LPC(1M)                         Printing Tools                         LPC(1M)


NAME
     lpc - BSD line printer control program

SYNOPSIS
     /usr/etc/lpc [ command [ argument ... ] ]

DESCRIPTION
     Lpc 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.

     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 arguments are 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) for the specified printers.

     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.

     disable { all | printer ... }
          Turn the specified printer queues off.  This prevents new printer
          jobs from being entered into the queue by lpr.

     down { all | printer } message ...
          Turn the specified printer queue off, disable printing and put
          message in the printer status file. The message doesn't need to be
          quoted, the remaining arguments are treated like echo(1).  This is


          normally used to take a printer down and let others know why (lpq
          will indicate the printer is down and print the status message).

     enable { all | printer ... }
          Enable spooling on the local queue for the listed printers. This
          will allow lpr 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 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).

     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.

     topq printer [ jobnum ... ] [ user ... ]
          Place the jobs in the order listed at the top of the printer queue.

     up { all | printer ... }
          Enable everything and start a new printer daemon. Undoes the effects
          of down.

FILES
     /etc/printcap           printer description file
     /usr/spool/*            spool directories
     /usr/spool/*/lock       lock file for queue control

SEE ALSO
     lpd(1M), lpr(1), lpq(1), lprm(1), printcap(4)

DIAGNOSTICS
     ?Ambiguous command      abbreviation matches more than one command
     ?Invalid command        no match was found
     ?Privileged command     command can be executed by root only


                                                                        Page 2