NAME

     dhisd — Dynamic Host Information System server.

SYNOPSIS

     dhisd [-D] [-p port] [-d database] [-s services] [-l logfile] [-P pidfile]

DESCRIPTION

     DHIS is a client-server architecture meant to update databases for systems which are
     assigned a dynamic IP[v4] address.

     By the means of a DHIS client a host which is assigned a dynamic IP address (either from its
     ISP or from DHCP) is able to communicate with a DHIS server in order to advertise its newly
     acquired IP address.

     DHIS comprises a UDP based protocol to achieve this purpose.

     A DHIS client has a unique identification number and a set of authentication keys, runs in
     background, and attempts to reach its server.

     The DHIS server (permanently online) listens to UDP messages from its clients and
     authenticates these against its knowledge of keys. When authentication is successful the
     DHIS server updates one or more databases with the newly received IP address for the given
     client.

     The server then keeps sending, every period of time, check requests to each of its connected
     clients. These need to be acknowledged. If not the server will consider, on an individual
     basis, that the client has disconnected and will again update the databases to an offline
     state.

     Alternativelly the server may receive an OFFLINE_REQ packet from the client, in which case
     the DNS record is updated at once and the online state droped.

OPTIONS

     -D      Increase debug level.

     -p port
             Specify port to listen on. If not specified, the default is port 58800.

     -d database
             Use an alternative database file instead of /etc/dhis-server/dhis.db.

     -s services
             Use an alternative database file instead of /etc/dhis-server/services.db.

     -l logfile
             Use an alternative log file instead of /var/log/dhisd.log.

     -P pidfile
             Use an alternative PID file instead of /var/run/dhisd.pid.

FILES

     /etc/dhis-server/dhis.db
             DHIS client database.  Contains the credentials of clients.

     /etc/dhis-server/services.db
             DHIS service database.  Contains a list of services and the location of the
             corresponding DHIS engine plugins.

SEE ALSO

     dhis-genkeys(8)

AUTHOR

     dhisd has been written by Joao Cabral <jcnc@dhis.org>.

     This manual page was written by Guus Sliepen <guus@debian.org> for the Debian GNU/Linux
     system.