For complete details about setting up additional Presto instances, see Hosts in  How to Install and Configure Presto.

Search for a Host

The search bar will allow you to search for Hosts.  It accepts a single, non-case sensitive term and will match the pattern across Host names.

Managing Host Settings

To view the settings of a single Host, select the name of the Host.  To view the settings of multiple Hosts, use the radio buttons to multi-select. To change settings for selected Host(s), click the vertical ellipsis from the upper-right corner and click Edit.  To save any changes, click Save from the same menu.  To cancel changes, select Cancel from the same menu. 

Description of Host Settings

Deleting a Host

Delete an Extender by selecting the Host, clicking the vertical ellipsis and selecting Delete from the menu.  This will terminate the connection.  You can then proceed to uninstall Presto from the hosting system.

Rules

This tab will allow you to create, view and manage Rules.  Rules deliver Administrators a powerful toolkit to serve their users the right printers under a specific set of criteria.  This logic will scale to the largest environments.

Rules Overview

• Rules use boolean logic to manage printer advertisement in coordination with Tags, which are arbitrary strings added as identifiers to Printers and/or Users.  See also Printers and Users.
• A generic default printer sharing rule is enabled upon installation of the Primary instance of Presto. Deactivate this rule prior to implementing custom Rules.

Note: Rules can be eliminated altogether through the use of Presto Secure Release, which is included with Presto.  For more details, see  Presto Secure Release.

Search for a Rule

The search bar will allow you to search for Rules.  It accepts a single, non-case sensitive term and will match the pattern across Rule names.

Managing Rules

To view the settings of a single Rule, select the name of the Rule.  To view the settings of multiple Rules, use the radio buttons to multi-select. To change settings for selected Rule(s), click the vertical ellipsis from the upper-right corner and click Edit.  To save any changes, click Save from the same menu.  To cancel changes, select Cancel from the same menu. 

Description of Rules Settings

Creating a Rule

To create a new Rule, click the vertical ellipsis in the upper-right corner and click New.  Adjust the settings as required and select Save from the same menu.

Example Rules

The following are two example rules that cover the majority of situations we encounter:

Example 1 - Directory Service/Policy based Rules (iOS printing not supported)

• Goal: Advertise specific printers to specific user groups.
• Overview: Advertise "Staff" printers to "Faculty" Directory Group. 
  • Begin with a default printing rule.
  • Edit the name as appropriate.
  • Add Condition: Printer Tag = Staff
  • Add Condition: User Tag = Group: Faculty
  • Save the Rule

Example 2: Subnet based rules (iOS printing supported).

Note: iOS performs printer discovery prior to Presto knowing who the user is.  As such we will bind the subnet to a user type.  If you want to restrict printing so only specific users can print to a particular printer, add the authorized user groups to the Access field under Printer Settings. More details about printer settings can be found  here.

• Goal: Advertise specific printers to specific subnets. A "student wireless subnet" is 192.168.5.0.
• Overview: Advertise "High School Student" printers to 192.168.5.0 Subnet.
  • Begin with a default printing rule.
  • Edit the name as appropriate.
  • Add Condition: Printer Tag = HS Students
  • Add Condition: User Tag = 192.168.5.0
  • Save the Rule

Deleting a Rule

To delete a Rule, select the Rule, click the vertical ellipsis and click Delete from the same menu.

My Jobs

Within My Jobs is a personal Document Center, a feature accessible to every Authenticated user.  My Jobs is designed to be used in conjunction with Secure Release / Presto Station and lists all Print Jobs created by the User.  After printing to the Magic Queue printer a users will see all jobs pending release.

Held Jobs

While in a held state a user can do the following:

• Release the print job to the printer.
• Release multiple print jobs to the printer, by selecting one or more of the jobs
• Modify the attributes of the print job.
• Delete the print job.

Pending jobs not released within 24 hours are deleted automatically from the queue.

Station

The Station tab is the location to configure a Presto Secure Release Station and is only available on mobile devices.  Complete details can be found in  Presto Secure Release.

DNS

Implementing uDNS is simple, effective, and tremendously robust.  Only a single conditional forwarding record is required for all client devices with uDNS.  Only iOS clients require additional records.  Records are added to DNS servers that are answering requests from your client devices.  Any DNS infrastructure can be used for Presto. 

Note regarding DHCP 

Regardless of your DNS infrastructure, the ordering of the DNS servers handed out by DHCP must order internal DNS servers before external DNS servers. 

This example uses 8.8.8.8 as the IP address of the external DNS server.

• Correct: 10.10.0.1, 10.10.0.2, 8.8.8.8
• Incorrect: 8.8.8.8, 10.10.0.1, 10.10.0.2

Configuring DNS

Select the DNS tab in Presto, select your DNS server Environment and proceed to the appropriate section below.

Windows DNS

Add the conditional forwarding record to the DNS servers:

1. Add the IP address of the primary DNS server answering client requests. This generates the Conditional Forwarding record.
2. Copy the record and paste the record into a Windows Command Prompt on the DNS server with Admin rights.
3. If supporting iOS, swipe and add the wireless subnet where you wish to discover printers on the client.  It is best to enter the CIDR e.g  10.10.10.0/24
4. Click icon to copy to the desktop and then paste those records generated into the command prompt of the Windows DNS server.

Repeat the above steps for each wireless subnet where you wish to support iOS printing.

BIND

Note: This is not intended to be a tutorial on how to set up a BIND server. We recommend referencing a definitive resource if required.  An example can be found  here. 

After configuring your BIND server and creating and testing your named config files and DNS Zone files, perform the following steps to enable DNS interoperability with Presto:

1. Add the following lines to your named.conf.local (or equivalent) file. Replacing the IP address with that of your Presto server:

zone "presto."
type forward;
forward only;
forwarders { 10.10.241.21; };
	

2. Ensure there is a reverse lookup zone file for each subnet you wish Presto to service. Here is an example of a reverse lookup zone file with the required entries:

@ IN SOA ns1.collobostest.com
admin.collobostest.com. ( 
; Serial
604800 ; Refresh
86400 ; Retry
2419200 ; Expir
604800 ) ; Negative Cache TTL
; name servers - 
NS records IN NS ns1.collobostest.com.
; PTR Records
$origin 145.241.192.in-addr.arpa.
93 IN PTR ns1.collobostest.com. ; 192.241.145.93
101 IN PTR host1.collobostest.com. ; 192.241.145.101
102 IN PTR host2.collobostest.com. ; 192.241.145.102
$origin 0.145.241.192.in-addr.arpa.
; Required to support Presto
b._dns-sd._udp IN PTR 0.145.241.192.dnssd.presto.
lb._dns-sd._udp IN PTR 0.145.241.192.dnssd.presto.
	

Unbound

Add the conditional forwarding record to the DNS servers:

1. Add the IP address of the primary DNS server answering client requests. This generates the Conditional Forwarding record.
2. Copy the record and paste the record into a Command Prompt on the DNS server with Admin rights.
3. If supporting iOS, swipe and add the wireless subnet where you wish to discover printers on the client. It is best to enter the CIDR e.g. 10.10.10.0/24

Repeat the above steps for each wireless subnet where you wish to support iOS printing.

Infoblox

To configure Infoblox with Presto, please review our Guide.