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:

             •   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 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.

       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(1).

       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 users 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(1)  will  report  that  there  is  no
               daemon  present  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 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
       /var/spool/output/*       spool directories
       /var/spool/output/*/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 user “root” to execute this command.

SEE ALSO

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

HISTORY

       The lpc command appeared in 4.2BSD.

Debian                                            May 31, 2007                                            LPC(8)