blinkenlights.1p

Langue: en

Version: 2010-06-30 (ubuntu - 24/10/10)

Section: 1 (Commandes utilisateur)

NAME

blinkenlights - DNSSEC-Tools rollerd GUI

SYNOPSIS

   blinkenlights <rollrec-file>
 
 

DESCRIPTION

blinkenlights is a GUI tool for use with monitoring and controlling the DNSSEC-Tools rollerd program. It displays information on the current state of the zones rollerd is managing. The user may control some aspects of rollerd's execution using blinkenlights menu commands.

blinkenlights creates a window in which to display information about each zone rollerd is managing. (These zones are those in rollerd's current rollrec file.) As a zone's rollover status changes, blinkenlights will update its display for that zone. Skipped zones, zones listed in the rollrec file but which are not in rollover or normal operation, are displayed but have very little useful information to display.

The user may also select a set of zones to hide from the display. These zones, if in the rolling state, will continue to roll; however, their zone information will not be displayed. Display state for each zone will persist across blinkenlights executions.

Menu commands are available for controlling rollerd. The commands which operate on a single zone may be executed by keyboard shortcuts. The zone may be selected either by clicking in its ``zone stripe'' or by choosing from a dialog box. Display and execution options for blinkenlights are also available through menu commands. More information about the menu commands is available in the MENU COMMANDS section.

blinkenlights is only intended to be started by rollerd, not directly by a user. There are two ways to have rollerd start blinkenlights. First, rollctl may be given the -display option. Second, the -display option may be given on rollerd's command line.

OPTIONS

blinkenlights takes the following options:
-display
Tells rollerd to execute blinkenlights as a child process.
-Version
Displays the version information for blinkenlights and the DNSSEC-Tools package.
-help
Displays a usage message and exits.

SCREEN LAYOUT

The blinkenlights window is laid out as a series of ``stripes''. The top stripe contains status information about rollerd, the second stripe contains column headers, and the bulk of the window consists of zone stripes. The list below provides more detail on the contents of each stripe.

See the WINDOW COLORS section for a discussion of the colors used for the zone stripes.

rollerd information stripe

The information stripe contains four pieces of information: rollerd's current rollrec file, the count of rolling zones, the count of skipped zones, and the amount of time rollerd waits between processing its queue. Coincidentally, that last datum is also the amount of time between blinkenlights screen updates.

column headers stripe

This stripe contains the column headers for the columns of each zone stripe.

zone stripes

Each zone managed by rollerd (i.e., every zone in the current rollrec file) will have a zone stripe which describes that zone's current state. The stripe is divided into four sections: the zone name, the current rollover state, and the zone's DNSSEC keys.

The zone name section just contains the name of the zone.

The rollover state section contains the rollover phase number, a text explanation of the phase, and the amount of time remaining in that rollover phase. The phase explanation is ``normal operation'' when the zone isn't currently in rollover.

The DNSSEC key section contains two subsections, one for the zone's ZSK keys and another for the zone's KSK keys. Each subsection contains the names of the signing sets active for the zone. The ZSK subsection lists the Current, Published, and New ZSK keys; the KSK subsection lists the Current and Published.

See the WINDOW COLORS section for a discussion of the colors used for the zone stripes.

WINDOW COLORS

The default blinkenlights configuration uses window coloring to provide visual cues and to aid in easily distinguishing zone information. The default window coloring behavior gives each zone stripe has its own color and the rollover state section of each zone stripe is shaded to show the zone's phase. Window coloring can be turned off (and on) with configuration options and menu commands.

Color Usage

The two window coloring behaviors are discussed more fully below:
zone stripe colors

Each rolling zone's stripe is given one of three colors: blue, red, or green. The color is assigned on a top-down basis and the colors wrap if there are more than three zones. So, the first zone is always blue, the second zone red, the third zone green, the fourth zone blue, etc.

The colors do not stay with a particular zone. If a rolling zone becomes a skipped zone, the zone stripes will be reassigned new colors to account for that skipped zone.

Skipped zones are not colored with these three colors. Stripes for skipped zones are colored either grey or a color set in the configuration file. If you choose to use a non-standard color for skipped zones your should ensure that it is not one of the colors used for rolling zones' stripes. Modifying the skipcolor configuration field allows the skipped-zone color to be changing.

