1BLINKENLIGHTS(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation BLINKENLIGHTS(1)
2
6 blinkenlights - DNSSEC-Tools rollerd GUI
7
9 blinkenlights <rollrec-file>
10
12 blinkenlights is a GUI tool for use with monitoring and controlling the
13 DNSSEC-Tools rollerd program. It displays information on the current
14 state of the zones rollerd is managing. The user may control some
15 aspects of rollerd's execution using blinkenlights menu commands.
16 blinkenlights creates a window in which to display information about
18 each zone rollerd is managing. (These zones are those in rollerd's
19 current rollrec file.) As a zone's rollover status changes,
20 blinkenlights will update its display for that zone. Skipped zones,
21 zones listed in the rollrec file but which are not in rollover or
22 normal operation, are displayed but have very little useful information
23 to display.
24 The user may also select a set of zones to hide from the display.
26 These zones, if in the rolling state, will continue to roll; however,
27 their zone information will not be displayed. Display state for each
28 zone will persist across blinkenlights executions.
29 Menu commands are available for controlling rollerd. The commands
31 which operate on a single zone may be executed by keyboard shortcuts.
32 The zone may be selected either by clicking in its "zone stripe" or by
33 choosing from a dialog box. Display and execution options for
34 blinkenlights are also available through menu commands. More
35 information about the menu commands is available in the MENU COMMANDS
36 section.
37 blinkenlights is only intended to be started by rollerd, not directly
39 by a user. There are two ways to have rollerd start blinkenlights.
40 First, rollctl may be given the -display option. Second, the -display
41 option may be given on rollerd's command line.
42
44 blinkenlights takes the following options:
45 -display
47 Tells rollerd to execute blinkenlights as a child process.
48 -maxzones
50 Tells blinkenlights how many zones to display.
51 -Version
53 Displays the version information for blinkenlights and the DNSSEC-
54 Tools package.
55 -help
57 Displays a usage message and exits.
58
60 The blinkenlights window is laid out as a series of "stripes". The top
61 stripe contains status information about rollerd, the second stripe
62 contains column headers, and the bulk of the window consists of zone
63 stripes. The list below provides more detail on the contents of each
64 stripe.
65 See the WINDOW COLORS section for a discussion of the colors used for
67 the zone stripes.
68 • rollerd information stripe
70 The information stripe contains five pieces of information:
72 rollerd's current rollrec file, the count of rolling zones, the
73 count of skipped zones, the count of zones to be displayed, and the
74 amount of time rollerd waits between processing its queue.
75 Coincidentally, that last datum is also the amount of time between
76 blinkenlights screen updates.
77 • column headers stripe
79 This stripe contains the column headers for the columns of each
81 zone stripe.
82 • zone stripes
84 Each zone managed by rollerd (i.e., every zone in the current
86 rollrec file) will have a zone stripe which describes that zone's
87 current state. The stripe is divided into three sections: zone
88 identification, the current rollover state, and the zone's DNSSEC
89 keys.
90 The zone identification section contains the name of the zone, the
92 name of the zone's rollrec entry, and the zone's zonegroup.
93 The rollover state section contains the rollover phase number, a
95 text explanation of the phase, and the amount of time remaining in
96 that rollover phase. The phase explanation is "normal operation"
97 when the zone isn't currently in rollover.
98 The DNSSEC key section contains two subsections, one for the zone's
100 ZSK keys and another for the zone's KSK keys. Each subsection
101 contains the names of the signing sets active for the zone. The
102 ZSK subsection lists the Current, Published, and New ZSK keys; the
103 KSK subsection lists the Current and Published.
104 See the WINDOW COLORS section for a discussion of the colors used
106 for the zone stripes.
107
109 The default blinkenlights configuration uses window coloring to provide
110 visual cues and to aid in easily distinguishing zone information. The
111 default window coloring behavior gives each zone stripe has its own
112 color and the rollover state section of each zone stripe is shaded to
113 show the zone's phase. Window coloring can be turned off (and on) with
114 configuration options and menu commands.
