PROXYMNGR(1)PROXYMNGR(1)NAMEproxymngr - proxy manager service
SYNOPSISproxymngr [-config filename] [-timeout seconds] [-retries
#] [-verbose]
DESCRIPTION
The proxy manager (proxymngr) is responsible for resolving
requests from xfindproxy (and other similar clients),
starting new proxies when appropriate, and keeping track
of all of the available proxy services. The proxy manager
strives to reuse existing proxies whenever possible.
There are two types of proxies that the proxy manager
deals with, managed and unmanaged proxies.
A managed proxy is a proxy that is started ``on demand''
by the proxy manager.
An unmanaged proxy, on the other hand, is started either
at system boot time, or manually by a system administra-
tor. The proxy manager is made aware of its existence,
but no attempt is made by the proxy manager to start
unmanaged proxies.
The command line options that can be specified to proxym-
ngr are:
-config Used to override the default proxymngr config
file. See below for more details about the config
file.
-timeout
Sets the number of seconds between attempts made
by the proxy manager to find an unmanaged proxy.
The default is 10.
-retries
Sets the maximum number of retries made by the
proxy manager to find an an unmanaged proxy. The
default is 3.
-verbose
Causes various debugging and tracing records to be
displayed as requests are received and proxies are
started.
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PROXYMNGR(1)PROXYMNGR(1)Proxy Manager Config File
The proxy manager maintains a local configuration file
describing the proxy services available. This configura-
tion file is installed in /usr/X11R6.4/lib/X11/proxym-
ngr/pmconfig during the installation of proxymngr. The
location of the configuration file can be overwritten
using the -config command line option.
Aside from lines starting with an exclamation point for
comments, each line of the configuration file describes
either an unmanaged or managed proxy service.
For unmanaged proxies, the format is:
<service-name> unmanaged <proxy-address>
service-name is the name of the unmanaged proxy service,
and must not contain any spaces, for example ``XFWP''.
service-name is case insenstive.
proxy-address is the network address of the unmanaged
proxy. The format of the address is specific to the ser-
vice-name. For example, for the ``XFWP'' service, the
proxy-address might be ``firewall.x.org:100''.
If there is more than one entry in the config file with
the same unmanaged service-name, the proxy manager will
try to use the proxies in the order presented in the con-
fig file.
For managed proxies, the format is:
<service-name> managed <command-to-start-proxy>
service-name is the name of the managed proxy service, and
must not contain any spaces, for example ``LBX''. ser-
vice-name is case insensitive.
command-to-start-proxy is the command executed by the
proxy manager to start a new instance of the proxy. If
command-to-start-proxy contains spaces, the complete com-
mand should be surrounded by single quotes. If desired,
command-to-start-proxy can be used to start a proxy on a
remote machine. The specifics of the remote execution
method used to do this is not specified here.
EXAMPLE
Here is a sample configuration file:
! proxy manager config file
!
! Each line has the format:
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PROXYMNGR(1)PROXYMNGR(1)
! <serviceName> managed <startCommand>
! or
! <serviceName> unmanaged <proxyAddress>
!
lbx managed /usr/X11R6.4/bin/lbxproxy
!
! substitute site-specific info
xfwp unmanaged firewall:4444
PROXY MANAGER DETAILS
When the proxy manager gets a request from xfindproxy (or
another similar client), its course of action will depend
on the service-name in question.
For a managed proxy service, the proxy manager will find
out if any of the already running proxies for this service
can handle a new request. If not, the proxy manager will
attempt to start up a new instance of the proxy (using the
command-to-start-proxy found in the config file). If that
fails, an error will be returned to the caller.
For an unmanaged proxy service, the proxy manager will
look in the config file to find all unmanaged proxies for
this service. If there is more than one entry in the con-
fig file with the same unmanaged service-name, the proxy
manager will try to use the proxies in the order presented
in the config file. If none of the unmanged proxies can
satisfy the request, the proxy manager will timeout for a
configurable amount of time (specified by -timeout or
default of 10) and reattempt to find an unmanaged proxy
willing to satisfy the request. The number of retries can
be specified by the -retries argument, or a default of 3
will be used. If the retries fail, the proxy manager has
no choice but to return an error to the caller (since the
proxy manager can not start unmanaged proxy services).
BUGS
proxy manager listen port should be configurable.
-timeout and -retries is not implemented in proxymngr.
proxymngr does not utilize the ``options'' and ``host''
fields in the proxy management protocol GetProxyAddr
request.
SEE ALSO
xfindproxy (1), xfwp (1), Proxy Management Protocol spec
V1.0
AUTHOR
Ralph Mor, X Consortium
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