RSTARTD(1) General Commands Manual RSTARTD(1)
NAME
rstartd - a sample implementation of a Remote Start rsh helper
SYNOPSIS
rstartd
rstartd.real [-c configfilename]
DESCRIPTION
Rstartd is an implementation of a Remote Start "helper" as defined in "A
Flexible Remote Execution Protocol Based on rsh".
This document describes the peculiarities of rstartd and how it is con-
figured.
OPTIONS
-c configfilename
This option specifies the "global" configuration file that
rstartd is to read. Normally, rstartd is a shell script that
invokes rstartd.real with the -c switch, allowing local configu-
ration of the location of the configuration file. If
rstartd.real is started without the -c option, it reads
/etc/X11/rstart/config.
INSTALLATION
It is critical to successful interoperation of the Remote Start protocol
that rstartd be installed in a directory which is in the "default"
search path, so that default rsh requests and the ilk will be able to
find it.
CONFIGURATION AND OPERATION
Rstartd is by design highly configurable. One would like things like
configuration file locations to be fixed, so that users and administra-
tors can find them without searching, but reality is that no two vendors
will agree on where things should go, and nobody thinks the original lo-
cation is "right". Thus, rstartd allows one to relocate all of its
files and directories.
Rstartd has a hierarchy of configuration files which are executed in or-
der when a request is made. They are:
global config
per-user ("local") config
global per-context config
per-user ("local") per-context config
config from request
As you might guess from the presence of "config from request", all of
the config files are in the format of an rstart request. Rstartd de-
fines a few additional keywords with the INTERNAL- prefix for specifying
its configuration.
Rstartd starts by reading and executing the global config file. This
file will normally specify the locations of the other configuration
files and any systemwide defaults.
Rstartd will then read the user's local config file, default name
$HOME/.rstart.
Rstartd will then start interpreting the request.
Presumably one of the first lines in the request will be a CONTEXT line.
The context name is converted to lower case.
Rstartd will read the global config file for that context, default name
/usr/lib/X11/rstart/contexts/<name>, if any.
It will then read the user's config file for that context, default name
$HOME/.rstart.contexts/<name>, if any.
(If neither of these exists, rstartd aborts with a Failure message.)
Rstartd will finish interpreting the request, and execute the program
specified.
This allows the system administrator and the user a large degree of con-
trol over the operation of rstartd. The administrator has final say,
because the global config file doesn't need to specify a per-user config
file. If it does, however, the user can override anything from the
global file, and can even completely replace the global context config
files.
The config files have a somewhat more flexible format than requests do;
they are allowed to contain blank lines and lines beginning with "#" are
comments and ignored. (#s in the middle of lines are data, not comment
markers.)
Any commands run are provided a few useful pieces of information in en-
vironment variables. The exact names are configurable, but the supplied
defaults are:
$RSTART_CONTEXT
$RSTART_GLOBAL_CONTEXTS the global contexts directory
$RSTART_LOCAL_CONTEXTS the local contexts directory
$RSTART_GLOBAL_COMMANDS the global generic commands directory
$RSTART_LOCAL_COMMANDS the local generic commands directory
$RSTART_{GLOBAL,LOCAL}_CONTEXTS should contain one special file, @List,
which contains a list of the contexts in that directory in the format
specified for ListContexts. The supplied version of ListContexts will
cat both the global and local copies of @List.
Generic commands are searched for in several places: (defaults)
per-user per-context directory ($HOME/.rstart.commands/<context>)
global per-context directory (/usr/lib/X11/rstart/commands/<context>)
per-user all-contexts directory ($HOME/.rstart.commands)
global all-contexts directory (/usr/lib/X11/rstart/commands)
(Yes, this means you can't have an all-contexts generic command with the
same name as a context. It didn't seem like a big deal.)
Each of these directories should have a file called @List that gives the
names and descriptions of the commands in that directory in the format
specified for ListGenericCommands.
CONFIGURATION KEYWORDS
There are several "special" rstart keywords defined for rstartd configu-
ration. Unless otherwise specified, there are no defaults; related fea-
tures are disabled in this case.
INTERNAL-REGISTRIES name ...
Gives a space-separated list of "MISC" registries that this sys-
tem understands. (Registries other than this are accepted but
generate a Warning.)
INTERNAL-LOCAL-DEFAULT relative_filename
Gives the name ($HOME relative) of the per-user config file.
