PINGD(1) Echolot 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/>
2.1.8 2008-05-20 PINGD(1)