The colors configuration field can be used to turn on or off the use of colors for zone stripes. If stripe coloring is turned off, then every stripe will be displayed using the skipcolor color.

rollover-state shading

The only portion of a zone stripe that changes color is the status column; the color of the rest of the zone stripe stays constant. Before a zone enters rollover, the status column is the same color as the rest of the stripe. When the zone enters rollover, the status column's color is changed to a very light shade of the stripe's normal color. As the rollover phases progress towards rollover completion, the status column's shade darkens. Once rollover completes, the status column returns again to the same shade as the rest of that stripe.

The shading configuration field can be used to turn on or off the use of shading in the rollover-state column. If shading is turned off, then the zone stripe will be a solid color.

See the CONFIGURATION FILE section for information on setting the configuration fields.

Colors Used

The color names are taken from the X11 rgb.txt file (X11 1.1.3 - XFree86 4.4.0 for MacOS X.) If these aren't available in your rgb.txt file, similar names should be selected. The actual red/green/blue values used are given below to assist in finding suitable replacements. These values were taken from the rgb.txt file.

Blue Shades:

     blue                0   0 255
     lightblue2        178 223 238
     darkslategray1    151 255 255
     skyblue1          135 206 255
     steelblue1         99 184 255
     turquoise1          0 245 255
     cornflower blue   100 149 237
     dodger blue        30 144 255
 
 

Red Shades:

     red               255   0   0
     pink              255 192 203
     lightsalmon1      255 160 122
     tomato            255  99  71
     indianred         205  92  92
     violetred1        255  62 150
     orangered1        255  69   0
     firebrick1        255  48  48
 
 

Green Shades:

     green               0 255   0
     darkseagreen1     193 255 193
     darkolivegreen1   202 255 112
     lightgreen        144 238 144
     seagreen1          84 255 159
     spring green        0 255 127
     greenyellow       173 255  47
     lawngreen         124 252   0
 
 
A number of menu commands are available to control the behavior of blinkenlights and to send commands to rollerd. These commands are discusses in this section.

File Menu

The commands in this menu are basic GUI commands.
Quit

blinkenlights will stop execution.

Options Menu

The commands in this menu control the appearance and behavior of blinkenlights.
Row Colors (toggle)

This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the coloring of zone stripes. If row coloring is turned off, zone stripes will all be the same color. If row coloring is turned on, zone stripes will be displayed in varying colors. See the WINDOW COLORS section for a discussion of row coloring.

Status Column Shading (toggle)

This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the shading of the zone status column. If shading is turned off, the zone stripes will present a solid, unchanging band of color for each zone. If shading is turned on, the color of the zone status column will change according to the zone's rollover state.

Skipped Zones Display (toggle)

This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of skipped zones. If display is turned off, zone stripes for skipped zones will not be displayed. If display is turned on, zone stripes for all zones will be displayed.

Modification Commands (toggle)

In some situations, it may be desirable to turn off blinkenlights' ability to send commands to rollerd. This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off this ability. If the commands are turned off, then the ``Zone Control'' menu and keyboard shortcuts are disabled. If the commands are turned on, then the ``Zone Control'' menu and keyboard shortcuts are enabled.

Font Size

This menu item allows selection of font size of text displayed in the main window.

Normally, changing the font size causes the window to grow and shrink as required. However, on Mac OS X there seems to be a problem when the size selected increases the window size to be greater than will fit on the screen. If the font size is subsequently reduced, the window size does not shrink in response.

General Control Menu

The commands in this menu are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands related to general zone management.
Run the Queue

rollerd is awoken and runs through its queue of zones. The operation required for each zone is then performed.

Skip Selected Zone

The selected zone will be moved to the skipped state. This only has an effect on rolling zones. A zone may be selected by clicking on its zone stripe. If this command is selected without a zone having been selected, a dialog box is displayed from which a currently rolling zone may be chosen.

Skip All Zones

All zones will be moved to the skipped state. This has no effect on currently skipped zones.

Halt Rollerd

rollerd's execution is halted. As a result, blinkenlights' execution will also be halted.

ZSK Control Menu

The commands in this menu are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands related to ZSK-specific zone management.
Roll Selected Zone's ZSK

The selected zone's ZSK will be moved to the rollover state. This only has an effect on skipped zones. A zone may be selected by clicking on its zone stripe. If this command is selected without a zone having been selected, a dialog box is displayed from which a currently skipped zone may be chosen.

Roll All Zones' ZSK

All zones' ZSKs will be moved to the rollover state. This has no effect on currently rolling zones.

KSK Control Menu

The commands in this menu are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands related to KSK-specific zone management.
DS Published Selected Zone

This command is used to indicate that the selected zone's parent has published a new DS record for the zone. It moves the zone from phase 6 to phase 7 of KSK rollover.

