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.\"     @(#)lpc.8	8.5 (Berkeley) 4/28/95
.\"
.Dd July 16, 2002
.Dt LPC 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm lpc
.Nd line printer control program
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Ar command Op Ar argument ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility is used by the system administrator to control the
operation of the line printer system.
For each line printer configured in
.Pa /etc/printcap ,
.Nm
may be used to:
.Bl -bullet -offset indent
.It
disable or enable a printer,
.It
disable or enable a printer's spooling queue,
.It
rearrange the order of jobs in a spooling queue,
.It
find the status of printers, and their associated
spooling queues and printer daemons,
.It
change the status message for printer queues (the status message
may be seen by users as part of the output of the
.Xr lpq 1
utility).
.El
.Pp
Without any arguments,
.Nm
will prompt for commands from the standard input.
If arguments are supplied,
.Nm
interprets the first argument as a command and the remaining
arguments as parameters to the command.
The standard input
may be redirected causing
.Nm
to read commands from file.
Commands may be abbreviated;
the following is the list of recognized commands.
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width indent -compact
.It Ic \&? Op Ar command ...
.It Ic help Op Ar 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.
.Pp
.It Ic abort Brq Cm all | Ar printer
Terminate an active spooling daemon on the local host immediately and
then disable printing (preventing new daemons from being started by
.Xr lpr 1 )
for the specified printers.
.Pp
.It Ic bottomq Ar printer Op Ar jobspec ...
Take the specified jobs in the order specified and move them to the
bottom of the printer queue.
Each
.Ar jobspec
can match multiple print jobs.
The full description of a
.Ar jobspec
is given below.
.Pp
.It Ic clean Brq Cm all | Ar 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
.Pa core
files in spool directory
for each printer queue, and list any that are found.
It will not remove any
.Pa core
files.
See also the
.Ic tclean
command.
.Pp
.It Ic disable Brq Cm all | Ar printer
Turn the specified printer queues off.
This prevents new
printer jobs from being entered into the queue by
.Xr lpr 1 .
.Pp
.It Ic down Bro Cm all | Ar printer ... Brc Cm -msg Ar message ...
.It Ic down Bro Cm all | Ar printer Brc Ar message ...
Turn the specified printer queue off, disable printing and put
.Ar message
in the printer status file.
When specifying more than one printer queue, the
.Ic -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
.Xr echo 1 .
This is normally used to take a printer down, and let other users
find out why it is down (the
.Xr lpq 1
utility will indicate that the printer is down and will print the
status message).
.Pp
.It Ic enable Brq Cm all | Ar printer
Enable spooling on the local queue for the listed printers.
This will allow
.Xr lpr 1
to put new jobs in the spool queue.
.Pp
.It Ic exit
.It Ic quit
Exit from
.Nm .
.Pp
.It Ic restart Brq Cm all | Ar 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.
.Xr 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).
.Pp
.It Ic setstatus Bro Cm all | Ar printer Brc Cm -msg Ar message ...
Set the status message for the specified printers.
The
.Ic -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
.Xr lpq 1
utility.
.Pp
.It Ic start Brq Cm all | Ar printer
Enable printing and start a spooling daemon for the listed printers.
.Pp
.It Ic status Brq Cm all | Ar printer
Display the status of daemons and queues on the local machine.
.Pp
.It Ic stop Brq Cm all | Ar printer
Stop a spooling daemon after the current job completes and disable
printing.
.Pp
.It Ic tclean Brq Cm all | Ar printer
This will do a test-run of the
.Ic clean
command.
All the same checking is done, but the command will only print out
messages saying what a similar
.Ic clean
command would do if the user typed it in.
It will not remove any files.
Note that the
.Ic clean
command is a privileged command, while the
.Ic tclean
command is not restricted.
.Pp
.It Ic topq Ar printer Op Ar jobspec ...
Take the specified jobs in the order specified and move them to the
top of the printer queue.
Each
.Ar jobspec
can match multiple print jobs.
The full description of a
.Ar jobspec
is given below.
.Pp
.It Ic up Brq Cm all | Ar printer
Enable everything and start a new printer daemon.
Undoes the effects of
.Ic down .
.El
.Pp
Commands such as
.Ic topq
and
.Ic bottomq
can take one or more
.Ar jobspec
to specify which jobs the command should operate on.
A
.Ar jobspec
can be:
.Bl -bullet
.It
a single job number, which will match all jobs in the printer's queue
which have the same job number.
Eg:
.Ar 17 ,
.It
a range of job numbers, which will match all jobs with a number between
the starting and ending job numbers, inclusive.
Eg:
.Ar 21-32 ,
.It
a specific userid, which will match all jobs which were sent by that
user.
Eg:
.Ar jones ,
.It
a host name, when prefixed by an `@', which will match all jobs in
the queue which were sent from the given host.
Eg:
.Ar @freebsd.org ,
.It
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:
.Ar jones:17
or
.Ar 21-32:jones ,
.It
a job range and/or a userid, followed by a host name, which will match
all jobs which match all the specified criteria.
Eg:
.Ar jones@freebsd.org
or
.Ar 21-32@freebsd.org
or
.Ar jones:17@freebsd.org .
.El
.Pp
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
.Ic topq
or
.Ic bottomq
command as parameters on the initial
.Nm
command, then the shell will expand any pattern-matching characters
that it can (based on what files in finds in the current directory)
before
.Nm
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.
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width /var/spool/*/lockx -compact
.It Pa /etc/printcap
printer description file
.It Pa /var/spool/*
spool directories
.It Pa /var/spool/*/lock
lock file for queue control
.El
.Sh DIAGNOSTICS
.Bl -diag
.It "?Ambiguous command"
abbreviation matches more than one command
.It "?Invalid command"
no match was found
.It "?Privileged command"
you must be a member of group "operator" or root to execute this command
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr lpq 1 ,
.Xr lpr 1 ,
.Xr lprm 1 ,
.Xr printcap 5 ,
.Xr chkprintcap 8 ,
.Xr lpd 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
utility appeared in
.Bx 4.2 .