NAME

       pingd - echolot ping daemon

SYNOPSIS

       pingd start
       pingd stop
       pingd process
       pingd add address [address ...]
       pingd delete address [address ...]
       pingd disable address [address ...]
       pingd enable address [address ...]
       pingd set option=value [option=value..] address [address ...]
       pingd setremailercaps capsstring
       pingd deleteremailercaps address
       pingd getkeyconf [address [address ...]]
       pingd sendpings [address [address ...]]
       pingd sendchainpings address:address [address:address ...]
       pingd buildstats
       pingd buildkeys
       pingd buildthesaurus
       pingd buildfromlines
       pingd summary
       pingd dumpconf

DESCRIPTION

       pingd is the heart of echolot. Echolot is a pinger for anonymous remailers.

       A Pinger in the context of anonymous remailers is a program that regularily sends messages
       through remailers to check their reliability. It then calculates reliability statistics
       which are used by remailer clients to choose the chain of remailers to use.

       Additionally it collects configuration parameters and keys of all remailers and offers
       them in a format readable by remailer clients.

       When called without parameters pingd schedules tasks like sending pings, processing
       incoming mail and requesting remailer-xxx data and runs them at configurable intervalls.

COMMANDS

       start
           Start the ping daemon.

       stop
           Send the running pingd process a SIGTERM.

       process
           Sends a HUP signal to the daemon which instructs it to process the commands.

           For other effects of sending the HUP Signal see the SIGNALS section below.

       add address [address ...]
           Add address to the list of remailers to query for keys and confs.

       delete address [address ...]
           Delete address from the list of remailers to query for keys and confs. Delete all
           statistics and keys for that remailer.

           Note that echolot will add back this remailer if it learns of it from other remailers
           again.  If you do not want that, use the disable command.

       disable address [address ...]
           Shorthand for set showit=off pingit=off fetch=off.  This makes echolot completely
           ignore that remailer, until you enable it again.

       enable address [address ...]
           Shorthand for set showit=on pingit=on fetch=on.

       set option=value [option=value..] address [address ...]
           Possible options and values:

           showit={on,off}
               Set showit (show remailer in mlist, rlist etc.) for remailer address to either on
               or off.

           pingit={on,off}
               Set pingit (send out pings to that remailer) for remailer address to either on or
               off.

           fetch={on,off}
               Set fetch (fetch remailer-key and remailer-conf) for remailer address to either on
               or off.

       setremailercaps capsstring
           Some remailers (Mixmaster V2 - currently lcs and passthru2) don't return a useable
           remailer-conf message. For such remailers you need to set it manually.

           For instance:

               ./pingd setremailercaps '$remailer{"passthru2"} = "<mixer@immd1.informatik.uni-erlangen.de> mix middle";'
               ./pingd setremailercaps '$remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix@anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix klen1000";'

       deleteremailercaps address
           Delete remailer-conf data for address. The config data will be reset from the next
           valid remailer-conf reply by the remailer.

       getkeyconf [address [address ...]]
           Send a command to immediatly request keys and configuration from remailers.  If no
           addresses are given requests will be sent to all remailers.

       sendpings [address [address ...]]
           Send a command to immediatly send pings to the given remailers.  If no addresses are
           given requests will be sent to all remailers.

       sendchainpings address:address [address:address ...]
           Send a command to immediatly send chain pings to the given chains.  A chain is two
           remailer addresses seperated by a colon.

       buildstats
           Send a command to immediatly rebuild stats.

       buildkeys
           Send a command to immediatly rebuild the keyrings.

       buildthesaurus
           Send a command to immediatly rebuild the Thesaurus.

       buildfromlines
           Send a command to immediatly rebuild the From Header lines page.

       summary
           Print a status summary of all known addresses to the log (level notice).

       dumpconf
           Dumps the current configuration to standard output.

OPTIONS

       --basedir
           The home directory to which everything else is relative. See the BASE DIRECTORY
           section below.

       --verbose
           Verbose mode. Causes pingd to print debugging messages about its progress.

       --quiet
           Quiet mode. Be even quieter than normal.

       --help
           Print a short help message and exit sucessfully.

       --version
           Print version number and exit sucessfully.

       --nohup
           Usefull only with the add, set, setremailercaps, deleteremailercaps, getkeyconf,
           sendpings, sendchainpings, buildstats, buildkeys, buildthesaurus, buildfromlines, or
           summary command.

           Don't send a HUP signal to the daemon which instructs it to process the commands after
           adding the command to the task list.

           By default such a signal is sent.

       --process
           Usefull only with the start command.

           Read and process the commands file on startup.

       --detach
           Usefull only with the start command.

           Tell pingd to detach.

BASE DIRECTORY

       The home directory to which everything else is relative.

       Basedir defaults to whatever directory the pingd binary is located. It can be overridden
       by the ECHOLOT_HOME environment variable which in turn is weaker than the --basedir
       setting.

       This directory is then used to locate the configuration file pingd.conf (see FILES below).

       The homedir setting in pingd.conf finally sets the base directory.

FILES

       The configuration file is searched in these places in this order:

       the file pointed to by the ECHOLOT_CONF environment variable
       <basedir>/pingd.conf
       $HOME/echolot/pingd.conf
       $HOME/pingd.conf
       $HOME/.pingd.conf
       /etc/echolot/pingd.conf
       /etc/pingd.conf

ENVIRONMENT

       ECHOLOT_CONF echolot config file (see section FILES)
       ECHOLOT_HOME echolot base directory (see section BASE DIRECTORY)

SIGNALS

       On SIGINT, SIGQUIT, and SIGTERM pingd will schedule a shutdown for as soon as the current
       actions are finished or immediatly if no actions are currently being processed. It will
       then write all metadata and pingdata to disk and close all files cleanly before exiting.

       On SIGHUP <pingd> will execute any pending commands from the commands file (commands.txt
       by default).  It also closes and reopens the file 'output' which is used for stdout and
       stderr when the daemon is running detached.  This can be used if you want to rotate that
       file.

AUTHOR

       Peter Palfrader <peter@palfrader.org>

BUGS

       Please report them at <URL:http://alioth.debian.org/projects/echolot/>