NAME

bcnud - bcnu network server program

SYNOPSIS

bcnud -s port | -e errorlevel | -a | -q | -g minutes | -d | -v hostname

DESCRIPTION

bcnud is a network server daemon which accepts connections from a bcnu client on port 6666 by default.

It also acts as a scheduler for running of bcnu agents, a logging repository for data sent by clients and can also act as a simple static page web server.

OPTIONS

bcnud accepts the following command line options:

-s port: The -s option allows the bcnud server to listen to a port other than the default of 6666. a numeric port, a service from /etc/services or BCNUHOME/etc/services can be used.
-e errorlevel: The -e option tells the bcnud server to log all alerts greater this number as alerts. i.e. a bcnud.alert file will be created in the BCNUHOME/flags directory
-a: The -a option tells the bcnud server to write a message to the log file BCNUHOME/logs/bcnu.log each time an agent is run. This is off by default as it can generate a lot of output. It can be toggled on/off by sending a USR1 signal to the bcnud server.
-q: The -q option tells the bcnud server to log all incoming hostnames in full. By default bcnud will log only the hostname i.e. only up to the first dot and the domain name will be dropped.
-g minutes: The -g option tells the bcnud server to schedule agents with gap minutes delay when initially loading the agents file. This is to prevent all agents initially starting immediately the server is started. The default gap is 1.
-d: The -d option switches on some debugging (not up to much yet!)
-v: The -v option switches on slightly more verbose output (not up to much yet!)

RETURN VALUES

bcnud quits with an exit value of 1 if there is an error. The error string is printed to stderr via perror(3).

A message is also logged using the syslog facility.

An exit value of 0 is returned on success.

SECURITY NOTES

bcnud tries to be safe when sending and getting files. It will check the filename which is specified using the -n option for names like :

        ../../../etc/shadow

These will be flagged up and the process aborted.

-a reload requests will only be processed from the host defined as the master.

FILES

 BCNUHOME/etc/agents            agent config file for scheduling

 BCNUHOME/data/hosts/           logging area for agent info
 BCNUHOME/data/agents/          agent names logged here
 BCNUHOME/data/files/           files sent with no name specified
 BCNUHOME/data/yyyymmdd         agent message data files

 BCNUHOME/flags/bcnud.alert     signifies an error has been received
 BCNUHOME/flags/host.ignore     ignore errors for this host

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

 BCNUHOME               Set to a the bcnu home directory
 BCNUAGENT      Set to the name of the running agent
 BCNUHOST               Set to the hostname of the master system

AUTHOR

John Phillips

Please send all bugs, comments, and changes to jap@users.sourceforge.net

DISCLAIMER

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the Artistic License for more details.

CAVEATS

Security is weak at the moment. bcnu is designed to be easy to use, it has not been tested for all vulnerabilities.