Ubuntu Manpage: bird - BIRD Internet Routing Daemon

NAME

       bird - BIRD Internet Routing Daemon
       birdc - BIRD Internet Routing Daemon remote control
       birdcl - BIRD Internet Routing Daemon remote control light

SYNOPSIS

       bird [-c config-file] [-d] [-D debug-file] [-f] [-g group] [-l] [-p] [-P pid-file] [-R]
            [-s control-socket] [-u user]

       birdc [-l] [-r] [-s control-socket] [-v]

       birdcl [-l] [-r] [-s control-socket] [-v]

DESCRIPTION

       bird is an Internet Routing Daemon. That is, it sends and receives messages using
       different protocols in order to discover and exchange routing information with other
       routing daemons present on the same network. It is able to talk the most widely known
       routing protocols (such as BGPv4, RIPv2, OSPFv2 and OSPFv3), both on IPv4 and IPv6 and it
       features a very powerful language for route filtering.

       birdc is a remote control for bird. While bird is running, the system administrator can
       connect to it using birdc, to inspect its internal status and reconfigure it. The two
       processes use a Unix socket to communicate. Once started, bird will give access to an
       interactive shell: commands can be completed with TAB and help can be requested by
       pressing the key `?'. More documentation on the available commands can be found on the
       website, see below.

       birdcl is a light version of birdc remote control for bird without readline/ncurses
       support. TAB completion isn't available.

OPTIONS

The bird accepts these options:

-c config-file
Use given configuration file instead of the default /etc/bird/bird.conf.

-d
Enable debug messages to stderr, and run bird in foreground.

-D debug-file
Enable debug messages to given file.

-f
Run bird in foreground.

-g group
Run bird with given group ID.

--help
Display command-line options to bird.

-l
Look for a configuration file and a communication socket in the current working
directory instead of in default system locations. However, paths specified by options
-c, -s have higher priority.

-p
Just parse the config file and exit. Return value is zero if the config file is valid,
nonzero if there are some errors.

-P pid-file
Create a PID file with given filename.

-R
Apply graceful restart recovery after start.

-s control-socket
Use given filename for a socket for communications with the client (remote control),
default is /run/bird/bird.ctl.

-u user
Drop privileges and run as given user instead of root. The bird would keep
CAP_NET_ADMIN and other network-related capabilities necessary for its function.

--version
Display bird version.

birdc and birdcl accept these options:

-l
Look for a communication socket in the current working directory.

-r
Run birdc in restricted mode: only the `show ...' commands are allowed.

-s control-socket
Use given filename for a socket for communications with the server, default is
/run/bird/bird.ctl.

-v
Numeric return codes are dumped along with messages, making them easily parsable by a
program. See the programmer's documentation for information about their meanings.

FILES

       /etc/bird/bird.conf
           The system-wide configuration file to control the behaviour of bird. See the website
           for more documentation.

AUTHORS

       Giovanni Mascellani <mascellani@poisson.phc.unipi.it>
           Wrote this manpage for the Debian system.

       Jakub Ružička <jakub.ruzicka@nic.cz>
           Updated this manpage for birdcl.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2010 Giovanni Mascellani
       Copyright © 2022 Jakub Ružička

       This manual page was written for the Debian system (and may be used by others).

       Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of
       the GNU General Public License, Version 2 or (at your option) any later version published
       by the Free Software Foundation.

       On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in
       /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.