LPRM(1) BSD General Commands Manual LPRM(1)NAMElprm — remove jobs from the line printer spooling queue
SYNOPSISlprm [-Pprinter] [-] [job # ...] [user ...]
DESCRIPTION
The lprm utility will remove a job, or jobs, from a printer's spool
queue. Since the spooling directory is protected from users, using lprm
is normally the only method by which a user may remove a job. The owner
of a job is determined by the user's login name and host name on the
machine where the lpr(1) command was invoked.
Options and arguments:
-Pprinter
Specify the queue associated with a specific printer (otherwise
the default printer is used).
- If a single ‘-’ is given, lprm will remove all jobs which a user
owns. If the super-user employs this flag, the spool queue will
be emptied entirely.
user Cause lprm to attempt to remove any jobs queued belonging to that
user (or users). This form of invoking lprm is useful only to
the super-user.
job # A user may dequeue an individual job by specifying its job num‐
ber. This number may be obtained from the lpq(1) program, e.g.
% lpq -l
1st:ken [job #013ucbarpa]
(standard input) 100 bytes
% lprm 13
If neither arguments or options are given, lprm will delete the currently
active job if it is owned by the user who invoked lprm.
The lprm utility announces the names of any files it removes and is
silent if there are no jobs in the queue which match the request list.
The lprm utility will kill off an active daemon, if necessary, before
removing any spooling files. If a daemon is killed, a new one is auto‐
matically restarted upon completion of file removals.
ENVIRONMENT
If the following environment variable exists, it is utilized by lprm.
PRINTER If the environment variable PRINTER exists, and a printer has
not been specified with the -P option, the default printer is
assumed from PRINTER.
FILES
/etc/printcap Printer characteristics file.
/var/spool/* Spooling directories.
/var/spool/*/lock Lock file used to obtain the pid of the current dae‐
mon and the job number of the currently active job.
DIAGNOSTICS
``Permission denied" if the user tries to remove files other than his
own.
SEE ALSOlpq(1), lpr(1), lpd(8)HISTORY
The lprm command appeared in 3.0BSD.
BUGS
Since there are race conditions possible in the update of the lock file,
the currently active job may be incorrectly identified.
BSD June 6, 1993 BSD
