11.3 Managing Printer Queues
11.3.1 Monitoring queue status
As mentioned earlier, when you use the lp command to send a print request to a printer, you are actually sending it to a print queue. The print queue is a special directory that is stored on the hard disk of your workstation or of a remote network server. Since printers do not have hard disks to store documents, all requests or print jobs must be spooled or go to the queue first. If the printer is available, the request is serviced immediately. If the printer is busy, the request is queued until the printer is available. On large networks with centralized printers, print queues can become quite large with many print jobs waiting to be printed. An administrator can monitor and manage the print queues for multiple printers.

The lpstat (line printer status) command is used to display the status of the printer queue. To see the print requests for a specific printer, use the basic form of the command, which specifies the printer name or queue to display. The basic command and an explanation of the output is shown in Figure . Figure shows the options available with the lpstat command and Figure shows examples using the command.