QCONFIG(5,F) AIX Technical Reference QCONFIG(5,F) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- qconfig PURPOSE Configures a printer queueing system. DESCRIPTION The /etc/qconfig file describes the queues and devices available for use by the print command, which places requests on a queue, and the qdaemon command, which removes requests from the queue and processes them. The /etc/qconfig file is an attribute file. Some stanzas in this file describe queues, and other stanzas describe devices. Every queue stanza requires that one or more device stanzas immediately follow it in the file. The first queue stanza describes the default queue. The print command uses this queue when it receives no queue parameter. The name of a queue stanza must be one to three characters long. The following table shows some of the field names along with some of the possible values that appear in this file: acctfile Identifies the file used to save print accounting information. FALSE, the default, indicates suppress accounting. If the named file does not exist, no accounting is done. argname Identifies the queue name identifier that is used in the print command to specify the queue. device Identifies the symbolic name that refers to the device stanza. discipline Defines the queue serving algorithm. The default, fcfs, means first come first served, while sjn means shortest job next. node Identifies, by name, the TCF (Transparent Computing Facility) cluster site which serves the queue. The special symbol local is used to describe a generic queue which runs on all the sites in the cluster. The /etc/qconfig file looks for the node name in the TCF cluster sitename field of the /etc/site file. friend Indicates whether the backend updates the status file and responds to terminate signals. TRUE is the default. FALSE indicates it does not. up Defines the state of the queue. TRUE, the default, indicates that it is running. FALSE indicates that it is not running. If a field is omitted, its default value is assumed. The default values for a queue stanza are: Processed August 5, 1991 QCONFIG(5,F) 1 QCONFIG(5,F) AIX Technical Reference QCONFIG(5,F) friend = TRUE discipline = fcfs up = TRUE acctfile = FALSE Note: Tabs or spaces may precede an attribute on the line, but spaces are the only white space allowed between an attribute and its corresponding value. Also, the default argname value is the name of the stanza preceded by a "-" (minus). The device and node fields cannot be omitted. The name of a device stanza is arbitrary. The fields that can appear in a stanza are: access Specifies the type of access the backend has to the file specified by the file field. The value of access is write if the backend has write access to the file, or both if it has both read and write access. This field is ignored if the file field has the value FALSE. align Specifies whether the backend sends a form-feed control before starting the job if the printer was idle. The default is FALSE. backend Specifies the full path name of the backend, optionally followed by flags and parameters to be passed to it. feed Specifies the number of separator pages to print when the device becomes idle, or the value never, which indicates that the backend is not to print separator pages. file Identifies the special file where the output of backend is to be redirected. FALSE, the default, indicates no redirection. In this case, the backend opens the output file. header Specifies whether a header page prints before each job or group of jobs. The default, never, indicates no header page at all, while always specifies a header page before each job, and group specifies a header before each group of jobs for the same user. trailer Specifies whether a trailer page prints after each job or group of jobs. never, the default, means no trailer page at all. always means a trailer page after each job. group means a trailer page after each group of jobs for the same user. The qdaemon places the information contained in the feed, header, trailer, and align fields into a status file that is sent to the backend. Backends that do not update the status file do not use the information it contains. If a field is omitted, its default value is assumed. The backend field cannot be omitted. The default values in a device stanza are: Processed August 5, 1991 QCONFIG(5,F) 2 QCONFIG(5,F) AIX Technical Reference QCONFIG(5,F) file = FALSE access = write feed = never header = never trailer = never align = FALSE The print command automatically converts the ASCII qconfig file to binary when the binary version is missing or older than the ASCII version. The binary version is found in /etc/qconfig.bin. Unlike the format of the ports file, the qconfig file format does not allow default stanzas. EXAMPLES 1. The batch queue supplied with the AIX system might contain these stanzas: bsh: argname = bsh friend = FALSE discipline = fcfs device = bshdev node = local bshdev: backend = /bin/sh To run a shell procedure called myproc using this batch queue, enter: print bsh myproc The queuing system runs the files one at a time, in the order submitted. The qdaemon process redirects standard input, standard output, and standard error to the /dev/null file. 2. To allow two batch jobs to run at once: bsh: argname = save friend = FALSE discipline = fcfs node = local device = bsh1,bsh2 bsh1: backend = /bin/sh bsh2: backend = /bin/sh Processed August 5, 1991 QCONFIG(5,F) 3 QCONFIG(5,F) AIX Technical Reference QCONFIG(5,F) FILES /etc/qconfig /etc/qconfig.bin /usr/lpd/digest RELATED INFORMATION In this book: "attributes." The print, lp, and qdaemon commands in AIX Operating System Commands Reference. Processed August 5, 1991 QCONFIG(5,F) 4