PROXYMNGR(1)						      General Commands Manual						      PROXYMNGR(1)

NAME

       proxymngr - proxy manager service

SYNOPSIS

       proxymngr [-config filename] [-timeout seconds] [-retries #] [-verbose]

DESCRIPTION

       The  proxy manager (proxymngr) is responsible for resolving requests from xfindproxy (and other similar clients), starting new proxies when
       appropriate, and keeping track of all of the available proxy services.  The proxy manager strives to reuse existing proxies whenever possi-
       ble.

       There are two types of proxies that the proxy manager deals with, managed and unmanaged proxies.

       A managed proxy is a proxy that is started ``on demand'' by the proxy manager.

       An  unmanaged proxy, on the other hand, is started either at system boot time, or manually by a system administrator.  The proxy manager is
       made aware of its existence, but no attempt is made by the proxy manager to start unmanaged proxies.

       The command line options that can be specified to proxymngr are:

       -config Used to override the default proxymngr config file.  See below for more details about the config file.

       -timeout
	       Sets the number of seconds between attempts made by the proxy manager to find an unmanaged proxy.  The default is 10.

       -retries
	       Sets the maximum number of retries made by the proxy manager to find an an unmanaged proxy.  The default is 3.

       -verbose
	       Causes various debugging and tracing records to be displayed as requests are received and proxies are started.

Proxy Manager Config File
       The proxy manager maintains a local configuration file describing the proxy services available.	This configuration file  is  installed	in
       /usr/lib/X11/proxymngr/pmconfig	during the installation of proxymngr.  The location of the configuration file can be overwritten using the
       -config command line option.

       Aside from lines starting with an exclamation point for comments, each line of the configuration file describes either an unmanaged or man-
       aged proxy service.

       For unmanaged proxies, the format is:

	      <service-name> unmanaged <proxy-address>

       service-name  is  the  name  of	the  unmanaged proxy service, and must not contain any spaces, for example ``XFWP''.  service-name is case
       insensitive.

       proxy-address is the network address of the unmanaged proxy.  The format of the address is specific to the service-name.  For example,  for
       the ``XFWP'' service, the proxy-address might be ``firewall.x.org:100''.

       If  there  is more than one entry in the config file with the same unmanaged service-name, the proxy manager will try to use the proxies in
       the order presented in the config file.

       For managed proxies, the format is:

	      <service-name> managed <command-to-start-proxy>

       service-name is the name of the managed proxy service, and must not contain any spaces, for example ``LBX''.  service-name is case insensi-
       tive.

       command-to-start-proxy  is  the command executed by the proxy manager to start a new instance of the proxy.  If command-to-start-proxy con-
       tains spaces, the complete command should be surrounded by single quotes.  If desired, command-to-start-proxy can be used to start a  proxy
       on a remote machine.  The specifics of the remote execution method used to do this is not specified here.

EXAMPLE

       Here is a sample configuration file:

	      ! proxy manager config file
	      !
	      ! Each line has the format:
	      !    <serviceName> managed <startCommand>
	      !        or
	      !    <serviceName> unmanaged <proxyAddress>
	      !
	      lbx managed /usr/bin/lbxproxy
	      !
	      ! substitute site-specific info
	      xfwp unmanaged firewall:4444

PROXY MANAGER DETAILS

       When  the proxy manager gets a request from xfindproxy (or another similar client), its course of action will depend on the service-name in
       question.

       For a managed proxy service, the proxy manager will find out if any of the already running proxies  for	this  service  can  handle  a  new
       request.   If  not,  the  proxy manager will attempt to start up a new instance of the proxy (using the command-to-start-proxy found in the
       config file).  If that fails, an error will be returned to the caller.

       For an unmanaged proxy service, the proxy manager will look in the config file to find all unmanaged proxies for this service.  If there is
       more  than  one	entry  in the config file with the same unmanaged service-name, the proxy manager will try to use the proxies in the order
       presented in the config file.  If none of the unmanaged proxies can satisfy the request, the proxy manager will timeout for a  configurable
       amount  of time (specified by -timeout or default of 10) and reattempt to find an unmanaged proxy willing to satisfy the request.  The num-
       ber of retries can be specified by the -retries argument, or a default of 3 will be used.  If the retries fail, the proxy  manager  has	no
       choice but to return an error to the caller (since the proxy manager can not start unmanaged proxy services).

BUGS

       proxy manager listen port should be configurable.

       -timeout and -retries is not implemented in proxymngr.

       proxymngr does not utilize the ``options'' and ``host'' fields in the proxy management protocol GetProxyAddr request.

SEE ALSO

       xfindproxy (1), xfwp (1), Proxy Management Protocol spec V1.0

AUTHOR

       Ralph Mor, X Consortium

X Version 11							  proxymngr 1.0.1						      PROXYMNGR(1)