lpc —
line printer control program
  
    | lpc | [command [argument
      ...]] | 
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 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(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).
    
  
- 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.
    
  
- topqprinter [ 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.
  - /etc/printcap
- printer description file
- /var/spool/output/*
- spool directories
- /var/spool/output/*/lock
- lock file for queue control
  - ?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 root to execute this
      command
Thelpc command appeared in
  4.2BSD.