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.\"
.hys 50
.TH "lg_intro" "1" "24 Jan 2001"
.SH NAME
lg_intro \- introduction to the looking glass
.\"
.SH INTRODUCTION
The
.B 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."
.\"
.SH DESCRIPTION
The looking glass consists of two CGI
.BR perl (1)
scripts,
.IR lg.cgi
and
.IR lgform.cgi ,
and the
.BR lg.conf (5)
configuration file.
.PP
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.
.PP
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.
.PP
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
.BR 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.
.\"
.SH "GETTING STARTED"
Besides 
.BR lg.conf (5),
additional instructions for setting up the looking glass can be found
in the README file under
.IR @pkgdatadir@/README.lg .
.PP
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.
.\"
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR cloginrc (5),
.BR clogin (1),
.BR lg.conf (5)
.SH 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.