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

NAME
     lpd - line printer spooler daemon

SYNOPSIS
     lpd [-dlrs] [-b bind-address] [-n maxchild] [-w maxwait] [port]

DESCRIPTION
     lpd is the line printer daemon (spool area handler) and is normally in-
     voked at boot time from the rc(8) file.  It makes a single pass through
     the printcap(5) file to find out about the existing printers and prints
     any files left after a crash.  It then uses the system calls listen(2)
     and accept(2) to receive requests to print files in the queue, transfer
     files to the spooling area, display the queue, or remove jobs from the
     queue.  In each case, it forks a child to handle the request so the par-
     ent can continue to listen for more requests.

     The options are as follows:

     -b bind-address
             Normally, if the -s option is not specified, lpd will listen on
             all network interfaces for incoming TCP connections.  The -b op-
             tion, followed by a bind-address specifies that lpd should listen
             on that address instead of INADDR_ANY.  Multiple -b options are
             permitted, allowing a list of addresses to be specified.  Use of
             this option silently overrides the -s option if it is also pre-
             sent on the command line.  bind-address can be a numeric host
             name in IPV4 or IPV6 notation, or a symbolic host name which will
             be looked up in the normal way.

     -d      The -d option turns on the SO_DEBUG socket(2) option.  See
             setsockopt(2) for more details.

     -l      The -l flag causes lpd to log valid requests received from the
             network.  This can be useful for debugging purposes.

     -n maxchild
             The -n flag sets maxchild as the maximum number of child process-
             es that lpd will spawn.  The default is 32.

     -r      The -r flag allows the ``of'' filter to be used if specified for
             a remote printer.  Traditionally, lpd would not use the output
             filter for remote printers.

     -s      The -s flag selects ``secure'' mode, in which lpd does not listen
             on a TCP socket but only takes commands from a UNIX-domain sock-
             et.  This is valuable when the machine on which lpd runs is sub-
             ject to attack over the network and it is desired that the ma-
             chine be protected from attempts to remotely fill spools and sim-
             ilar attacks.

     -w maxwait
             The -w flag sets maxwait as the wait time (in seconds) for dead
             remote server detection.  If no response is returned from a con-
             nected server within this period, the connection is closed and a
             message logged.  The default is 300 seconds.

     If the [port] parameter is passed, lpd listens on this port instead of
     the usual ``printer/tcp'' port from /etc/services.

     Access control is provided by two means.  First, all requests must come
     from one of the machines listed in the file /etc/hosts.equiv or
     /etc/hosts.lpd (which follows the same syntax as hosts.equiv(5)).  Sec-
     ond, if the ``rs'' capability is specified in the printcap(5) entry for
     the printer being accessed, lpr requests will only be honored for those
     users with accounts on the machine with the printer.

     lpd performs reverse DNS lookups on network clients.  If a client host-
     name cannot be determined from its IP address, the print request will be
     silently dropped.  This is important to note when debugging print prob-
     lems in dynamic address environments.

     The file minfree in each spool directory contains the number of disk
     blocks to leave free so that the line printer queue won't completely fill
     the disk.  The minfree file can be edited with your favorite text editor.

     The daemon begins processing files after it has successfully set the lock
     for exclusive access (described a bit later), and scans the spool direc-
     tory for files beginning with cf.  Lines in each cf file specify files to
     be printed or non-printing actions to be performed.  Each such line be-
     gins with a key character to specify what to do with the remainder of the
     line.

     J       Job Name.  String to be used for the job name on the burst page.

     C       Classification.  String to be used for the classification line on
             the burst page.

     L       Literal.  The line contains identification info from the password
             file and causes the banner page to be printed.

     T       Title.  String to be used as the title for pr(1).

     H       Host Name.  Name of the machine where lpr(1) was invoked.

     P       Person.  Login name of the person who invoked lpr(1).  This is
             used to verify ownership by lprm(1).

     M       Send mail to the specified user when the current print job com-
             pletes.

     f       Formatted File.  Name of a file to print which is already format-
             ted.

     l       Like ``f'' but passes control characters and does not make page
             breaks.

     p       Name of a file to print using pr(1) as a filter.

     t       Troff File.  The file contains troff(1) output (cat phototypeset-
             ter commands).

     n       Ditroff File.  The file contains device independent troff output.

     r       DVI File.  The file contains Tex l output DVI format from Stan-
             ford.

     g       Graph File.  The file contains data produced by plot.

     c       Cifplot File.  The file contains data produced by cifplot.

     v       The file contains a raster image.

     r       The file contains text data with FORTRAN carriage control charac-
             ters.

     1       Troff Font R.  Name of the font file to use instead of the de-
             fault.

     2       Troff Font I.  Name of the font file to use instead of the de-
             fault.

     3       Troff Font B.  Name of the font file to use instead of the de-
             fault.

     4       Troff Font S.  Name of the font file to use instead of the de-
             fault.

     W       Width.  Changes the page width (in characters) used by pr(1) and
             the text filters.

     I       Indent.  The number of characters to indent the output by (in
             ASCII).

     U       Unlink.  Name of file to remove upon completion of printing.

     N       File name.  The name of the file which is being printed, or a
             blank for the standard input (when lpr(1) is invoked in a
             pipeline).

     If a file cannot be opened, a message will be logged via syslog(3) using
     the LOG_LPR facility.  lpd will try up to 20 times to reopen a file it
     expects to be there, after which it will skip the file to be printed.

     lpd uses flock(2) to provide exclusive access to the lock file and to
     prevent multiple daemons from becoming active simultaneously.  If the
     daemon should be killed or die unexpectedly, the lock file need not be
     removed.  The lock file is kept in a readable ASCII form and contains two
     lines.  The first is the process ID of the daemon and the second is the
     control file name of the current job being printed.  The second line is
     updated to reflect the current status of lpd for the programs lpq(1) and
     lprm(1).

FILES
     /etc/printcap                printer description file
     /var/run/lpd.pid             lock file for lpd
     /var/spool/output/*          spool directories
     /var/spool/output/*/minfree  minimum free space to leave
     /dev/lp*                     line printer devices
     /var/run/printer             socket for local requests
     /etc/hosts.equiv             lists machine names allowed printer access
     /etc/hosts.lpd               lists machine names allowed printer access,
                                  but not under same administrative control.

SEE ALSO
     lpq(1), lpr(1), lprm(1), syslog(3), hosts(5), hosts.equiv(5),
     printcap(5), resolv.conf(5), lpc(8), pac(8)

     4.3BSD Line Printer Spooler Manual.

HISTORY
     An lpd daemon appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

     lpd previously required that clients connected using a privileged port
     (below 1024).  This restriction was removed because it does not provide
     additional security and also because many modern clients connect using an
     unprivileged port.

OpenBSD 4.7                    December 29, 2009                             3
