<!doctype linuxdoc system>

<article>

<title>The Knu Handbook
<author>Bertrand Leconte
<date>v 0.4.1, 18 June 1998
<abstract>
This documentation was last updated for knu version 0.4.1. Please make any
comments and additions to the author.
</abstract>
<toc>

<sect>Introduction
<p>
The <it>KDE network utilities</it> program allows you to make a ping,
a traceroute, an host resolution or a finger query without lauching a
terminal emulator.
<p>
You choose which utility you want to run by selecting the corresponding tab.
You give the parameters needed for it and then click on the "<tt>Go!</tt>"
button (or hit <it>return</it>). While the command is running, you can stop it
by pushing the "<tt>Stop</tt>" button.

<sect>The <it>Ping</it> tab
<p>
<sect1>What is it?
<p>
The <tt><htmlurl url="man:ping" name="ping(8)"></tt> command sends ICMP <TT>
ECHO_REQUEST</tt> packets to network hosts to check for network reachability.
A response from a host (or anything that have an IP address) says that this
host is running at least a TCP/IP network stack and indicates that the network
route to go to this host is opened. The <it>ping</it> tab allows the execution
of the <tt>ping(8)</tt> command.

<IMG SRC="knu-ping.gif">

<sect1>Description
<P>
Ping uses the ICMP protocol's mandatory <tt>ECHO_REQUEST</tt> datagram to
elicit an ICMP <tt>ECHO_RESPONSE</tt> from a host or gateway. <tt>ECHO_REQUEST
</tt> datagrams (``<it>pings</it>'') have an IP and ICMP header, followed by a
<tt>struct timeval</tt> and then an arbitrary number of <it>pad</it> bytes used
to fill out the packet.

<sect1>Options
<p>
<descrip>
<tag>Make host name resolution</tag> Print addresses numerically rather than
symbolically and numerically (this saves a nameserver address-to-name lookup).
</descrip>
When using ping for fault isolation, it should first be run on the local host,
to verify that the local network interface is up and running.  Then, hosts and
gateways further and further away should be ``<it>pinged</it>''. Round-trip
times and packet loss statistics are computed.  If duplicate packets are
received, they are not included in the packet loss calculation, although the
round trip time of these packets is used in calculating the
minimum/average/maximum round-trip time numbers.  When the program is
terminated, a brief summary is displayed.
<p>
<bf>This program is intended for use in network testing, measurement and
management.  Because of the load it can impose on the network, it is unwise to
use ping during normal operations or for too long.</bf>
<p>

<sect>The <it>Traceroute</it> tab
<sect1>What is it?
<p>
The <tt><htmlurl url="man:traceroute" name="traceroute(8)"></tt> command
prints the route that packets take to network host. The <it>Traceroute</it> tab
allows the execution of the <tt>traceroute(8)</tt> command.

<IMG SRC="knu-traceroute.gif">

<sect1>Description
<p>
The Internet is a large and complex aggregation of network hardware, connected
together by gateways.  Tracking the route one's packets follow (or finding the
miscreant gateway that's discarding your packets) can be difficult. Traceroute
utilizes the IP protocol <it>time to live</it> field and attempts to elicit an
ICMP <tt>TIME_EXCEEDED</tt> response from each gateway along the path to some
host.

<sect1>Options
<p>
<descrip>
<tag>Make host name resolution</tag>
Print hop addresses numerically rather than symbolically and numerically (this
saves a nameserver address-to-name lookup for each gateway found on the path).
<p>
<tag>Maximum number of hops</tag>
Set the max time-to-live (maximum number of hops) used in outgoing probe
packets.  The default is 30 hops (the same default used for TCP connections).
</descrip>
<p>
This program attempts to trace the route an IP packet would follow to
some internet host by launching UDP probe packets with a small ttl
(time to live) then listening for an ICMP "<tt>time exceeded</tt>"
reply from a gateway. We start our probes with a ttl of one and
increase by one until we get an ICMP "<tt>port unreachable</tt>"
(which means we got to "<it>host</it>") or hit a max (which defaults
to 30 hops and can be changed with the <bf>Maximum number of hops</bf>
option). Three probes are sent at each time-to-live setting and a line
is printed showing the time-to-live, address of the gateway and round
trip time of each probe.  If the probe answers come from different
gateways, the address of each responding system will be printed.  If
there is no response within a 3 seconds timeout interval, a "*" is
printed for that probe.
<p>
We don't want the destination host to process the UDP probe packets so the
destination port is set to an unlikely value.
<p>
<bf>This program is intended for use in network testing, measurement and
management.  It should be used primarily for manual fault isolation. Because
of the load it could impose on the network, it is unwise to use traceroute
during normal operations or for too long.</bf>

<sect2><it>Traceroute's authors</it>
<p>
Implemented by Van Jacobson from a suggestion by Steve Deering.  Debugged
by a cast of thousands with particularly cogent suggestions or fixes from
C. Philip Wood, Tim Seaver and Ken Adelman.

