Speak Freely for Unix: sflwld

by John Walker

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SFLWLD(1)                USER COMMANDS                  SFLWLD(1)

NAME
     sflwld - Speak Freely Look Who's Listening server

SYNOPSIS
     sflwld [ -duv ] [ -fserver,...  ] [ -hpath ] [ -iinterval ]
            [ -mmsgfile ] [ -pport ] [ -zpath ]

DESCRIPTION
     sflwld is a server daemon which maintains a  list  of  users
     running  Speak  Freely  who  identify themselves to the site
     running the server.  sflwld responds to  requests  and  sup-
     plies  contact  information  to  allow  users  to  find  one
     another's Internet addresses.  sflwld allows users  to  find
     one another and establish Speak Freely conversations even if
     one or both have dial-up Internet connections where the host
     name  and  Internet  address  vary  from session to session.
     Servers can forward information to one another,  allowing  a
     user  who  queries one server in a mutually-forwarding group
     to find users connected to any server in the group.

OPTIONS
     -d        Enables debug output.

     -fserver,...
               Information received from users directly connected
               to  this  server  will be forwarded to all servers
               listed.  Server names can be either numeric IP ad-
               dresses  or  host  names,  and  may specify a port
               number appended to the  server  address  or  name,
               separated  by  a  colon.   Multiple servers can be
               specified, separated by commas, up to a maximum of
               5.

     -hpath    An HTML file is written to the given path name  (a
               fully qualified file name, less the .html suffix),
               listing all users currently registered  with  this
               server.  Publishing this HTML file as a World-Wide
               Web document on the server allows easy access to a
               list  of  all active users who have sent their in-
               formation there.

     -iinterval
               The HTML files written by the -h  and  -z  options
               will be updated every interval seconds if a change
               has occurred during that period.  If  interval  is
               set  to  zero, the files are updated at the moment
               of any change.

     -mmsgfile The contents of the text file msgfile  are  loaded
               and  used as the ``server welcome message''.  This
               message usually identifies the server  and  points
               to  the  HTML  file  containing the list of active
               sites.

     -pport    Causes sflwld to  listen  on  the  specified  port
               number  instead  of  the default port specified by
               ``INTERNET_PORT''+2 in the Makefile.  Specifying a
               nonstandard  port  number  will cause Speak Freely
               clients that haven't been  similarly  reconfigured
               to fail to contact the server; the main reason for
               using a nonstandard port number is to permit test-
               ing  an  experimental server on a machine which is
               running a production server.

     -u        Prints how-to-call information.

     -v        Causes sflwld to log all  connections,  disconnec-
               tions, and timeouts to standard output.

     -zpath    An HTML file is written to the given path name  (a
               fully qualified file name, less the .html suffix),
               listing all users currently registered  with  this
               server,  regardless of whether they requested pub-
               lic disclosure of their identity by wildcard match
               or not.  This option allows the system administra-
               tor to see all users communicating with the server
               without  making  this  information publicly avail-
               able.  There's nothing to  prevent  a  rogue  site
               manager  from  publishing  the complete user list,
               but since a user can easily  determine  whether  a
               request  for  "exact match only" has been complied
               with, circumspect users will shun sites which  ig-
               nore their request for discretion.

FILES
     The -h and -z options create HTML files with the given  base
     name  and  an extension of .new, then swap the new files for
     any previously-existing files with an  extension  of  .html.
     The  file  update  process avoids the risk of transferring a
     file in the process of being written.

BUGS
     The number of matching items returned  is  limited  to  what
     will  fit  in a single 512 byte packet.  This is deliberate;
     users who wish to browse active  sites  should  consult  the
     HTML  file  published  with the -h option rather than tie up
     the server running  sflwld  with  individual  wild-card  re-
     quests.

SEE ALSO
     sflwl(1), sfmike(1), sfspeaker(1)

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by John Walker
April 25, 1996