1sonar(6x) XScreenSaver manual sonar(6x)
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6 sonar - display a sonar scope
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9 sonar [-ping hosts-or-subnets] [-ping-timeout int] [-delay usecs]
10 [-speed ratio] [-sweep-size ratio] [-font-size points] [-team-a-name
11 string] [-team-b-name string] [-team-a-count int] [-team-b-count int]
12 [-no-dns] [-no-times] [-no-wobble] [-debug] [-fps]
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15 This draws a sonar screen that pings (get it?) the hosts on your local
16 network, and plots their distance (response time) from you. The three
17 rings represent ping times of approximately 2.5, 70 and 2,000 millisec‐
18 onds respectively.
19 Alternately, it can run a simulation that doesn't involve hosts.
21
23 sonar understands the following options:
24 -ping hosts-or-subnets
26 The list of things to ping, separated by commas or spaces. El‐
27 ements of this list may be:
28 simulation Run in simulation mode instead of pinging real
30 hosts.
31 hostname Ping the given host.
33 A.B.C.D Ping the given IPv4 address.
35 subnet Ping the local subnet. On systems where we can de‐
37 termine the local network mask, we use that; other‐
38 wise, we assume Class C (254 hosts).
39 subnet/NN Ping a different-sized local subnet: e.g., sub‐
41 net/28 would ping a 4-bit subnet (the nearest 14
42 addresses). On systems where we can determine the
43 local network mask, we always use that.
44 A.B.C.D/NN Ping an arbitrary other IPv4 subnet. The address
46 specifies the base address, and the part after the
47 slash is how wide the subnet is. Typical values
48 are /24 (for 254 addresses) and /28 (for 14 ad‐
49 dresses).
50 filename Ping the hosts listed in the given file. This file
52 can be in the format used by /etc/hosts, or it can
53 be any file that has host names as the first or
54 second element on each line. If you use ssh, try
55 this:
56 sonar -ping $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts
58 -ping-timeout int
60 The amount of time in milliseconds the program will wait for an
61 answer to a ping.
62 -delay int
64 Delay between frames, in microseconds. Default 20000.
65 -speed ratio
67 Less than 1 for slower, greater than 1 for faster. Default 1.
68 -sweep-size ratio
70 How big the glowing sweep area should be. Default 0.3.
71 -font-size points
73 How large the text should be. Default 10 points.
74 -no-wobble
76 Keep the display stationary instead of very slowly wobbling
77 back and forth.
78 -no-dns Do not attempt to resolve IP addresses to hostnames.
80 -no-times
82 Do not display ping times beneath the host names.
83 -team-a-name string
85 In simulation mode, the name of team A.
86 -team-b-name string
88 In simulation mode, the name of team B.
89 -team-a-count int
91 In simulation mode, the number of bogies on team A.
92 -team-b-count int
94 In simulation mode, the number of bogies on team B.
95 -fps Display the current frame rate, polygon count, and CPU load.
97 In ping-mode, the display is a logarithmic scale, calibrated so that
100 the three rings represent ping times of approximately 2.5, 70 and 2,000
101 milliseconds respectively.
102 This means that if any the hosts you are pinging take longer than 2
104 seconds to respond, they won't show up; and if you are pinging several
105 hosts with very fast response times, they will all appear close to the
106 center of the screen (making their names hard to read.)
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110 For this program to be able to ping other hosts, it must have the abil‐
111 ity to open ICMP sockets, which is usually an action that requires ad‐
112 ditional privileges.
113 If your system has setcap(8) then this permission can be added with
115 setcap cap_net_raw=p sonar
117 Otherwise, the program must be setuid root in order to ping hosts.
119 Privileges are disavowed shortly after startup (just after connecting
120 to the X server) so this is believed to be safe:
121 chown root:root sonar
123 chmod u+s sonar
124 It is not necessary to use setcap or setuid on macOS systems, as un‐
126 privileged programs can ping by using ICMP DGRAM sockets instead of
127 ICMP RAW.
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130 Does not support IPv6.
131
133 X(1), xscreensaver(1), ping(8), ping6(8)
134
136 Copyright © 2000-2021 by Jamie Zawinski <jwz@jwz.org>
137 Copyright © 1998 by Stephen Martin. <smartin@canada.com>
138 Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and
140 its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, pro‐
141 vided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that
142 both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in sup‐
143 porting documentation. No representations are made about the suitabil‐
144 ity of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without
145 express or implied warranty.
146
149 Stephen Martin <smartin@canada.com>, 3-nov-1998.
150 Subnet support, etc. added by Jamie Zawinski, 17-Jul-2000.
152 Rewritten using OpenGL instead of X11 by Jamie Zawinski, 12-Aug-2008.
154X Version 11 6.04-1.fc36 (06-Jun-2022) sonar(6x)