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Multi-Device Queueing System (MDQS) Printing System Command Reference

mdqs Quick Command Reference

• A brief description of each command, including cross references to old printadmin commands

mdqs Commands

A detailed description of each command, including examples

• qstat -- list queued print jobs and device status
• qdev -- list detailed device status, modify device
• qmod -- remove jobs in queue
• hpstat -- ask device how it's doing (only HP's)

Permissions

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) Help Desk, wks, and firstaider personnel have access to change all lpcr queues. OWL lab managers, and users they empower, have access to their own lab queues.

Managers: How to give queue access to users

Any wam or glue user can view queues or devices but cannot make changes to them.

Are you wam or glue authenticated?

Check wam authenticated queues from a wam account, glue queues from a glue account. Use the hesinfo queue qhost command to determine which is which. for example:

y:~% hesinfo chem qhost
neobank.umd.edu
y:~% hesinfo band qhost
avalon.eng.umd.edu

A rule of thumb is that wam queues are spooled to neobank, and glue queues are not.

You can still use qstat and qdev for information about a printer from a different realm, however you will not be able to modify anything.

A way to get around all of this is to have your ticket environment variable pointing to the ticket file for the correct realm for the printer, or write a script which does this for you automatically. (here is a quick example):

• myqdev
• myqstat

A note on environment variables

Pay attention to the $PRINTER environment variable if the commands aren't working like you expect them to. qstat, qdev and qmod each use the $PRINTER variable to determine which spooler to connect to.

Here's an example. Suppose you wanted to see a list of devices:

z:~% qdev
ccs            *Empty*  (Idle)
cit            *Empty*  (Idle)
sband          *Empty*  (Idle)
splash         *Empty*  (Idle)
band           *Empty*  (Idle)
boris          *Empty*  (Idle)
crab           *Empty*  (Idle)
shrimp         *Empty*  (Idle)
snowden        *Empty*  (Idle)
imfilter       *Empty*  (Idle)
psfilter       *Empty*  (Idle)
net            *Empty*  (Idle)
z:~% echo $PRINTER
band

The reason you don't see any of the wam lab printers is that they are not spooled to the same spooler that band is.

z:~% setenv PRINTER pg2
z:~% qdev
hornbake-hp1   *Empty*  (Idle)
hornbake-hp2   *Empty*  Q00017.1371     18163 (Trying to open session to
hornbake-hp2.wam.umd.edu/9100)
pg2-hp1        *Empty*  (Idle)
pg2-hp2        *Empty*   Disabled (Idle)
    [...et cetera]

After $PRINTER is set to pg2, the qdev commands connects to its spooler and lists all of the printers spooled to it, including the other wam lab printers.

You can define $PRINTER by using the setenv PRINTER queue command (where queue is the queue name). You can examine the value of printer by using echo $PRINTER.

The $PRINTER variable normally is set upon login time. If you are in a lab at a console, $PRINTER is set to the lab's printer.