The name Bifrost originates from Norse mythology and means rainbow. Bifrost is a bridge connecting the realm of the mortals, Midgard, and the realm of the gods, Asgard.

Bifrost is a new follow-me printing system based upon open source software and development tools. The principle of use is simple: Configure your Windows/Linux/OS X/BSD workstation to print to a generic PostScript queue on the central Bifrost server. Print your document and walk to the nearest printer. Swipe your card in the attached card reader, and your document is immediately printed on that printer. The magnetic card used may well be an existing card issued for other purposes – we are not in this to sell cards after all.

There are many environments where printouts are left alone in the printer before getting picked up, and if you print documents containing sensitive information, this can easily become a security breach unless you stand next to the printer to look after your documents. Bifrost uses magnetic card readers to prevent other users from taking your printouts. All submissions need to be authenticated, and this is dealt with in various ways for different platforms, using IPP and Samba.

Bifrost also supports printer quota for accounting. On a user web page users can at any time check which print jobs are pending, and delete unwanted jobs. They can also keep track of their own printing quota.

The system has a modular design from the ground up, making this a good platform for printing. It can be extended with other kinds of identification such as fingerprint readers, proximity cards and keypads for pin codes, without disturbing other parts of the system.

Integrating free software like Apache, CUPS, OpenLDAP, OpenWRT, Samba and Perl, this provides for more freedom than any other follow-me solution out there. The back-end server and the web front-end software are written in Perl using the powerful web framework Catalyst and Template Toolkit. There is no need for special client side software, as it uses a standard PostScript driver. All this helps keep the costs low, and your users are free to choose the operating system they prefer.

Each printer has a cheap embedded computer attached, an ASUS WL500g Premium router running a customized version of OpenWRT, with software for reading card data from USB card readers. The ASUS router and the USB card reader combined costs less than a thousand Norwegian kroner (approximately 185 USD). Other solutions we have looked at cost around seven times more, and force you to use printers from one vendor only.

It has been a real joy working on this project, because I have learned a lot during this time; working with LDAP, writing CUPS back-ends and getting to know Catalyst. I will keep following this project, as there is still a lot I want to do with it, especially on the user web for manipulating pending print jobs.

The project is funded by “Møre og Romsdal fylkeskommune“, a county council on the west coast of Norway. Project management and development has been and will be done by Linpro. Version 0.9 has been tagged in our repository, and we will get to version 1.0 when our client is happy with the functionality. The solution will be tested this semester by a selection of students at one high school, starting now. The plan is to expand to more schools after the summer school vacation.

The Norwegian government is becoming increasingly interested in open standards and free software. As a result of this, the Ministry of Government Administration and Reform has contributed five million Norwegian kroner to free software projects. This project got 125.000 kroner. YOU can contribute to this project by trying it out, getting active on the mailing lists and submitting bug reports, patches and translations. Head on over to Trac and check it out.

Jeg har nylig kjøpt meg en Linksys WRT54GL v1.1 trådløs ruter som skal plasseres i nabohuset til foreldrene mine. Der bor bestemor, og min søster har flyttet inn der og ville gjerne ha Internett.

Jeg har trukket CAT-6 Ethernett-kabel mellom husene for å kunne gi et stabilt nettverk opp til nabohuset. Dette medfører fare for jordingsfeil som kan svi av diverse datautstyr dersom ting går skikkelig galt. Derfor har jeg også kjøpt en APC UPS med overspenningsvern for både strøm og nettverk. Jeg så muligheten for å også sette opp trådløst nettverk der, som kan være kjekt når vi er på besøk hos bestemor, for eksempel i jula. Ja, jeg er Internett-avhengig.

Noe av det første jeg gjorde med ruteren var å slenge inn OpenWRT WhiteRussian, som en et alternativt firmware til Linksys sine egne. Jeg syntes denne firmwaren var noe mangelfull og lurte veldig på om jeg skulle gå tilbake til Linksys sin. Jeg oppdaget DD-WRT som er basert på kjernen til OpenWRT. Denne har støtte for det meste jeg kunne tenke meg, så valget falt på denne, versjon 23 SP2.

Jeg ønsket et oppsett hvor ruteren skulle kunne sende IP-pakker fritt frem og tilbake mellom grensesnittene på ruteren, og ikke bare være en NAT-enhet. Jeg er ikke hjemme hos foreldrene mine så ofte, da jeg bor i Drammen, så jeg må ha mulighet for å fjernstyre disse maskinene dersom det skulle være nødvendig. Jeg endret DHCP-tjenesten på ruteren til å videresende DHCP-forespørsler til FreeBSD-ruteren som står i huset til foreldrene mine. FreeBSD-ruteren kjører en DHCP-tjeneste slik at jeg får et sentralt styringspunkt for IP-håndtering. Jeg har satt av et nytt 24-subnett i DHCP-serveren min, tildelt den nye ruteren i nabohuset.

DD-WRT har som standard en aktiv SPI-brannmur som filtrerer alle pakker fra WAN-nettverket som forsøker å få tilgang til maskiner på baksiden av ruteren. Denne brannmuren måtte jeg skru av for at svar på DHCP-forespørslene skulle komme tilbake til klientene. På min hoved-ruter i huset til foreldrene mine har jeg satt opp en statisk rute til det nye 24-subnettet som rutes til WAN-grensesnittet på Linksys-ruteren.

Det er viktig at Linksys-ruteren har en fast IP-adresse på det opprinnelige subnettet, for at den statiske rutingen skal være stabil over tid. Dette gjorde jeg ved å konfigurere DHCP-serveren til å gi Linksys-ruteren en statisk IP-adresse.