NAME

       netromd - Send and receive NET/ROM routing messages

SYNOPSIS

       netromd [-c] [-d] [-i] [-l] [-p pause] [-q quality] [-t interval] [-v]

DESCRIPTION

       For  a  NET/ROM  based  network  to  operate  correctly,  a  periodic broadcast of routing
       information needs to occur. Typically this occurs once every hour on every port  which  is
       expected  to  carry NET/ROM traffic. The purpose of netromd is to send and receive NET/ROM
       routing broadcasts. To operate correctly a set of  parameters  that  corresponds  to  each
       AX.25  port  needs  to  be  passed  to  the  program.  This  information  is  encoded in a
       configuration file, by default which is /etc/ax25/nrbroadcast with each line  representing
       one port, see the manual page for nrbroadcast(5).

       To cut down the length of these routing broadcasts, only the information about the highest
       quality neighbour for a particular node is transmitted.  The transmission is also  limited
       to  those node that have a certain minimum value in their obsolesence count, this value is
       decremented every time a routing broadcast is transmitted, and is refreshed by receiving a
       routing broadcast which contains that particular node.

       The  value  of  the  default quality is traditionally assigned a value that represents the
       quality of the radio links on that port. A higher number representing better  radio  links
       with 255 (the maximum) reserved for wire connections. The practise in the UK is to set the
       default quality to a low value, typically 10, and manually set up the trusted neighbouring
       nodes in the neighbour list manually. The worst quality for auto-updates value is a way to
       filter out low quality (ie distant) nodes.

       The verbose flag may be either 0 or 1, representing no and  yes.  By  specifying  no,  the
       program  will  only  generate  a  routing message containing information about the node on
       which it is running, by specifying the yes  option,  all  the  information  in  the  nodes
       routing  tables  will be transmitted.  The quality advertised for the other node callsigns
       on this machine may be set using the -q option.

       Between each transmission netromd pauses for five seconds  (default)  in  order  to  avoid
       flooding  the channels that it must broadcast on. The value of this delay is settable with
       the -p option.

OPTIONS

       -c              Forces strict compliance to Software 2000 specifications. At present  this
                       only  determines  how  node  mnemonics  with lower case characters will be
                       handled.  With compliance  enabled  mixed  case  node  mnemonics  will  be
                       ignored. The default is to accept node mnemonics of mixed case.

       -d              Switches  on  debugging  messages,  the  default  is  off. Logging must be
                       enabled for them to be output.

       -i              Transmit a routing broadcast immediately, the default is to wait  for  the
                       time interval to elapse before transmitting the first routing broadcast.

       -l              Enables  logging  of  errors  and  debug  messages  to the system log. The
                       default is off.

       -p pause        Sets the delay  between  transmissions  of  individual  routing  broadcast
                       packets. The default is five seconds.

       -q quality      Sets  the  quality  of the subsidiary nodes relative to the main node. The
                       default is 255.

       -t interval     The time interval between routing broadcasts, in minutes. The  default  is
                       60 minutes.

       -v              Display the version.

FILES

       /proc/net/nr_neigh
       /proc/net/nr_nodes
       /etc/ax25/axports
       /etc/ax25/nrbroadcast

SEE ALSO

       ax25(4), axports(5), nrbroadcast(5), netrom(4), nrparms(8).

AUTHOR

       Jonathan Naylor G4KLX <g4klx@g4klx.demon.co.uk>