DS Published All Zones

This command is used to indicate that all the zones in KSK rollover phase 6 have new DS records published by their parents. It moves all these zones from phase 6 to phase 7 of KSK rollover.

Zone Display Menu

The commands in this menu are GUI interfaces parts of the zone display. There are commands for displaying and hiding both zone stripes and key columns. The commands allow all, some, or none of the zone stripes and key columns to be displayed. Undisplayed rolling zones will continue to roll, but they will do so without the blinkenlights window indicating this.
Zone Selection

A dialog box is created that holds a list of the zones currently managed by rollerd. The user may select which zones should be displayed by clicking on the zone's checkbox. Zones with a selected checkbox will be displayed; zones without a selected checkbox will not be displayed.

Display All Zones

All zones will be displayed in the blinkenlights window.

Hide All Zones

No zones will be displayed in the blinkenlights window.

KSK Sets (toggle)

This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of KSK signing set names. If display is turned off, the columns holding the KSK signing set names and labels will be removed from the display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the columns holding the KSK signing set names and labels will be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded.

When displayed, KSK signing sets will always be the right-most columns.

ZSK Sets (toggle)

This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of ZSK signing set names. If display is turned off, the columns holding the ZSK signing set names and labels will be removed from the display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the columns holding the ZSK signing set names and labels will be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded.

When displayed, ZSK signing sets will always be immediately to the right of the zone status column.

Hide All Keysets

Turns off display of the KSK and ZSK signing set names.

Show All Keysets

Turns on display of the KSK and ZSK signing set names.

Help Menu

The commands in this menu provide assistance to the user.
Help

Display a window containing help information.

CONFIGURATION FILE

Several aspects of blinkenlights' behavior may be controlled from configuration files. Configuration value may be specified in the DNSSEC Tools configuration file or in a more specific rc.blinkenlights. The system-wide blinkenlights configuration file is in the DNSSEC-Tools configuration directory and is named blinkenlights.conf. Multiple rc.blinkenlights files may exist on a system, but only the one in the directory in which blinkenlights is executed is used.

The following are the available configuration values:

     colors      Turn on/off use of colors on zone stripes
     fontsize    The size of the font in the output window
     modify      Turn on/off execution of rollerd modification commands
     shading     Turn on/off shading of the status columns
     showskip    Turn on/off display of skipped zones
     skipcolor   The background color used for skipped zones
 
 

The rc.blinkenlights file is only searched for in the directory in which blinkenlights is executed. The potential problems inherent in this may cause these blinkenlights-specific configuration files to be removed in the future.

This file is in the ``field value'' format, where field specifies the output aspect and value defines the value for that field. The following are the recognized fields:

Empty lines and comments are ignored. Comment lines are lines that start with an octothorpe ('#').

Spaces are not allowed in the configuration values.

Choose your skipcolors carefully. The only foreground color used is black, so your background colors must work well with black.

REQUIREMENTS

blinkenlights is implemented in Perl/Tk, so both Perl and Perl/Tk must be installed on your system.

WARNINGS

blinkenlights has several potential problems that must be taken into account.
development environment
blinkenlights was developed and tested on a single-user system running X11. While it works fine in this environment, it has not been run on a system with many users or in a situation where the system console hasn't been in use by the blinkenlights user.
long-term performance issues
In early tests, the longer blinkenlights runs, the slower the updates become. This is probably a result of the Tk implementation or the way Tk interfaces with X11. This is pure supposition, though.

This performance impact is affected by a number of things, such as the number of zones managed by rollerd and the length of rollerd's sleep interval. Large numbers of zones or very short sleep intervals will increase the possibility of blinkenlights' performance degrading.

This appears to have been resolved by periodically performing a complete rebuild of the screen. blinkenlights keeps track of the number of screen updates it makes and rebuilds the screen when this count exceeds a threshold. The threshold is built into blinkenlights and stored in the $PAINTMAX variable. This threshold may be adjusted if there are too many screen rebuilds or if blinkenlights' performance slows too much. Raising the number will reduce the screen rebuilds; lowering the number will (may) increase performance.

Copyright 2006-2010 SPARTA, Inc. All rights reserved. See the COPYING file included with the DNSSEC-Tools package for details.

AUTHOR

Wayne Morrison, tewok@users.sourceforge.net

SEE ALSO

bubbles(8), rollctl(8), rollerd(8), zonesigner(8)

Net::DNS::SEC::Tools::timetrans(3)

Net::DNS::SEC::Tools::keyrec(5), Net::DNS::SEC::Tools::rollrec(5),