lpr/lpr/printcap.5

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.Dd October 11, 2000
.Dt PRINTCAP 5
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm printcap
.Nd printer capability data base
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm Printcap
function
is a simplified version of the
.Xr termcap 5
data base
used to describe line printers.
The spooling system accesses the
.Nm
file every time it is used, allowing dynamic
addition and deletion of printers.
Each entry in the data base
is used to describe one printer.
This data base may not be
substituted for, as is possible for
.Xr termcap 5 ,
because it may allow accounting to be bypassed.
.Pp
The default printer is normally
.Em lp ,
though the environment variable
.Ev PRINTER
may be used to override this.
Each spooling utility supports an option,
.Fl P Ar printer ,
to allow explicit naming of a destination printer.
.Pp
Refer to the
.%T "4.3 BSD Line Printer Spooler Manual"
for a complete discussion on how to setup the database for a given printer.
.Sh CAPABILITIES
Refer to
.Xr termcap 5
for a description of the file layout.
.Bl -column Namexxx Typexx "/var/spool/lpdxxxxx"
.Sy "Name	Type	Default	Description"
.It "af	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "name of accounting file"
.It "br	num	none	if lp is a tty, set the baud rate"
.Xr ( ioctl 2
call)
.It "cf	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "cifplot data filter"
.It "ct	num	120	TCP connection timeout in seconds"
.It "df	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "tex data filter"
.Tn ( DVI
format)
.It "du	num	1	UID to run daemon as"
.It "ff	str" Ta So Li \ef Sc Ta No "string to send for a form feed"
.It "fo	bool	false	print a form feed when device is opened"
.It "gf	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "graph data filter"
.Xr ( plot 3
format
.It "hl	bool	false	print the burst header page last"
.It "ic	bool	false	driver supports (non standard) ioctl to indent printout"
.It "if	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "name of text filter which does accounting"
.It "lf	str" Ta Pa /dev/console Ta No "error logging file name"
.It "lo	str" Ta Pa lock Ta No "name of lock file"
.It "lp	str" Ta Pa /dev/lp Ta No "device name to open for output, or" Em port Ns @ Ns Em machine No "to open a TCP socket"
.It "mc	num	0	maximum number of copies which can be requested on"
.Xr lpr 1 ,
zero = unlimited
.It "ms	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "if lp is a tty, a comma-separated,"
.Xr stty 1 Ns -like
list describing the tty modes
.It "mx	num	0	maximum file size (in"
.Dv BUFSIZ
blocks), zero = unlimited
.It "nd	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "next directory for list of queues (unimplemented)"
.It "nf	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "ditroff data filter (device independent troff)"
.It "of	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "name of output filtering program"
.It "pc	num	200	price per foot or page in hundredths of cents"
.It "pl	num	66	page length (in lines)"
.It "pw	num	132	page width (in characters)"
.It "px	num	0	page width in pixels (horizontal)"
.It "py	num	0	page length in pixels (vertical)"
.It "rc	bool	false	when sending to a remote host, resend copies (see below)"
.It "rf	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "filter for printing"
.Tn FORTRAN
style text files
.It "rg	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "restricted group. Only members of group allowed access"
.It "rm	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "machine name for remote printer"
.It "rp	str" Ta Pa lp Ta No "remote printer name argument"
.It "rs	bool	false	restrict remote users to those with local accounts"
.It "rw	bool	false	open the printer device for reading and writing"
.It "sb	bool	false	short banner (one line only)"
.It "sc	bool	false	suppress multiple copies"
.It "sd	str" Ta Pa /var/spool/lpd Ta No "spool directory"
.It "sf	bool	false	suppress form feeds"
.It "sh	bool	false	suppress printing of burst page header"
.It "sr	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "file name to hold statistics of each datafile as it is received"
.It "ss	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "file name to hold statistics of each datafile as it is sent"
.It "st	str" Ta Pa status Ta No "status file name"
.It "tf	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "troff data filter (cat phototypesetter)"
.It "tr	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "trailer string to print when queue empties"
.It "vf	str" Ta Dv NULL Ta No "raster image filter"
.El
.Pp
Each two-letter capability has a human-readable alternate name.
.Bl -column "Short form" "Long form"
.Sy "Short form	Long form"
.It "af	acct.file"
.It "br	tty.rate"
.It "cf	filt.cifplot"
.It "ct	remote.timeout"
.It "df	filt.dvi"
.It "du	daemon.user"
.It "ff	job.formfeed"
.It "fo	job.topofform"
.It "gf	filt.plot"
.It "hl	banner.last"
.It "if	filt.input"
.It "lf	spool.log"
.It "lo	spool.lock"
.It "lp	tty.device"
.It "mc	max.copies"
.It "ms	tty.mode"
.It "mx	max.blocks"
.It "nf	filt.ditroff"
.It "of	filt.output"
.It "pc	acct.price"
.It "pl	page.length"
.It "pw	page.width"
.It "px	page.pwidth"
.It "py	page.plength"
.It "rc	remote.resend_copies"
.It "rf	filt.fortran"
.It "rg	daemon.restrictgrp"
.It "rm	remote.host"
.It "rp	remote.queue"
.It "rs	daemon.restricted"
.It "rw	tty.rw"
.It "sb	banner.short"
.It "sc	job.no_copies"
.It "sd	spool.dir"
.It "sf	job.no_formfeed"
.It "sh	banner.disable"
.It "sr	stat.recv"
.It "ss	stat.send"
.It "st	spool.status"
.It "tf	filt.troff"
.It "tr	job.trailer"
.It "vf	filt.raster"
.El
.Pp
If the local line printer driver supports indentation, the daemon
must understand how to invoke it.
