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Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software .\" without specific prior written permission. .\" .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF .\" SUCH DAMAGE. .\" .\" from: @(#)rwhod.8 8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93 .\" $NetBSD: rwhod.8,v 1.20 2005/09/12 18:33:56 wiz Exp $ .\" .Dd September 12, 2005 .Dt RWHOD 8 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm rwhod .Nd system status server .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl i Ar interval .Op Fl u Ar user .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm is the server which maintains the database used by the .Xr rwho 1 and .Xr ruptime 1 programs. Its operation is predicated on the ability to .Em broadcast messages on a network. .Pp The following options are available: .Bl -tag -width XXXXXXXXXXX .It Fl i Ar interval Allows for the broadcast interval to be changed from the default 3 minutes. The .Ar interval argument is the number of seconds to change the interval to, or if the value is suffixed by .Dq m then it is interpreted as minutes. The maximum allowed value for the broadcast interval is 11 minutes because higher values will cause .Xr ruptime 1 to mark the host as being down. .It Fl u Ar user Drop privileges and become the user .Ar user . .El .Pp .Nm operates as both a producer and consumer of status information. As a producer of information it periodically queries the state of the system and constructs status messages which are broadcast on a network. As a consumer of information, it listens for other .Nm servers' status messages, validating them, then recording them in a collection of files located in the directory .Pa /var/rwho . .Pp The server transmits and receives messages at the port indicated in the .Dq who service specification; see .Xr services 5 . The messages sent and received, are of the form: .Bd -literal -offset indent struct outmp { char out_line[8]; /* tty name */ char out_name[8]; /* user id */ int32_t out_time; /* time on */ }; struct whod { char wd_vers; char wd_type; char wd_fill[2]; int32_t wd_sendtime; int32_t wd_recvtime; char wd_hostname[32]; int32_t wd_loadav[3]; int32_t wd_boottime; struct whoent { struct outmp we_utmp; int32_t we_idle; } wd_we[1024 / sizeof (struct whoent)]; }; .Ed .Pp All fields are converted to network byte order prior to transmission. The load averages are as calculated by the .Xr w 1 program, and represent load averages over the 5, 10, and 15 minute intervals prior to a server's transmission; they are multiplied by 100 for representation in an integer. The host name included is that returned by the .Xr gethostname 3 function call, with any trailing domain name omitted. The array at the end of the message contains information about the users logged in to the sending machine. This information includes the contents of the .Xr utmp 5 entry for each non-idle terminal line and a value indicating the time in seconds since a character was last received on the terminal line. .Pp Messages received by the .Xr rwho 1 server are discarded unless they originated at an .Xr rwho 1 server's port. In addition, if the host's name, as specified in the message, contains any unprintable .Tn ASCII characters, the message is discarded. Valid messages received by .Nm are placed in files named .Pa whod.hostname in the directory .Pa /var/rwho . These files contain only the most recent message, in the format described above. .Pp Status messages are generated by default approximately once every 3 minutes. .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr ruptime 1 , .Xr rwho 1 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm command appeared in .Bx 4.2 . .Sh BUGS There should be a way to relay status information between networks. Status information should be sent only upon request rather than continuously. People often interpret the server dying or network communication failures as a machine going down.