1PROXYMNGR(1) General Commands Manual PROXYMNGR(1)
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6 proxymngr - proxy manager service
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9 proxymngr [-config filename] [-timeout seconds] [-retries #] [-verbose]
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12 The proxy manager (proxymngr) is responsible for resolving requests
13 from xfindproxy (and other similar clients), starting new proxies when
14 appropriate, and keeping track of all of the available proxy services.
15 The proxy manager strives to reuse existing proxies whenever possible.
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17 There are two types of proxies that the proxy manager deals with, man‐
18 aged and unmanaged proxies.
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20 A managed proxy is a proxy that is started ``on demand'' by the proxy
21 manager.
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23 An unmanaged proxy, on the other hand, is started either at system boot
24 time, or manually by a system administrator. The proxy manager is made
25 aware of its existence, but no attempt is made by the proxy manager to
26 start unmanaged proxies.
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28 The command line options that can be specified to proxymngr are:
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30 -config Used to override the default proxymngr config file. See below
31 for more details about the config file.
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33 -timeout
34 Sets the number of seconds between attempts made by the proxy
35 manager to find an unmanaged proxy. The default is 10.
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37 -retries
38 Sets the maximum number of retries made by the proxy manager to
39 find an an unmanaged proxy. The default is 3.
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41 -verbose
42 Causes various debugging and tracing records to be displayed as
43 requests are received and proxies are started.
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46 The proxy manager maintains a local configuration file describing the
47 proxy services available. This configuration file is installed in
48 /usr/lib/X11/proxymngr/pmconfig during the installation of proxymngr.
49 The location of the configuration file can be overwritten using the
50 -config command line option.
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52 Aside from lines starting with an exclamation point for comments, each
53 line of the configuration file describes either an unmanaged or managed
54 proxy service.
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56 For unmanaged proxies, the format is:
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58 <service-name> unmanaged <proxy-address>
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60 service-name is the name of the unmanaged proxy service, and must not
61 contain any spaces, for example ``XFWP''. service-name is case insen‐
62 sitive.
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64 proxy-address is the network address of the unmanaged proxy. The for‐
65 mat of the address is specific to the service-name. For example, for
66 the ``XFWP'' service, the proxy-address might be ``fire‐
67 wall.x.org:100''.
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69 If there is more than one entry in the config file with the same unman‐
70 aged service-name, the proxy manager will try to use the proxies in the
71 order presented in the config file.
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73 For managed proxies, the format is:
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75 <service-name> managed <command-to-start-proxy>
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77 service-name is the name of the managed proxy service, and must not
78 contain any spaces, for example ``LBX''. service-name is case insensi‐
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81 command-to-start-proxy is the command executed by the proxy manager to
82 start a new instance of the proxy. If command-to-start-proxy contains
83 spaces, the complete command should be surrounded by single quotes. If
84 desired, command-to-start-proxy can be used to start a proxy on a
85 remote machine. The specifics of the remote execution method used to
86 do this is not specified here.
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89 Here is a sample configuration file:
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91 ! proxy manager config file
92 !
93 ! Each line has the format:
94 ! <serviceName> managed <startCommand>
95 ! or
96 ! <serviceName> unmanaged <proxyAddress>
97 !
98 lbx managed /usr/bin/lbxproxy
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100 ! substitute site-specific info
101 xfwp unmanaged firewall:4444
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104 When the proxy manager gets a request from xfindproxy (or another simi‐
105 lar client), its course of action will depend on the service-name in
106 question.
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108 For a managed proxy service, the proxy manager will find out if any of
109 the already running proxies for this service can handle a new request.
110 If not, the proxy manager will attempt to start up a new instance of
111 the proxy (using the command-to-start-proxy found in the config file).
112 If that fails, an error will be returned to the caller.
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114 For an unmanaged proxy service, the proxy manager will look in the con‐
115 fig file to find all unmanaged proxies for this service. If there is
116 more than one entry in the config file with the same unmanaged service-
117 name, the proxy manager will try to use the proxies in the order pre‐
118 sented in the config file. If none of the unmanaged proxies can sat‐
119 isfy the request, the proxy manager will timeout for a configurable
120 amount of time (specified by -timeout or default of 10) and reattempt
121 to find an unmanaged proxy willing to satisfy the request. The number
122 of retries can be specified by the -retries argument, or a default of 3
123 will be used. If the retries fail, the proxy manager has no choice but
124 to return an error to the caller (since the proxy manager can not start
125 unmanaged proxy services).
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128 proxy manager listen port should be configurable.
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130 -timeout and -retries is not implemented in proxymngr.
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132 proxymngr does not utilize the ``options'' and ``host'' fields in the
133 proxy management protocol GetProxyAddr request.
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136 xfindproxy (1), xfwp (1), Proxy Management Protocol spec V1.0
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139 Ralph Mor, X Consortium
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143X Version 11 proxymngr 1.0.1 PROXYMNGR(1)