INTERNAL-GLOBAL-CONTEXTS absolute_directory_name
Gives the name of the system-wide contexts directory.
INTERNAL-LOCAL-CONTEXTS relative_directory_name
Gives the name ($HOME relative) of the per-user contexts direc-
tory.
INTERNAL-GLOBAL-COMMANDS absolute_directory_name
Gives the name of the system-wide generic commands directory.
INTERNAL-LOCAL-COMMANDS relative_directory_name
Gives the name ($HOME relative) of the per-user generic commands
directory.
INTERNAL-VARIABLE-PREFIX prefix
Gives the prefix for the configuration environment variables
rstartd passes to its kids.
INTERNAL-AUTH-PROGRAM authscheme program argv[0] argv[1] ...
Specifies the program to run to set up authentication for the
specified authentication scheme. "program argv[0] ..." gives
the program to run and its arguments, in the same form as the
EXEC keyword.
INTERNAL-AUTH-INPUT authscheme
Specifies the data to be given to the authorization program as
its standard input. Each argument is passed as a single line.
$n, where n is a number, is replaced by the n'th argument to the
"AUTH authscheme arg1 arg2 ..." line.
INTERNAL-PRINT arbitrary text
Prints its arguments as a Debug message. Mostly for rstartd de-
bugging, but could be used to debug config files.
NOTES
When using the C shell, or any other shell which runs a script every
time the shell is started, the script may get run several times. In the
worst case, the script may get run three times:
By rsh, to run rstartd
By rstartd, to run the specified command
By the command, eg xterm
rstartd currently limits lines, both from config files and requests, to
BUFSIZ bytes.
DETACH is implemented by redirecting file descriptors 0,1, and 2 to
/dev/null and forking before executing the program.
CMD is implemented by invoking $SHELL (default /bin/sh) with "-c" and
the specified command as arguments.
POSIX-UMASK is implemented in the obvious way.
The authorization programs are run in the same context as the target
program - same environment variables, path, etc. Long term this might
be a problem.
In the X context, GENERIC-CMD Terminal runs xterm. In the OpenWindows
context, GENERIC-CMD Terminal runs cmdtool.
In the X context, GENERIC-CMD LoadMonitor runs xload. In the OpenWin-
dows context, GENERIC-CMD LoadMonitor runs perfmeter.
GENERIC-CMD ListContexts lists the contents of @List in both the system-
wide and per-user contexts directories. It is available in all con-
texts.
GENERIC-CMD ListGenericCommands lists the contents of @List in the sys-
tem-wide and per-user commands directories, including the per-context
subdirectories for the current context. It is available in all con-
texts.
CONTEXT None is not implemented.
CONTEXT Default is really dull.
For installation ease, the "contexts" directory in the distribution con-
tains a file "@Aliases" which lists a context name and aliases for that
context. This file is used to make symlinks in the contexts and com-
mands directories.
All MISC values are passed unmodified as environment variables.
One can mistreat rstartd in any number of ways, resulting in anything
from stupid behavior to core dumps. Other than by explicitly running
programs I don't think it can write or delete any files, but there's no
guarantee of that. The important thing is that (a) it probably won't do
anything REALLY stupid and (b) it runs with the user's permissions, so
it can't do anything catastrophic.
@List files need not be complete; contexts or commands which are dull or
which need not or should not be advertised need not be listed. In par-
ticular, per-user @List files should not list things which are in the
system-wide @List files. In the future, perhaps ListContexts and List-
GenericCommands will automatically suppress lines from the system-wide
files when there are per-user replacements for those lines.
Error handling is OK to weak. In particular, no attempt is made to
properly report errors on the exec itself. (Perversely, exec errors
could be reliably reported when detaching, but not when passing the
stdin/out socket to the app.)
If compiled with -DODT1_DISPLAY_HACK, rstartd will work around a bug in
SCO ODT version 1. (1.1?) (The bug is that the X clients are all com-
piled with a bad library that doesn't know how to look host names up us-
ing DNS. The fix is to look up a host name in $DISPLAY and substitute
an IP address.) This is a trivial example of an incompatibility that
rstart can hide.
SEE ALSO
rstart(1), rsh(1), A Flexible Remote Execution Protocol Based on rsh
AUTHOR
Jordan Brown, Quarterdeck Office Systems
X Version 11 rstart 1.0.6 RSTARTD(1)
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