NAME
pkspxy - The PKS proxy server
SYNOPSIS
pkspxy [-d] [-o] [-c] [-F config-file]
DESCRIPTION
The PKS proxy server is a caching proxy server which can be used
together with PGP key servers such as pks.
The server listens to a certain port on the local system (by default
port 11372, as opposed to port 11371 which is used by pks). It expects
HTTP queries for URIs of the following form:
...?op=get&search=key-id&x-time=timestamp
The x-time parameter is optional; its value is a time stamp in standard
Unix time format (see time(2)) in decimal representation. If it is
given, the server will only transfer data when it was gathered more
recently than the timestamp given. When there is no data to transfer,
the server will use a 204 HTTP return code.
The proxy server operates in two different modi. By default, it starts
up in online mode. In this mode, the server will immediately try to
gather data if it considers this necessary. In offline mode, the
server will exclusively rely on the material contained in its cache,
and add requests to a queue of postponed queries. Data gathering for
postponed requests is tried after configurable intervals of time when
in online mode.
Data gathering happens as follows: The proxy first checks whether there
are already data for the query in question. If this is the case, it
further checks if these data are older than a configurable amount of
time. If this is the case, it will ask the key servers which are known
to it. This process will stop with the first key server which responds
with actual key material.
Switching between modes can be done at run-time: When pkspxy receives a
SIGUSR1 signal, it will switch to online mode and immediately process
the postponed queue. When it receives SIGUSR2, the server switches to
offline mode.
Upon receiving a SIGTERM, SIGINT or SIGQUIT signal, the proxy will dump
the postponed queue to a file in the spool area and exit. The file
generated this way is automatically read when the server gets up.
OPTIONS
-d Enable debug mode. This option may occur several times; expect
more changes to behaviour the more often you use it. When this
option is given, pkspxy will not detach itself from the current
terminal.
-o Start up in offline mode.
-c Create the spool area. When this option is given, pkspxy will
create the directories it requires for proper operation.
-F config-file
Read config-file. This parameter must be present at least once.
See pkspxy.conf(5) for more information on the configuration
file.
FILES
/var/cache/pkspxy/
This directory is the spool area’s default location. Note that
each file in the spool area represents a response for a certain
query. You may use standard Unix tools to expire old data files
from the spool; pkspxy is supposed to smoothly deal with files
in the spool area disappearing under its feet.
/var/cache/pkspxy/pkspxy.postponed
This file is by default used for the persistent list of
postponed queries. It’s a simple text file, with one query
string per line.
SEE ALSO
pkspxyc(1), pkspxy.conf(5), pks-intro(8), pks(8), time(2), signal(7),
find(1), rm(1)
AUTHOR
Thomas Roessler <roessler@guug.de>