<sect>The <it>Host resolution</it> tab
<p>
<sect1>What is it?
<p>
The <it>Host resolution</it> tab allows the execution of a host
resolution program (<tt><htmlurl url="man:host" name="host(1)"></tt>
or <tt><htmlurl url="man:nslookup" name="nslookup(8)"></tt>).  This
host resolution program will asks the Domain Name Server the answer to
the question asked.

<IMG SRC="knu-host.gif">

<sect1>Description
<p>
This command looks for information about Internet hosts and domain names. It
gets this information from a set of interconnected servers that are spread
across the world. This set of interconnected servers are called the Domain
Name Servers (DNS). The information is stored in the form of <it>resource
records</it> belonging to hierarchically organized <it>zones</it>.
<p>
By default, the command simply converts between host names and
Internet addresses. However, with the <it>Search for</it> options, it
can be used to find all of the information about domain names that is
maintained by the domain name­server system. The information printed
consists of various fields of the associated resource records that
were retrieved.
<p>
The host field can be either host names (domain names) or numeric Internet
addresses.
<p>
A numeric Internet address consists of four decimal numbers separated by dots,
e.g. <tt>192.16.199.1</tt>, representing the four bytes of the 32-bit address.
The default action is to look up the associated host name.
<p>
A host name or domain name consists of component names (labels) separated by
dots, e.g. <tt>nikhefh.nikhef.nl</tt>. The default action is to look up all of
its Internet addresses.
<p>
For single names without a trailing dot, the local domain is automatically
tacked on the end. Thus a user in domain <tt>nikhef.nl</tt> can type in <tt>
nikhapo</tt>, and it will actually look up <tt>nikhapo.nikhef.nl</tt>. In all
other cases, the name is tried unchanged.  Single names with trailing dot are
considered top-level domain specifications, e.g. <tt>nl.</tt>
<p>
For a more precise description of the behaviour of this command, please see the
underlying program's man-page <tt><htmlurl url="man:host" name="host(1)"></tt>
or <tt><htmlurl url="man:nslookup" name="nslookup(8)"></tt>.
<p>
<sect1>Options
<p>
<descrip>
<tag>Search for</tag>
This allows you to specify a particular type of resource record information to
be looked up.  Supported types are listed below. 
<p>
<tag>Server</tag>
This is the name (or the address) of the domain name server to ask.
</descrip>
<p>
<sect2>Resource type
<p>
The resource type possible are:
<p>
<tt>A</tt> ___ the host's Internet address.<p>
<tt>PTR</tt> _ the host name.<p>
<tt>NS</tt> __ the name server for the named zone.<p>
<tt>MX</tt> __ the mail exchanger.<p>
<tt>CNAME</tt> the canonical name for an alias.<p>
<tt>SOA</tt> _ the domain's ``start-of-authority'' information.<p>
<tt>ANY</tt> _ all informations available.<p>

<sect3><it>Host's authors</it>
<p>
This program is originally from Rutgers University. It has been rewritten by
Eric Wassenaar, NIKHEF, &lt;e07@nikhef.nl&gt;.

<sect3><it>NsLookup's authors</it>
<p>
Andrew Cherenson


<sect>The <it>Finger</it> tab
<p>
<sect1>What is it?
<p>
The <it>Finger</it> tab allows the execution of the <tt><htmlurl
url="man:finger" name="finger(1)"></tt> command. The <tt>finger</tt>
command displays information about the system users.
<p>
The command output will depends on the server which will make the reply.

<IMG SRC="knu-finger.gif">

<sect1>Options
<p>
<descrip>
<tag>Server</tag>
This is the name (or the address) of the finger server to ask.
</descrip>
<p>

<sect1>History
The <it>finger</it> command appeared in 3.0BSD.
<p>



<sect>Configuration
<p>

<IMG SRC="knu-config.gif">

You can configure the pathname of the command used by <it>KDE network
utilities </it> if you don't want the command found in the
<tt>PATH</TT> variable to be used or if the command in not found the
the <tt>PATH</tt>. This can be done in the Edit -&gt;
Preferences... menu. The GNU/Debian users will put the traceroute's
command to <tt>/usr/sbin/traceroute</tt> as normal users don't have
this directory in their path.
<p>
The same dialog box allows you to specify arguments to the program.
For example, on Sun Solaris computers, you can add <tt>-s</tt> as
argument for the ping command.
<p>
For the host resolution tab, you will have to choose the type of the
underlying command used, <tt>host</tt> or <tt>nslookup</tt>.
<p>
You can disable a command by editing the configuration file (by hand) and in
the corresponding group, just modify to read <tt>enable = 0</tt>.

<sect>Epilogue
<p>

<sect1>Authors
<p>
<tt><htmlurl url="mailto:B.Leconte@mail.dotcom.fr"
name="Bertrand Leconte"></tt><p>

<tt><htmlurl url="mailto:kfricke@bauinf.uni-hannover.de"
name="Kai Fricke"></tt> conversion of the documentation to
SGML<p>

The documentation comes mainly from the Linux <tt>ping(8)</tt>, <tt>
traceroute(8)</tt>, <tt>host(1)</tt> and <tt>nslookup(8)</tt> man pages.
<p>


<sect1>Copyright
<p>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later
version.
<p>
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
<p>
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with
this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass
Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
<p>
</article>




