LPC(8)                  OpenBSD System Manager's Manual                 LPC(8)

NAME
     lpc - line printer control program

SYNOPSIS
     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:

           o   disable or enable a printer,

           o   disable or enable a printer's spooling queue,

           o   rearrange the order of jobs in a spooling queue,

           o   find the status of printers, and their associated spooling
               queues and printer daemons.

     Without any arguments, lpc will prompt for commands from the standard in-
     put.  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 com-
     mands.

     ? [command ...]
     help [command ...]
             Print a short description of each command specified in the argu-
             ment 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) 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(1) 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(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 will report that there is no daemon pre-
             sent when this condition occurs.  If the user is the superuser,
             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 print-
             ers.

     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 dis-
             able 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 ef-
             fects of down.

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

SEE ALSO
     lpq(1), lpr(1), lprm(1), printcap(5), lpd(8)

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 user ``root'' to
             execute this command.

HISTORY
     The lpc command appeared in 4.2BSD.

OpenBSD 2.9                     April 28, 1995                               2
