LPC(8) FreeBSD System Manager's Manual LPC(8)
NAME
lpc - line printer control program
SYNOPSIS
lpc [command [argument ...]]
DESCRIPTION
The lpc utility is used by the system administrator to control the
operation of the line printer system. For each line printer configured
in /etc/printcap, lpc may be used to:
• disable or enable a printer,
• disable or enable a printer's spooling queue,
• rearrange the order of jobs in a spooling queue,
• find the status of printers, and their associated spooling
queues and printer daemons,
• change the status message for printer queues (the status
message may be seen by users as part of the output of the
lpq(1) utility).
Without any arguments, lpc will prompt for commands from the standard
input. If arguments are supplied, lpc interprets the first argument as a
command and the remaining arguments as parameters to the command. The
standard input may be redirected causing lpc to read commands from file.
Commands may be abbreviated; the following is the list of recognized
commands.
? [command ...]
help [command ...]
Print a short description of each command specified in the
argument list, or, if no argument is given, a list of the
recognized commands.
abort {all | printer}
Terminate an active spooling daemon on the local host immediately
and then disable printing (preventing new daemons from being
started by lpr(1)) for the specified printers.
bottomq printer [jobspec ...]
Take the specified jobs in the order specified and move them to
the bottom of the printer queue. Each jobspec can match multiple
print jobs. The full description of a jobspec is given below.
clean {all | printer}
Remove any temporary files, data files, and control files that
cannot be printed (i.e., do not form a complete printer job) from
the specified printer queue(s) on the local machine. This
command will also look for core files in spool directory for each
printer queue, and list any that are found. It will not remove
any core files. See also the tclean command.
disable {all | printer}
Turn the specified printer queues off. This prevents new printer
jobs from being entered into the queue by lpr(1).
down {all | printer ...} -msg message ...
down {all | printer} message ...
Turn the specified printer queue off, disable printing and put
message in the printer status file. When specifying more than
one printer queue, the -msg argument is required to separate the
list of printers from the text that will be the new status
message. The message does not need to be quoted, the remaining
arguments are treated like echo(1). This is normally used to
take a printer down, and let other users find out why it is down
(the lpq(1) utility will indicate that the printer is down and
will print the status message).
enable {all | printer}
Enable spooling on the local queue for the listed printers. This
will allow lpr(1) to put new jobs in the spool queue.
exit
quit Exit from lpc.
restart {all | printer}
Attempt to start a new printer daemon. This is useful when some
abnormal condition causes the daemon to die unexpectedly, leaving
jobs in the queue. lpq(1) will report that there is no daemon
present when this condition occurs. If the user is the super-
user, try to abort the current daemon first (i.e., kill and
restart a stuck daemon).
setstatus {all | printer} -msg message ...
Set the status message for the specified printers. The -msg
argument is required to separate the list of printers from the
text that will be the new status message. This is normally used
to change the status message when the printer queue is no longer
active after printing has been disabled, and you want to change
what users will see in the output of the lpq(1) utility.
start {all | printer}
Enable printing and start a spooling daemon for the listed
printers.
status {all | printer}
Display the status of daemons and queues on the local machine.
stop {all | printer}
Stop a spooling daemon after the current job completes and
disable printing.
tclean {all | printer}
This will do a test-run of the clean command. All the same
checking is done, but the command will only print out messages
saying what a similar clean command would do if the user typed it
in. It will not remove any files. Note that the clean command
is a privileged command, while the tclean command is not
restricted.
topq printer [jobspec ...]
Take the specified jobs in the order specified and move them to
the top of the printer queue. Each jobspec can match multiple
print jobs. The full description of a jobspec is given below.
up {all | printer}
Enable everything and start a new printer daemon. Undoes the
effects of down.
Commands such as topq and bottomq can take one or more jobspec to specify
which jobs the command should operate on. A jobspec can be:
• a single job number, which will match all jobs in the printer's queue
which have the same job number. Eg: 17,
• a range of job numbers, which will match all jobs with a number
between the starting and ending job numbers, inclusive. Eg: 21-32,
• a specific userid, which will match all jobs which were sent by that
user. Eg: jones,
• a host name, when prefixed by an `@', which will match all jobs in
the queue which were sent from the given host. Eg: @freebsd.org,
• a job range and a userid, separated by a `:', which will match all
jobs which both match the job range and were sent by the specified
user. Eg: jones:17 or 21-32:jones,
• a job range and/or a userid, followed by a host name, which will
match all jobs which match all the specified criteria. Eg:
jones@freebsd.org or 21-32@freebsd.org or jones:17@freebsd.org.
The values for userid and host name can also include pattern-matching
characters, similar to the pattern matching done for filenames in most
command shells. Note that if you enter a topq or bottomq command as
parameters on the initial lpc command, then the shell will expand any
pattern-matching characters that it can (based on what files in finds in
the current directory) before lpc processes the command. In that case,
any parameters which include pattern-matching characters should be
enclosed in quotes, so that the shell will not try to expand them.
FILES
/etc/printcap printer description file
/var/spool/* spool directories
/var/spool/*/lock lock file for queue control
DIAGNOSTICS
?Ambiguous command abbreviation matches more than one command
?Invalid command no match was found
?Privileged command you must be a member of group "operator" or root to
execute this command
SEE ALSO
lpq(1), lpr(1), lprm(1), printcap(5), chkprintcap(8), lpd(8)
HISTORY
The lpc utility appeared in 4.2BSD.
FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6 July 16, 2002 FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6
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