NAME

       "gvpe" - GNU Virtual Private Ethernet Daemon

SYNOPSIS

       gvpe [-cDlL] [--config=DIR] [--no-detach] [-l=LEVEL]] [--kill[=SIGNAL]] [--mlock] [--help]
       [--version] NODENAME [option...]

DESCRIPTION

       See the gvpe(5) man page for an introduction to the gvpe suite.

       This is the manual page for gvpe, the virtual private ethernet daemon.  When started, gvpe
       will read it's configuration file to determine the network topology, and other
       configuration information, assuming the role of node NODENAME

       It will then create/connect to the tun/tap device and set up a socket for incoming
       connections. Then a if-up script will be executed to further configure the virtual network
       device. If that succeeds, it will detach from the controlling terminal and continue in the
       background, accepting and setting up connections to other gvpe daemons that are part of
       the same virtual private ethernet.

       The optional arguments after the node name have to be of the form:

          [I<nodename>.]var=value

       If the argument has a prefix of nodename.  (i.e. laptop.enable-dns=yes) then it will be
       parsed after all the config directives for that node, if not, it is parsed before the
       first node directive in the config file, and can be used to set global options or default
       variables.

       For example, to start gvpe in the foreground, with log-level info on the node laptop, with
       TCP enabled and HTTP-Proxy host and Port set, use this:

         gvpe -D -l info laptop \
              http-proxy-host=10.0.0.18 http-proxy-port=3128 \
              laptop.enable-tcp=yes

OPTIONS

       -c, --config=DIR
           Read configuration options from DIR

       -d, --l=LEVEL
           Set logging level to LEVEL (one of: noise, trace, debug, info, notice, warn, error,
           critical).

       --help
           Display short list of options.

       -D, --no-detach
           Don't fork and detach but stay in foreground and log messages to stderr in addition to
           syslog.

       -L, --mlock
           Lock gvpe into main memory. This will prevent sensitive data like shared private keys
           to be written to the system swap files/partitions.

       --version
           Output version information and exit.

SIGNALS

       HUP Closes/resets all connections, resets the retry time and will start connecting again
           (it will NOT re-read the config file). This is useful e.g. in a /etc/ppp/if-up script.

       TERM
           Closes/resets all connections and exits.

       USR1
           Dump current network status into the syslog (at loglevel notice, so make sure your
           loglevel allows this).

FILES

       /etc/gvpe/gvpe.conf
           The configuration file for gvpe.

       /etc/gvpe/if-up
           Script which is executed as soon as the virtual network device has been allocated.
           Purpose is to further configure that device.

       /etc/gvpe/node-up
           Script which is executed whenever a node connects to this node. This can be used for
           example to run nsupdate.

       /etc/gvpe/node-down
           Script which is executed whenever a connection to another node is lost.  for example
           to run nsupdate.

       /etc/gvpe/pubkey/*
           The directory containing the public keys for every node, one file per node with the
           name of the node.

       /etc/gvpe/hostkey
           The file containing the private key of the node GVPE runs on. Unlike all the other
           files in the /etc/gvpe directory, this file usually differes for each node that GVPE
           runs on.

       /var/run/gvpe.pid
           The PID of the currently running gvpe is stored in this file.

BUGS

       The cryptography in gvpe has not been thoroughly checked by many people yet. Use it at
       your own risk!

       If you find any bugs, report them to gvpe@schmorp.de.

SEE ALSO

       gvpe(5) for an introduction, gvpe.conf(5), gvpectrl(8).

       The GVPE mailing list, at <http://lists.schmorp.de/> or gvpe@lists.schmorp.de.

       GVPE comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are welcome to
       redistribute it under certain conditions; see the file COPYING for details.

AUTHOR

       Marc Lehmann <gvpe@schmorp.de>.

       And thanks to many others for their contributions to gvpe, especially the tincd authors,
       who inspired me to write this program (after scavenging their source code ;).