NAME

       lg_intro - introduction to the looking glass

INTRODUCTION

       The  looking  glass offers a web based interface to routers to users without their needing
       permission to login to the router.  This may be a perfect interface for  customer  support
       or  less  savvy  folks,  and  many ISPs have given public access to such an interface as a
       "route server."

DESCRIPTION

       The looking glass consists of two CGI perl(1) scripts,  lg.cgi  and  lgform.cgi,  and  the
       lg.conf(5) configuration file.

       Both  of these scripts begin with reading the configuration file.  If there is an error in
       the file's syntax or if the file can not be found, error messages  will  be  displayed  on
       standard-error.   The Apache http server redirects standard-error to its error log file by
       default.

       lgform.cgi displays a html form consisting of a list of possible router commands that  can
       be  run  and a scrolling list of routers that these commands may be run on.  When the form
       is submitted, lg.cgi is run.

       lg.cgi begins by performing some basic checks on the arguments passed  to  it.   If  these
       checks  pass,  lg.cgi either displays cached data from a previous invocation, if that data
       exists and is within the cache interval, or uses clogin(1) to  login  to  the  device  and
       execute  the  command.   The results of the command are cached if applicable and displayed
       for the user.

GETTING STARTED

       Besides lg.conf(5), additional instructions for setting up the looking glass can be  found
       in the README file under /var/lib/rancid/README.lg.

       Note  that  the looking glass scripts require a few perl modules not included with rancid.
       Rancid's configure process does not check for these.  See the README file.

SEE ALSO

       cloginrc(5), clogin(1), lg.conf(5)

HISTORY

       Rancid's looking glass is based on Ed Kern's (included by permission, thanks  Ed!),  which
       could once be found on http://nitrous.digex.net/ but has apparently been removed.  Support
       for Juniper and Foundry devices, use of rancid's  device  login  scripts,  and  additional
       commands and checks have been added to the original.

                                           24 Jan 2001                                lg_intro(7)