whoson.conf(5)

NAME

whoson.conf - whoson configuration file

SYNOPSYS

/etc/whoson.conf

DESCRIPTION

whoson.conf is the file that controls operation of both whosond(8) daemon and whoson(3) API functions.

General structure

whoson.conf file contains of a serias of entries. Each entry starts with a line containing the word server or client from the first position, followed by a word speci
fying the entry type. Then, there may follow arbitrary
number of keyword=value pairs, in the same line or in the continuation lines. Continuation lines start with whites
pace. Hash (#) character specify the logical end of the
line; comment may follow. All-whitespace lines are
ignored.

Server entry

There are currently 5 types of server entries: tcp, udp, unix, unixd, and global.

tcp server entry must contain port=number keyword-value pair and may contain keepalive=number, allow=pattern, and deny=pattern pairs.

udp server entry must contain port=number keyword-value pair and may contain allow=pattern, and deny=pattern pairs.

unix server entry must contain port=path keyword-value pair and may contain keepalive=number pair.

unixd server entry must contain port=path keyword-value pair.

global is a special server entry that contains parameters that are not specific to a particular communication proto
col. Currntly supported global parameters are ttl=number, cachesize=number, user=userid, group=group id

port=number or port=path specifies the IP port number to listen on in dotted quad notation, or path name for UNIX
domain socket.

allow=pattern and deny=pattern specify which clients are allowed to the server. pattern is dotted quad address followed by the number of bits to check after a slash (/)
character. If that many bits of the peer IP address
matches the address specified in the pattern, the pattern
is considered matching. Of matching patterns, the one
with maximum number of bits is used. By default, all
clients are denied.

keepalive=number specifies the number of seconds to keep the connection to the client open when the client does not
send any requests. This is only applicable to streaming
connection protocols.

ttl=number is the global parameter specifying the number of seconds to keep an entry in the database if it is not
deleted explicitly.

cachesize=number is the global parameter specifying the maximum number of entries to keep in the database.

user=userid is the (symbolic) user id to change to after the daemon binds to the sockets. It may be wise to set to
nobody for security reasons. Only will work if the daemon is started by root.

group=group id - the same for group. If not specified, the group of the user is set.

Example:

server tcp keepalive=600

port=9876 allow=123.45.67.0/24 deny=123.45.67.89/32

Client entry

There are currently 4 types of client entries: tcp, udp, unix and unixd.

tcp client entry must contain port=number and address=addrspec keyword-value pairs.

udp client entry must contain port=number and address=addrspec keyword-value pairs and may contain allow=pattern, inittimeout=number and maxtries=number pairs.

unix client entry must contain port=path keyword-value pair.

unixd client entry must contain port=path keyword-value pair and may contain inittimeout=number and maxtries=num_ ber pairs.

port=number or port=path specifies the IP port number to connect in dotted quad notation, or path name for UNIX
domain socket.

address=addrspec specify the IP address of the server in dotted quad notation.

inittimeout=number is the initical timeout in microseconds to wait for the server responce. After timeout is
expired, the request is resent and the timeout is doubled.

maxtries=number is the number of retries to make is the server does not respond.

allow=pattern, and deny=pattern for the udp client specify the set of IP addresses from which the server responce is
allowed. If not present, the server address must exactly
match the address value. Specifying different set of addresses may be necessary if the server has multiple IP
interfaces and there is no way to predict which of them
will be used as the source address in the UDP packet.

All configured entries are tried in order until a working
one is found.

It may be wise to avoid tcp connection protocol because of
considerable startup overhead and because if destination
host is not responding, it may take very long time for
connect() to detect failure.

Example:

client udp

port=9876
address=123.45.67.89 inittimeout=200000
maxtries=3

COPYRIGHT

Public domain

SEE ALSO

whoson(3), whosond(8)

WHOSON 06 Jun 1998 WHOSON.CONF(5)