Lpr
uses a spooling daemon to print the named files when facilities
become available. If no names appear, the standard input is assumed.
OPTIONS
-A
The authentication type is set by the value of the AUTH environment variable.
-B
Do filtering of job files by the filters specified by the printcap.
Combine the output of the filtering operation into a single job file and then
send the single file to the lpd print spooler.
-b, -l
either of these flags specifies a
binary or literal file,
and no (or minimial) processing is to be done by the print spooling system.
Printed using the
f
format filter (:if=... or :filter=...).
-C class
Specify the job classification for use on the burst page and to
set the priority.
Priorities range from A (lowest) to Z (highest);
the default priority is A.
For example,
lpr -C B foo.c
sets the priority/class to B and the file foo.c is printed.
-Ddebugoptions
Debugging is controlled using the
-D
option. This accepts a comma-separated list of debugging
settings. These settings take one of two forms:
facility=value,
or
value
to set an overall default value.
-F filterformat
Filter or format specification.
By default,
input is assumed to a standard text file and the
f
format is used;
the output device is assmed to be a simple line printer.
Other formats available are listed below.
Not all formats may be available on all printers;
see
printcap(5)
for details.
Formats are single lower case letters;
the following are the valid arguments for
-F
together with the assumed type of data.
For compatibility with previous versions of
lpr,
the format types can be used as options themselves
(i.e. by omitting the
F)
except where noted below,
a warning may be issued in such cases.
-G
Similar to the
-B option,
but only processes individual files.
-h
No banner or header for this job.
-i indentcols
Indent input by indentcols.
Note that this option is not supported on all printers.
-J jobname
Specify the job name to print on the burst page;
defaults to the name of files in the job or
(STDIN)
if input is from a pipe.
-Kcopies, -#copies
Specify the number of copies of each file to be printed.
You may or may not get the requested number of copies depending on the
intelligence of the remote printing system.
-k
lpr
normally creates a temporary file
for the input read from stdin before sending it to the remote
printer.
The
-k
(kut-through) option
will simply copy from STDIN to the destination print spooling system.
If you kill the job in the middle of creation
then the partly transferred file will get printed.
This option may not work with very large jobs,
non-LPRng spoolers,
or
when you have encryption or authentication enabled.
-m mailTo
Send mail upon unsuccessful completion to user
mailTo.
The mailTo value has been used to do such things as
specify email (user@host), paging (page:user@host),
both (user@host,page:user@host)
and all sorts of other notifier information.
See the LPRng HOWTO for details on how this is implemented.
-P printer
By default,
the destination printer
is taken from
the command line
-P printer
value,
then
the environment variables
PRINTER,
LPDEST,
NPRINTER,
NGPRINTER,
then first entry in the printcap information,
and and finally the default_printer entry from the
configuration file,
and then the compile time default.
-R remoteAccount
Specify accounting information to be used by a remote system that prints
your output.
This parameter
can be used to specify a billing code to be charged for the
printing.
-r
The DREADED
REMOVE AFTER PRINTING
option.
Beware, for
lpr
will delete the files after spooling them.
Present by demand from users for compatibility with other Berkeley lpr
implementation,
but really should NOT be present.
-T title
Specify the title used by
pr(1);
defaults to the file name.
-Uusername
The
-U
option is used to specify a user name
for the job.
This is available only to ROOT or users listed in the
allow_user_setting
configuration option.
This is obviously a security loophole,
but it is present to allow systems such as SAMBA
to submit jobs on behalf of users.
See
Authenticated Transfers
below.
-V
Verbose mode. Additional -V flags increase verbosity.
Use debug flags for extreme verbosity.
-w width
Specify the page width for printing the job.
-X path
User specified filter for job files. Processing is done on
the client host.
-Y
Make a direct connection to the printer device and do not spool.
-Z options
Pass the specified options to the print spooler.
Used when additional or specialized information
must be provided to the spooler.
OBSOLETE OPTIONS Lower case -c, -d, -g, -n, -t, -v
Used to indicate:
-c
is data produced by
cifplot(l),
-d
is
tex(l)
(DVI format from Stanford),
-g
is
standard plot data as produced by the
plot(3X)
routines,
-n
and
-t
is output from (device independent)
troff,
-v
a raster image for devices like the Benson Varian.
These are obsolete.
These are retained for historical compatibility,
but most of their functionality has been replaced by the
abilities of the printer support system to determine the
file type and do the appropriate conversions.
OBSOLETE OPTION -p
This is obsolete.
