RWHOD(8)                OpenBSD System Manager's Manual               RWHOD(8)

NAME
     rwhod - system status server



SYNOPSIS
     rwhod

DESCRIPTION
     Rwhod is the server which maintains the database used by the rwho(1) and
     ruptime(1) programs.  Its operation is predicated on the ability to
     broadcast messages on a network.

     Rwhod operates as both a producer and consumer of status information.  As
     a producer of information it periodically queries the state of the system
     and constructs status messages which are broadcast on a network.  As a
     consumer of information, it listens for other rwhod servers' status mes-
     sages, validating them, then recording them in a collection of files lo-
     cated in the directory /var/rwho.

     The server transmits and receives messages at the port indicated in the
     ``who'' service specification; see services(5).  The messages sent and
     received, are of the form:

           struct  outmp {
                   char    out_line[8];            /* tty name */
                   char    out_name[8];            /* user id */
                   int32_t out_time;               /* time on */
           };

           struct  whod {
                   char    wd_vers;
                   char    wd_type;
                   char    wd_fill[2];
                   int32_t wd_sendtime;
                   int32_t wd_recvtime;
                   char    wd_hostname[32];
                   int32_t wd_loadav[3];
                   int32_t wd_boottime;
                   struct  whoent {
                           struct  outmp we_utmp;
                           int32_t we_idle;
                   } wd_we[1024 / sizeof (struct whoent)];
           };

     All fields are converted to network byte order prior to transmission.
     The load averages are as calculated by the w(1) program, and represent
     load averages over the 5, 10, and 15 minute intervals prior to a server's
     transmission; they are multiplied by 100 for representation in an inte-
     ger.  The host name included is that returned by gethostname(3) with any
     trailing domain name omitted.  The array at the end of the message con-
     tains information about the users logged in to the sending machine.  This
     information includes the contents of the utmp(5) entry for each non-idle
     terminal line and a value indicating the time in seconds since a charac-
     ter was last received on the terminal line.

     Messages received by the rwho server are discarded unless they originated
     at an rwho server's port.  In addition, if the host's name, as specified
     in the message, contains any unprintable ASCII characters, the message is
     discarded.  Valid messages received by rwhod are placed in files named
     whod.hostname in the directory /var/rwho. These files contain only the
     most recent message, in the format described above.

     Status messages are generated approximately once every 3 minutes.

SEE ALSO
     rwho(1),  ruptime(1)

BUGS
     There should be a way to relay status information between networks.  Sta-
     tus information should be sent only upon request rather than continuous-
     ly.  People often interpret the server dying or network communication
     failures as a machine going down.

HISTORY
     The rwhod command appeared in 4.2BSD.

4.2 Berkeley Distribution      December 11, 1993                             2