.Sh FILTERS
The
.Xr lpd 8
daemon creates a pipeline of
.Em filters
to process files for various printer types.
The filters selected depend on the flags passed to
.Xr lpr 1 .
The pipeline set up is:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
p	pr | if	regular text + pr(1)
none	if	regular text
c	cf	cifplot
d	df	DVI (tex)
g	gf	plot(3)
n	nf	ditroff
f	rf	Fortran
t	tf	troff
v	vf	raster image
.Ed
.Pp
The
.Sy if
filter is invoked with arguments:
.Bd -ragged -offset indent
.Cm if
.Op Fl c
.Fl w Ns Ar width
.Fl l Ns Ar length
.Fl i Ns Ar indent
.Fl n Ar login
.Fl h Ar host acct-file
.Ed
.Pp
The
.Fl c
flag is passed only if the
.Fl l
flag (pass control characters literally)
is specified to
.Xr lpr 1 .
The
.Ar Width
function
and
.Ar length
specify the page width and length
(from
.Cm pw
and
.Cm pl
respectively) in characters.
The
.Fl n
and
.Fl h
parameters specify the login name and host name of the owner
of the job respectively.
The
.Ar Acct-file
function
is passed from the
.Cm af
.Nm
entry.
.Pp
If no
.Cm if
is specified,
.Cm of
is used instead,
with the distinction that
.Cm of
is opened only once,
while
.Cm if
is opened for every individual job.
Thus,
.Cm if
is better suited to performing accounting.
The
.Cm of
is only given the
.Ar width
and
.Ar length
flags.
.Pp
All other filters are called as:
.Bd -ragged -offset indent
.Nm filter
.Fl x Ns Ar width
.Fl y Ns Ar length
.Fl n Ar login
.Fl h Ar host acct-file
.Ed
.Pp
where
.Ar width
and
.Ar length
are represented in pixels,
specified by the
.Cm px
and
.Cm py
entries respectively.
.Pp
All filters take
.Em stdin
as the file,
.Em stdout
as the printer,
may log either to
.Em stderr
or using
.Xr syslog 3 ,
and must not ignore
.Dv SIGINT .
.Sh REMOTE PRINTING
When printing to a remote printer using
.Cm rm ,
it is possible to use either
.Cm if
or
.Cm of .
If both are specified,
.Cm of
is ignored.
Both filters behave the same except that they are passed
different arguments as above.
Specifically, the output filter is
terminated and restarted for each file transmitted.
This is necessary
in order to pass the resulting size to the remote
.Xr lpd 8 .
.Pp
If the
.Fl p
flag was passed to
.Xr lpr 1 ,
.Xr pr 1
is not executed locally, but is requested of the remote
.Xr lpd 8 .
Any input filtering via
.Cm if
will therefore happen before
.Xr pr 1
is executed rather than afterwards.
.Pp
There are some models of network printers which accept jobs from
.Xr lpd 8 ,
but they ignore the control file for a job and simply print
each data file as it arrives at the printer.
One side-effect of this behavior is that the printer will ignore any request
for multiple copies as given with the
.Fl #
flag on the
.Xr lpr 1
command.
The
.Cm rc
entry will cause
.Xr lpd 8
to resend each data file for each copy that the user
originally requested.
Note that the
.Cm rc
entry should only be specified on hosts which send jobs directly to
the printer.
.Pp
If
.Cm lp
is specified as
.Em port Ns @ Ns Em machine
(and
.Cm rm
is not in use), print data will be sent directly to the given
.Em port
on the given
.Em machine .
.Sh TRANSFER STATISTICS
When a print job is transferred to a remote machine (which might be
another unix box, or may be a network printer), it may be useful
to keep statistics on each transfer.
The
.Cm sr
and
.Cm ss
options indicate filenames that lpd should use to store such
statistics.
A statistics line is written for each datafile of a
job as the file is successfully transferred.
The format of the
line is the same for both the sending and receiving side of a
transfer.
.Pp
Statistics on datafiles being received would be used on a print
server, if you are interested in network performance between a
variety of machines which are sending jobs to that print server.
The print server could collect statistics on the speed of each
print job as it arrived on the server.
.Pp
Statistics on datafiles being sent might be used as a minimal
accounting record, when you want to know who sent which jobs to a
remote printer, when they were sent, and how large (in bytes) the
files were.
This will not give include any idea of how many pages
were printed, because there is no standard way to get that information
back from a remote (network) printer in this case.
.Sh LOGGING
Error messages generated by the line printer programs themselves
(that is, the
.Xr lpd 8
and related programs)
are logged by
.Xr syslog 3
using the
.Dv LPR
facility.
Messages printed on
.Em stderr
of one of the filters
are sent to the corresponding
.Cm lf
file.
The filters may, of course, use
.Xr syslogd 8
themselves.
.Pp
Error messages sent to the console have a carriage return and a line
feed appended to them, rather than just a line feed.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr lpq 1 ,
.Xr lpr 1 ,
.Xr lprm 1 ,
.Xr hosts.lpd 5 ,
.Xr termcap 5 ,
.Xr chkprintcap 8 ,
.Xr lpc 8 ,
.Xr lpd 8 ,
.Xr pac 8
.Rs
.%T "4.3 BSD Line Printer Spooler Manual"
.Re
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
file format appeared in
.Bx 4.2 .