This option is retained for historical compatibility,
but this functionality should be implemented on the
client system before sending the job to the printer.
Use
pr(1)
to format the files,
then print using
f
format.
This may not be supported on the print system.
OBSOLETE -s
This flag is included for compatibility with other versions of
lpr.
In these versions it will create a symbolic link to the files to be
printed.
Lpr
now sends files directly to the server and it is irrelevant.
OBSOLETE OPTIONS -1,2,3,4fontname
Specify a font to be mounted on font position i
for TROFF printing (Obsolete).
FILENAMES
By default,
if no filenames are specified
lpr
will read stdin and print it.
AUTHENTICATED TRANSFERS
The original LPR network protocol defined in RFC1179 did not
provide for user to server authentication.
This is now supported by LPRng.
See the LPRng support documentation for details on its operation
and support.
COMPATIBILITY
The LPRng version of
lpr
attempts to be functionaly compatible with common implementations of
lpr.
However,
there are some commands and functionality that are deliberately missing.
-s Symbolic Links
(Berkeley LPR) This option specified that a symbolic link
to the original data file
rather than a copy of the data file was to be used when spooling jobs.
This opens up a variety of security problems,
as well as being ineffective when printing to a remote host.
THE -B, -Y, -X filter ULTRA-LIGHTWEIGHT PRINTING OPTIONS
LPRng supports ultra-lightweight printing by eliminating the need
for a print spooler.
This is quite dangerous, but makes the lpr client very lightweight.
The
-Y
command line option and the
:direct
printcap option enables lpr to connect directly to a specified port
or use a program to send a job.
This filter also enables client side filtering, so if there are
any filters specified in the printcap entry they will be used.
For example:
lpr -Y -Phost%port file1 file2 ...
approximately equivalent to:
for i in file1 file2 ...; do
${filter} <$i;
# ${filter} is filter from printcap
done >host%port (TCP/IP connection)
lpr -Y -Phost%port -X userfilter file1 file2 ...
approximately equivalent to:
for i in file1 file2 ...; do
userfilter <$i;
done >host%port (TCP/IP connection)
Summary:
-P host%port > TCP/IP connection to host%port
-P /dev/lp > /dev/lp
-P '|/program' | /program
SPECIAL CASE
lpr -Y -Ppr@host -X userfilter file1 file2 ...
approximately equivalent to:
for i in file1 file2 ...; do
userfilter <$i >temp.$i;
done
lpr -Ppr@host temp.file1 temp.file2
The
-B
option or the :lpr_bounce is used to filter and make a single file out
of a set of print files and then forward them.
lpr -B -Ppr@host
approximately equivalent to:
lpr -Y -P/tmp/tempfile file1 file2 ...
lpr -Ppr@host /tmp/tempfile
You can also use a printcap entry and the
:direct
options.
The
:remote_support
option is used to prevent the
lpq
and
lpc
program from attempting to send jobs to the device.
ENVIRONMENT
By default,
the destination printer
is taken from
the command line
printer
value,
then
the environment variables
PRINTER,
LPDEST,
NPRINTER,
NGPRINTER,
then first entry in the printcap information,
and and finally the default_printer entry from the
configuration file,
and then the compile time default.
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
zero (0)
Successful completion.
non-zero (!=0)
An error occurred.
PRINTCAP INFORMATION
The printer names and other information is obtained by using a printcap
file or some other database.
The ${HOME}/.printcap
file can be used to specify user level options and configuration
information.
See
printcap(5)
for more information.
FILES
The files used by LPRng are set by values in the
printer configuration file.
The following are a commonly used set of default values.
/etc/lpd.conf LPRng configuration file
${HOME}/.printcap user printer description file
/etc/printcap system printer description file
/etc/lpd.perms printer permissions
/var/spool/printer* spool directories
/var/spool/printer*/printer lock file for queue control
/var/spool/printer*/control.printer queue control
/var/spool/printer*/active.printer active job
/var/spool/printer*/log.printer log file
Most of the diagnostics are self explanatory.
If you are puzzled over the exact cause of failure,
set the debugging level on (-D5) and run again.
The debugging information will
help you to pinpoint the exact cause of failure.
HISTORY
LPRng is a enhanced printer spooler system
with functionality similar to the Berkeley LPR software.
The LPRng mailing list is lprng@lprng.com;
subscribe by sending mail to lprng-request@lprng.com with
the word subscribe in the body.
The software is available from ftp://ftp.astart.com/pub/LPRng.
