lg_intro(7)            Miscellaneous Information Manual            lg_intro(7)

NAME

       lg_intro - introduction to the looking glass

INTRODUCTION

       The  looking  glass  offers  a  web based interface to routers to users
       without their needing permission to login to the router.  This may be a
       perfect  interface  for  customer support or less savvy folks, and many
       ISPs have given public access to such an interface as a "route server."

DESCRIPTION

       The looking glass consists of  two  CGI  perl(1)  scripts,  lg.cgi  and
       lgform.cgi, and the lg.conf(5) configuration file.

       Both  of  these  scripts begin with reading the configuration file.  If
       there is an error in the file's syntax or if the file can not be found,
       error  messages  will  be displayed on standard-error.  The Apache http
       server redirects standard-error to its error log file by default.

       lgform.cgi displays a html form consisting of a list of possible router
       commands  that  can  be  run and a scrolling list of routers that these
       commands may be run on.  When the form is submitted, lg.cgi is run.

       lg.cgi begins by performing some basic checks on the  arguments  passed
       to it.  If these checks pass, lg.cgi either displays cached data from a
       previous invocation, if that  data  exists  and  is  within  the  cache
       interval,  or  uses  clogin(1)  to  login to the device and execute the
       command.  The results of the  command  are  cached  if  applicable  and
       displayed for the user.

GETTING STARTED

       Besides  lg.conf(5), additional instructions for setting up the looking
       glass    can    be    found    in     the     README     file     under
       /usr/local/share/rancid/README.lg.

       Note  that  the  looking  glass  scripts require a few perl modules not
       included with rancid.  Rancid's configure process does  not  check  for
       these.  See the README file.

SEE ALSO

       cloginrc(5), clogin(1), lg.conf(5)

HISTORY

       Rancid's  looking  glass is based on Ed Kern's (included by permission,
       thanks Ed!), which could once be found on http://nitrous.digex.net/ but
       has  apparently been removed.  Support for Juniper and Foundry devices,
       use of rancid's device  login  scripts,  and  additional  commands  and
       checks have been added to the original.



                                  24 Jan 2001                      lg_intro(7)