115 Color Usage
117 The two window coloring behaviors are discussed more fully below:
118 • zone stripe colors
120 Each rolling zone's stripe is given one of three colors: blue,
122 red, or green. The color is assigned on a top-down basis and the
123 colors wrap if there are more than three zones. So, the first zone
124 is always blue, the second zone red, the third zone green, the
125 fourth zone blue, etc.
126 The colors do not stay with a particular zone. If a rolling zone
128 becomes a skipped zone, the zone stripes will be reassigned new
129 colors to account for that skipped zone.
130 Skipped zones are not colored with these three colors. Stripes for
132 skipped zones are colored either grey or a color set in the
133 configuration file. If you choose to use a non-standard color for
134 skipped zones your should ensure that it is not one of the colors
135 used for rolling zones' stripes. Modifying the skipcolor
136 configuration field allows the skipped-zone color to be changing.
137 The colors configuration field can be used to turn on or off the
139 use of colors for zone stripes. If stripe coloring is turned off,
140 then every stripe will be displayed using the skipcolor color.
141 • rollover-state shading
143 The only portion of a zone stripe that changes color is the status
145 column; the color of the rest of the zone stripe stays constant.
146 Before a zone enters rollover, the status column is the same color
147 as the rest of the stripe. When the zone enters rollover, the
148 status column's color is changed to a very light shade of the
149 stripe's normal color. As the rollover phases progress towards
150 rollover completion, the status column's shade darkens. Once
151 rollover completes, the status column returns again to the same
152 shade as the rest of that stripe.
153 The shading configuration field can be used to turn on or off the
155 use of shading in the rollover-state column. If shading is turned
156 off, then the zone stripe will be a solid color.
157 See the CONFIGURATION FILE section for information on setting the
159 configuration fields.
160 Colors Used
162 The color names are taken from the X11 rgb.txt file (X11 1.1.3 -
163 XFree86 4.4.0 for MacOS X.) If these aren't available in your rgb.txt
164 file, similar names should be selected. The actual red/green/blue
165 values used are given below to assist in finding suitable replacements.
166 These values were taken from the rgb.txt file.
167 Blue Shades:
169 blue 0 0 255
171 lightblue2 178 223 238
172 darkslategray1 151 255 255
173 skyblue1 135 206 255
174 steelblue1 99 184 255
175 turquoise1 0 245 255
176 cornflower blue 100 149 237
177 dodger blue 30 144 255
178 Red Shades:
180 red 255 0 0
182 pink 255 192 203
183 lightsalmon1 255 160 122
184 tomato 255 99 71
185 indianred 205 92 92
186 violetred1 255 62 150
187 orangered1 255 69 0
188 firebrick1 255 48 48
189 Green Shades:
191 green 0 255 0
193 darkseagreen1 193 255 193
194 darkolivegreen1 202 255 112
195 lightgreen 144 238 144
196 seagreen1 84 255 159
197 spring green 0 255 127
198 greenyellow 173 255 47
199 lawngreen 124 252 0
200
202 A number of menu commands are available to control the behavior of
203 blinkenlights and to send commands to rollerd. These commands are
204 discusses in this section.
205 File Menu
207 The commands in this menu are basic GUI commands.
208 • Halt Rollerd After Current Operations
210 rollerd's execution is halted after completing its current set of
212 zone operations. As a result, blinkenlights' execution will also
213 be halted.
214 • Halt Rollerd Now
216 rollerd's execution is halted immediately. As a result,
218 blinkenlights' execution will also be halted. If rollerd's command
219 queue already contains a set of commands, they may be processed
220 prior to this command.
221 • Quit
223 blinkenlights will stop execution.
225 Options Menu
227 The commands in this menu control the appearance and behavior of
228 blinkenlights.
229 • Row Colors (toggle)
231 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the coloring of zone
233 stripes. If row coloring is turned off, zone stripes will all be
234 the same color. If row coloring is turned on, zone stripes will be
235 displayed in varying colors. See the WINDOW COLORS section for a
236 discussion of row coloring.
237 • Status Column Shading (toggle)
239 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the shading of the
241 zone status column. If shading is turned off, the zone stripes
242 will present a solid, unchanging band of color for each zone. If
243 shading is turned on, the color of the zone status column will
244 change according to the zone's rollover state.
