floppyd(1) mtools-3.9.1 (10Jun98) floppyd(1)
Name
floppyd - floppy daemon for remote access to floppy drive
Note
This manpage has been automatically generated from mtools's
texinfo documentation. However, this process is only
approximative, and some items, such as crossreferences,
footnotes and indices are lost in this translation process.
Indeed, this items have no appropriate representation in the
manpage format. Moreover, only the items specific to each
command have been translated, and the general information
about mtools has been dropped in the manpage version. Thus
I strongly advise you to use the original texinfo doc.
* To generate a printable copy from the texinfo doc, run
the following commands:
./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi
* To generate a html copy, run:
./configure; make html
A premade html can be found at:
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* To generate an info copy (browsable using emacs' info
mode), run:
./configure; make info
The texinfo doc looks most pretty when printed or as html.
Indeed, in the info version certain examples are difficult
to read due to the quoting conventions used in info.
Description
Floppyd is used as a server to grant access to the floppy
drive to clients running on a remote machine, just as an X
server grants access to the display to remote clients. It
has the following syntax:
floppyd [-d] [-l] [-s port] [-r user] [-b ipaddr] devicename
[displaynames]
floppyd is always associated with an X server. It runs on
the same machine as its X server, and listens on port 5703
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floppyd(1) mtools-3.9.1 (10Jun98) floppyd(1)
and above.
Authentication
floppyd authenticates remote clients using the Xauthority
protocol. Xhost authentication is not supported. Each
floppyd is associated with an X server. When a remote
client attempts to connect to floppyd, it sends floppyd the
X authority record corresponding to floppyd's X server.
Floppyd in turn then tries to open up a connection to the X
server in order to verify the authenticity of the xauth
record. If the connection to the X server succeeds, the
client is granted access
Caution: In order to make authentication work correctly, the
local host should not be listed in the xhost list of allowed
hosts.
Indeed, hosts listed in xhost do not need a correct
Xauthority cookie to connect to the X server. As floppyd
runs on the same host as the X server, all its probe
connection would succeed even for clients who supplied a bad
cookie. This means that your floppy drive would be open to
the world, i.e. a huge security hole.
If your X server does not allow you to remove localhost:0
and :0 from the xhost list, you can prevent floppyd from
probing those display names with the -l option.
Command line options
d Daemon mode. Floppyd runs its own server loop. Do not
supply this if you start floppyd from inetd.conf
s port
Port number for deamon mode. Default is 5703 +
displaynumber. This flag implies daemon mode. For
example, for display hitchhiker:5, the port would be
5708.
b ipaddr
Bind address (for multihomed hosts). This flag implies
daemon mode
r user
Run the server under as the given user
l Do not generate local default display names
devicename is the name of the device node to be opened.
Default is /dev/fd0.
displaynames is a list of display names to connect to for
authentication. All displays in the list are tried until
one is found that grants access or until the list is
exhausted. If no list is supplied, the a display name list
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floppyd(1) mtools-3.9.1 (10Jun98) floppyd(1)
based on the ip address supplied using the -b flag is
constructed: ipaddr:n.0.
* :n.0
If floppyd is started from inetd, the address of the
socket used for stdin is used as a bind address.
If no bind address is supplied, a list containing the
following 3 items is constructed:
* hostname:n.0
* localhost:n.0
* :n.0
n is the display number derived from the port number (port
- 5703 modulo 10). The local items (localhost:0 and :0) are
not constructed if the -l flag is given.
Connecting to floppyd
In order to use floppyd, add the flag remote to the device
description in your `~/.mtoolsrc' file. If the flag remote
is given, the file parameter of the device description is
taken to be a remote address. It's format is the following:
hostname:displaynumber[/baseport]. When using this entry,
mtools connects to port baseport+displaynumber at hostname.
By default baseport is 5703.
Examples:
The following starts a floppy daemon giving access to
`/dev/fd0', listening on the default port 5703, tied to the
default X servers:
floppyd-d /dev/fd0
Each of the following starts a floppy daemon giving access
to `/dev/fd1', tied to the :1 local X servers, and listening
on port 5704. We assume that the local host is named
hitchhiker.
floppyd-d /dev/fd0 localhost:1 hitchhiker:1 :1
floppyd-p 5704 /dev/fd0
If you want to start floppyd by inetd instead of running it
as a daemon, insert the following lines into
`/etc/services':
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floppyd(1) mtools-3.9.1 (10Jun98) floppyd(1)
# floppy daemon
floppyd-0 5703/tcp # floppy daemon for X server :0
floppyd-1 5704/tcp # floppy daemon for X server :1
And insert the following into `/etc/inetd.conf' (assuming
that you have defined a user named floppy in your
`/etc/passwd'):
# floppy daemon
floppyd-0 stream tcp wait floppy /usr/sbin/floppyd floppyd /dev/fd0
floppyd-1 stream tcp wait floppy /usr/sbin/floppyd floppyd /dev/fd1
Note that you need to supply the X display names for the
second floppyd. This is because the port is opened by
inetd.conf, and hence floppyd cannot know its number to
interfere the display number.
On the client side, insert the following into your
`~/.mtoolsrc' to define a drive letter accessing floppy
drive in your X terminal:
drive x: file="$DISPLAY" remote
See Also
Mtools' texinfo doc
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