lg_intro(1)                                                        lg_intro(1)



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(1)