245 • Skipped Zones Display (toggle)
247 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of skipped
249 zones. If display is turned off, zone stripes for skipped zones
250 will not be displayed. If display is turned on, zone stripes for
251 all zones will be displayed.
252 • Status Times Display (toggle)
254 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of status
256 times. If display is turned off, the remaining time for a rollover
257 phase will not be displayed in the "Status" column. If display is
258 turned on, the remaining times will be displayed.
259 • Modification Commands (toggle)
261 In some situations, it may be desirable to turn off blinkenlights'
263 ability to send commands to rollerd. This menu item is a toggle to
264 turn on or off this ability. If the commands are turned off, then
265 the "ZSK Control" and "KSK Control" menus and their keyboard
266 shortcuts are disabled. If the commands are turned on, then the
267 "ZSK Control" and "KSK Control" menus and their keyboard shortcuts
268 are enabled.
269 • Font Size
271 This menu item allows selection of font size of text displayed in
273 the main window.
274 Normally, changing the font size causes the window to grow and
276 shrink as required. However, on Mac OS X there seems to be a
277 problem when the size selected increases the window size to be
278 greater than will fit on the screen. If the font size is
279 subsequently reduced, the window size does not shrink in response.
280 • Zones to Display
282 This menu item allows selection of the number of zones to be
284 displayed in the main window.
285 General Control Menu
287 The commands in this menu are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands
288 related to general zone management.
289 • Sign Selected Zone
291 rollerd is instructed to sign the selected zone. The zone will
293 only be signed; no key rollover will occur.
294 • Sign All Zones
296 rollerd is instructed to sign all the zones it manages. The zone
298 will only be signed; no key rollover will occur.
299 • Sign Active Zones
301 rollerd is instructed to sign all the zones it manages. Skipped
303 zones will not be signed. The zone will only be signed; no key
304 rollover will occur.
305 • Run the Queue
307 rollerd is awoken and runs through its queue of zones. The
309 operation required for each zone is then performed.
310 • Skip Selected Zone
312 The selected zone will be moved to the skipped state. This only
314 has an effect on rolling zones. A zone may be selected by clicking
315 on its zone stripe. If this command is selected without a zone
316 having been selected, a dialog box is displayed from which a
317 currently rolling zone may be chosen.
318 • Skip All Zones
320 All zones will be moved to the skipped state. This has no effect
322 on currently skipped zones.
323 • Restart Selected Skipped Zone
325 The selected zone will be moved from the skipped state to the roll
327 state. The zone will re-enter the roll state at the same point
328 from which it entered the skip state; it will not be moved to the
329 beginning of either KSK or ZSK rollover. This only has an effect
330 on skipped zones. A zone may be selected by clicking on its zone
331 stripe. If this command is selected without a zone having been
332 selected, a dialog box is displayed from which a currently skipped
333 zone may be chosen.
334 • Restart All Skipped Zones
336 All zones will be moved from the skipped state to the roll state.
338 The zones will re-enter the roll state at the same point from which
339 they entered the skip state; they will not be moved to the
340 beginning of either KSK or ZSK rollover. This has no effect on
341 currently rolling zones.
342 ZSK Control Menu
344 The commands in this menu are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands
345 related to ZSK-specific zone management.
346 • Roll Selected Zone's ZSK
348 The selected zone's ZSK will be moved to the rollover state. This
350 has no effect on zones that are already in rollover. A zone may be
351 selected by clicking on its zone stripe. If this command is
352 selected without a zone having been selected, a dialog box is
353 displayed from which a currently skipped zone may be chosen.
354 • Roll All Zones' ZSKs
356 All zones' ZSKs will be moved to the rollover state. This has no
358 effect on currently rolling zones.
359 KSK Control Menu
361 The commands in this menu are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands
362 related to KSK-specific zone management.
363 • DS Published for Selected Zone
365 This command is used to indicate that the selected zone's parent
367 has published a new DS record for the zone. It moves the zone from
368 phase 5 to phase 6 of KSK rollover.
