DESCRIPTION
The rlprrc configuration file is consulted by the remote printing commands (rlpr(1), rlpq(1), and rlprm(1)) to resolve a printqueue or a hostname. It can be used to either lookup a printqueue (printer) for a given host, or a host for a given printqueue. If both the printer and the printhost are known, this file is never consulted.Initially, the remote printing commands look for the file .rlprrc in the user's home directory. If that file cannot be found or does not provide the information necessary to resolve the query, then the system-wide /etc/rlprrc is consulted (if present). If resolution is still unsuccessful, the command fails.
There is one entry per line - each line has the format:
hostname: printer1 printer2 ... printerN
Which indicates that host hostname has printers printer1 printer2 ... printerN available. In the case where the remote printing command knows the host to print to but does not know which printer to use on that host, the first one (printer1 here) will be used.
In the case where the remote printing command knows the printqueue (printer) to print to but does not know what host has that queue, the last host which has the specified printqueue is used. If this behavior is not acceptable, you can force a certain host to always be used for a certain printqueue by putting a ! after the printqueue name.
For example, an .rlprrc file containing:
foo.baz.org: litho laserjet4!
foo.bar.org: laserjet4 lineprinter
will always resolve the printqueue laserjet4 to foo.baz.org no matter what other hosts have a printqueue named laserjet4.
The rlprrc file is only consulted in situations where a printqueue or hostname needs to be resolved. It is provided only for convenience and is not required.