README for the Public Version of asused 3.72
--------------------------------------------

Asused was written by the RIPE NCC:

  Email:  nccs@ripe.net
  Web:    http://www.ripe.net

Asused is a tool used by RIPE NCC hostmasters for checking various
aspects of our members' IP allocations and assignments as stored in
the RIPE database. We make it available to our members so they can
also check their own data. Our internal tool uses some more modules to
perform more checks which use information that is private to our
members, so the public distribution does not contain or require these
modules.

Instructions for Installing asused
----------------------------------

The installation procedure for asused is standard for modern Perl
programs and contains 3 steps:
 
1. Create the Makefile.
    
    You need to cd to the top level distribution directory and enter:
    
	perl Makefile.PL

    where 'perl' is the name of your Perl5 interpretator.
    That command will create a file named 'Makefile' in the current
    directory.

2. Compile the distribution.

    This step is also trivial, all you need is to enter:
    
        make
    
    This will verify all included packages and prepare them for
    further usage. When it has finished, you are ready to use
    asused from the directory with the distribution, just don't
    forget to provide a file with the relevant registry information
    (see 'Registry Information File' below).
    
    If you would like to use this program system-wide you can install
    it in the next step:

3. Install the program and supporting modules.

    To install asused executable and all supporting modules, become a
    superuser in your system and enter:
    
	make install
    
    That will copy all supporting modules to the directory where
    Perl5 keeps it's modules. asused will be installed to the common
    location of the executables ( usually, /usr/local/bin ).

4.  Maybe, you would like to update your IO::Socket and friends if make
    process will complain that your version is outdated.
    
    In this case unpack it from the extra/ directory and inside use the same
    sequence of:
    
	perl Makefile.PL
	make
	make install

    Optionally you can run 'make test' as well.
    

Registry Information File
-------------------------

To use asused, you need to fill a config file with your registry
information. You can put it into the asused.conf file in the current
working directory, or into .asusedrc in your home directory. 
Alternatively, you can specify an arbitary file location on the asused
command line with the --config switch.
    
The config file should contain:
    
REGID = your registry ID, as it was assigned by RIPE NCC
    
ALLOC = a set of strings, each of them should have one allocation
	string in a prefixed notation.

There is a file called asused.conf in this distribution containing
example data.


OS dependencies
---------------

We have tested asused on Slackware Linux, BSD/OS 3.1 and BSD/OS 4.1
but it should work on any modern UNIX-like operating system.

Run-time help
-------------

The command line options can be obtained by running:
    
	asused --help


Feedback
--------

Please send bug-reports and any other feedback to:

RIPE NCC software group,
sw-bugs@ripe.net