369 • DS Published for All Zones
371 This command is used to indicate that all the zones in KSK rollover
373 phase 5 have new DS records published by their parents. It moves
374 all these zones from phase 5 to phase 6 of KSK rollover. There is
375 no effect on zones not in KSK rollover phase 5.
376 • Roll Selected Zone's KSK
378 The selected zone's KSK will be moved to the rollover state. This
380 has no effect on zones that are already in rollover. A zone may be
381 selected by clicking on its zone stripe. If this command is
382 selected without a zone having been selected, a dialog box is
383 displayed from which a currently skipped zone may be chosen.
384 • Roll All Zones' KSKs
386 All zones' KSKs will be moved to the rollover state. This has no
388 effect on currently rolling zones.
389 Display Menu
391 The commands in this menu provide control over what is being displayed.
392 There are commands for displaying and hiding both zone stripes, columns
393 of key sets, columns of rollrec names, and columns of zonenames.
394 The zonestripe commands allow all, some, or none of the zone stripes to
396 be displayed. Undisplayed rolling zones will continue to roll, but
397 they will do so without the blinkenlights window indicating this.
398 The data column commands allow individual columns of data to be hidden
400 or displayed. The zone status column may not be hidden. Only one of
401 the rollrec name and zonename columns may be hidden at a time.
402 • Zone Selection
404 A dialog box is displayed that holds a list of the zones currently
406 managed by rollerd. The user may select which zones should be
407 displayed by clicking on the zone's checkbox. Zones with a
408 selected checkbox will be displayed; zones without a selected
409 checkbox will not be displayed.
410 • Display All Zones
412 All zones will be displayed in the blinkenlights window.
414 • Hide All Zones
416 No zones will be displayed in the blinkenlights window.
418 • Rollrec Name (toggle)
420 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of rollrec
422 names. If display is turned off, the column holding the rollrec
423 names will be removed from the display and the display window will
424 shrink. If display is turned on, the column holding the rollrec
425 names will be restored to the display and the display window will
426 be expanded.
427 When displayed, the rollrec names will always be the leftmost
429 columns.
430 • Zone Name (toggle)
432 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of the
434 zone names in a rollrec entry. If display is turned off, the
435 column holding the zone names will be removed from the display and
436 the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the
437 column holding the zone names will be restored to the display and
438 the display window will be expanded.
439 When displayed, the zone name will always be the second-from left
441 or leftmost column, depending on if the rollrec name is also being
442 displayed.
443 • Zonegroup Name (toggle)
445 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of the
447 zoneground in rollrec entries. If display is turned off, the
448 column holding the rollrec names will be removed from the display
449 and the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the
450 column holding the rollrec names will be restored to the display
451 and the display window will be expanded.
452 When displayed, the rollrec names will always be the in one of the
454 first through third columns, depending on if the rollrec name and
455 zone name are also being displayed.
456 • KSK Sets (toggle)
458 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of KSK
460 signing set names. If display is turned off, the columns holding
461 the KSK signing set names and labels will be removed from the
462 display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned
463 on, the columns holding the KSK signing set names and labels will
464 be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded.
465 When displayed, KSK signing sets will always be the rightmost
467 columns.
468 • ZSK Sets (toggle)
470 This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of ZSK
472 signing set names. If display is turned off, the columns holding
473 the ZSK signing set names and labels will be removed from the
474 display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned
475 on, the columns holding the ZSK signing set names and labels will
476 be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded.
477 When displayed, ZSK signing sets will always be immediately to the
479 right of the zone status column.
480 • Hide All Keysets
482 Turns off display of the KSK and ZSK signing set names.
484 • Show All Keysets
486 Turns on display of the KSK and ZSK signing set names.
488 • Refresh Display
490 Refresh the blinkenlights display. The display will automatically
492 refresh after a certain number of updates; this command forces it
493 to happen immediately upon invocation.
494 Help Menu
496 The commands in this menu provide assistance to the user.
497 • Help
499 Display a window containing help information.
501 • About Blinkenlights
503 Display a window containing version information on blinkenlights
505 and DNSSEC-Tools.
