PINGD(1)

NAME
pingd - echolot ping daemon

SYNOPSIS

pingd start
pingd stop
pingd process
pingd add address [address ...]
pingd delete address [address ...]
pingd disable address [address ...]
pingd enable address [address ...]
pingd set option=value [option=value..] address [address ...]
pingd setremailercaps capsstring
pingd deleteremailercaps address
pingd getkeyconf [address [address ...]]
pingd sendpings [address [address ...]]
pingd sendchainpings address:address [address:address ...]
pingd buildstats
pingd buildkeys
pingd buildthesaurus
pingd buildfromlines
pingd summary
pingd dumpconf

DESCRIPTION
pingd is the heart of echolot. Echolot is a pinger for anonymous remailers.

A Pinger in the context of anonymous remailers is a program that regularily sends messages through remailers to check their reliability. It then calculates reliability statistics which are used by remailer clients to choose the chain of remailers to use.

Additionally it collects configuration parameters and keys of all remailers and offers them in a format readable by remailer clients.

When called without parameters pingd schedules tasks like sending pings, processing incoming mail and requesting remailer-xxx data and runs them at configurable intervalls.

COMMANDS

start
    Start the ping daemon.

stop
    Send the running pingd process a SIGTERM.

process
    Sends a HUP signal to the daemon which instructs it to process the commands.

    For other effects of sending the HUP Signal see the SIGNALS section below.

add address [address ...]
    Add address to the list of remailers to query for keys and confs.

delete address [address ...]
    Delete address from the list of remailers to query for keys and confs. Delete all statistics and keys for that remailer.

    Note that echolot will add back this remailer if it learns of it from other remailers again. If you do not want that, use the disable command.

disable address [address ...]
    Shorthand for set showit=off pingit=off fetch=off. This makes echolot completely ignore that remailer, until you enable it again.

enable address [address ...]
    Shorthand for set showit=on pingit=on fetch=on.

set option=value [option=value..] address [address ...]
    Possible options and values:

    showit={on,off}
        Set showit (show remailer in mlist, rlist etc.) for remailer address to either on or off.

    pingit={on,off}
        Set pingit (send out pings to that remailer) for remailer address to either on or off.

    fetch={on,off}
        Set fetch (fetch remailer-key and remailer-conf) for remailer address to either on or off.

setremailercaps capsstring
    Some remailers (Mixmaster V2 - currently lcs and passthru2) don't return a useable remailer-conf message. For such remailers you need to set it manually.

    For instance:

        ./pingd setremailercaps '$remailer{"passthru2"} = "<mixer@immd1.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> mix middle";'
        ./pingd setremailercaps '$remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix@anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix klen1000";'

deleteremailercaps address
    Delete remailer-conf data for address. The config data will be reset from the next valid remailer-conf reply by the remailer.

getkeyconf [address [address ...]]
    Send a command to immediatly request keys and configuration from remailers. If no addresses are given requests will be sent to all remailers.

sendpings [address [address ...]]
    Send a command to immediatly send pings to the given remailers. If no addresses are given requests will be sent to all remailers.

sendchainpings address:address [address:address ...]
    Send a command to immediatly send chain pings to the given chains. A chain is two remailer addresses seperated by a colon.

buildstats
    Send a command to immediatly rebuild stats.

buildkeys
    Send a command to immediatly rebuild the keyrings.

buildthesaurus
    Send a command to immediatly rebuild the Thesaurus.

buildfromlines
    Send a command to immediatly rebuild the From Header lines page.

summary
    Print a status summary of all known addresses to the log (level notice).

dumpconf
    Dumps the current configuration to standard output.

OPTIONS

--basedir
    The home directory to which everything else is relative. See the BASE DIRECTORY section below.

--verbose
    Verbose mode. Causes pingd to print debugging messages about its progress.

--quiet
    Quiet mode. Be even quieter than normal.

--help
    Print a short help message and exit sucessfully.

--version
    Print version number and exit sucessfully.

--nohup
    Usefull only with the add, set, setremailercaps, deleteremailercaps, getkeyconf, sendpings, sendchainpings, buildstats, buildkeys, buildthesaurus, buildfromlines, or summary command.

    Don't send a HUP signal to the daemon which instructs it to process the commands after adding the command to the task list.

    By default such a signal is sent.

--process
    Usefull only with the start command.

    Read and process the commands file on startup.

--detach
    Usefull only with the start command.

    Tell pingd to detach.

BASE DIRECTORY
The home directory to which everything else is relative.

Basedir defaults to whatever directory the pingd binary is located. It can be overridden by the ECHOLOT_HOME environment variable which in turn is weaker than the --basedir setting.

This directory is then used to locate the configuration file pingd.conf (see FILES below).

The homedir setting in pingd.conf finally sets the base directory.

FILES
The configuration file is searched in these places in this order:

the file pointed to by the ECHOLOT_CONF environment variable
<basedir>/pingd.conf
$HOME/echolot/pingd.conf
$HOME/pingd.conf
$HOME/.pingd.conf
/etc/echolot/pingd.conf
/etc/pingd.conf

ENVIRONMENT

ECHOLOT_CONF echolot config file (see section FILES)
ECHOLOT_HOME echolot base directory (see section BASE DIRECTORY)

SIGNALS
On SIGINT, SIGQUIT, and SIGTERM pingd will schedule a shutdown for as soon as the current actions are finished or immediatly if no actions are currently being processed. It will then write all metadata and pingdata to disk and close all files cleanly before exiting.

On SIGHUP <pingd> will execute any pending commands from the commands file (commands.txt by default). It also closes and reopens the file 'output' which is used for stdout and stderr when the daemon is running detached. This can be used if you want to rotate that file.

AUTHOR
Peter Palfrader <peter@palfrader.org>

BUGS
Please report them at <URL:http://alioth.debian.org/projects/echolot/<gt>