506
508 Several aspects of blinkenlights' behavior may be controlled from
509 configuration files. Configuration value may be specified in the
510 DNSSEC Tools configuration file or in a more specific rc.blinkenlights.
511 The system-wide blinkenlights configuration file is in the DNSSEC-Tools
512 configuration directory and is named blinkenlights.conf. Multiple
513 rc.blinkenlights files may exist on a system, but only the one in the
514 directory in which blinkenlights is executed is used.
515 The following are the available configuration values:
517 colors Turn on/off use of colors on zone stripes.
519 fontsize The size of the font in the output window.
520 maxzones The number of zones to display.
521 modify Turn on/off execution of rollerd modification commands.
522 noshow Turn off display of particular columns.
523 shading Turn on/off shading of the status columns.
524 showskip Turn on/off display of skipped zones.
525 skipcolor The background color used for skipped zones.
526 The rc.blinkenlights file is only searched for in the directory in
528 which blinkenlights is executed. The potential problems inherent in
529 this may cause these blinkenlights-specific configuration files to be
530 removed in the future.
531 This file is in the "field value" format, where field specifies the
533 output aspect and value defines the value for that field. The
534 following are the recognized fields:
535 Empty lines and comments are ignored. Comment lines are lines that
537 start with an octothorpe ('#').
538 Spaces are not allowed in the configuration values.
540 Choose your skipcolors carefully. The only foreground color used is
542 black, so your background colors must work well with black.
543 The noshow command controls display of the various data columns. The
545 command valid values are:
546 rollrecs Turn off display of the rollrec names column.
548 This value may not be used with "noshow zonenames".
549 zonenames Turn off display of the zonenames column.
550 This value may not be used with "noshow rollrecs".
551 zonegroups Turn off display of the zonegroups column.
552 kskset Turn off display of the KSK signing set columns.
553 zskset Turn off display of the ZSK signing set columns.
554 keysets Turn off display of the KSK and ZSK signing set columns.
555
557 blinkenlights is implemented in Perl/Tk, so both Perl and Perl/Tk must
558 be installed on your system.
559
561 blinkenlights has several potential problems that must be taken into
562 account.
563 development environment
565 blinkenlights was developed and tested on a single-user system
566 running X11 using a relatively small number of zones. While it
567 works fine in this environment, it has not been run on a system
568 with many users or in a situation where the system console hasn't
569 been in use by the blinkenlights user.
570 long-term performance issues
572 In early tests, the longer blinkenlights runs, the slower the
573 updates become. This is probably a result of the Tk implementation
574 or the way Tk interfaces with X11. This is pure supposition,
575 though.
576 This performance impact is affected by a number of things, such as
578 the number of zones managed by rollerd and the length of rollerd's
579 sleep interval. Large numbers of zones or very short sleep
580 intervals will increase the possibility of blinkenlights'
581 performance degrading.
582 This appears to have been resolved by periodically performing a
584 complete rebuild of the screen. blinkenlights keeps track of the
585 number of screen updates it makes and rebuilds the screen when this
586 count exceeds a threshold. The threshold is built into
587 blinkenlights and stored in the $paintmax variable. This threshold
588 may be adjusted if there are too many screen rebuilds or if
589 blinkenlights' performance slows too much. Raising the number will
590 reduce the screen rebuilds; lowering the number will (may) increase
591 performance.
592 display irregularities
594 If the user modifies the number of zones to be displayed, then
595 sometimes the blinkenlights window is left in an irregular state.
596 The requested number of zones are displayed, but there is a large
597 grey void above and below the zone display. This is an occasional
598 problem and will be fixed as time allows.
599
601 Copyright 2006-2014 SPARTA, Inc. All rights reserved. See the COPYING
602 file included with the DNSSEC-Tools package for details.
603
605 Wayne Morrison, tewok@tislabs.com
606
608 bubbles(8), rollctl(8), rollerd(8), zonesigner(8)
609 Net::DNS::SEC::Tools::timetrans(3)
611 Net::DNS::SEC::Tools::keyrec(5), Net::DNS::SEC::Tools::rollrec(5),
613perl v5.34.0 2021-07-21 BLINKENLIGHTS(1)