Welcome to FlightGear Deamon fgd
--------------------------------
Here the first Tools to play with FlightGear Deamon.
This is yet pre-alpha and the sources remain to be tidied up,
and to get documented.


Theory of operation:
--------------------
The FlightGear Deamon called fgd is a standalone program which registers
FGFS players willing to have a multiplayer FGFS environment via TCP/IP.
Information like player's ip/lon/lat/alt etc. can be send to fgd.
The deamon fgd in turn sends back the gathered information upon request.
The purpose of the scan prog "fgd_scan" is to locate free ports on the
network, which can be used for exchanging data between FGFS and fgd.
The commando program fgd_com serves as an example of how the communication
to fgd can be done. For the moment consider fgd_com as FGFS.
Parts of fgd_com will be later incorporated into FGFS.


How to play with the tools:
---------------------------
Just fire up fgd on whatever machine reachable from the one on which
FGFS will be running. Even the same machine is ok.
Then use fgd_scan to locate the fgd-deamon.
Also use fgd_com to pass some commandos to fgd.


How to compile:
---------------
Use the Makefile with make or just gcc -o prog prog.c


Usage:
------
- fgd [start port] [end port] <-v -vv>

where 
      - start port  and  end port is the range where it should listen and
        talk to. (Later the range will be used to check for a free port
        within this range, which can be used for communicating with FGFS.
        for the moment make sure you use the _SAME_ port value for start
        and stop. A good starting point should be above 10000.
      - -v or -vv is the verbose level. This param can be ommitted.
        

- fgd_scan [host] [start port] [end port] <-v -vv>

comment: params are the same as for fgd except that the start-stop range
         must be different to detect fgd.
         
         Also host means the host running fgd, not where the scanner is 
         fired up.
         
         Just for fun you can take also the dangerous (priviledged ports)
         But the fgd-scanner will be stuck at some used ports.
         It doesn't hurt to experiment in the used regions, a ctrl-c
         will abort the scanning so that new params can be used.

      
- fgd_com  [FGD-host] [start port] [end port] [-v -vv] [commando] <FGFS-host>

comment: see fgd_scan, but you must enter either a ip/fqdn or dummystring as 
         last param, some commandos use it to pass it as real information to 
         fgd.


The commandos for fgd_com:
--------------------------

 0 : fgd idenditfies itself, answeres back to scanner
 1 : registering to fgd
 2 : show who's registered
 3 : send message to one specific user           (not implemented yet)
 4 : send message to all users                   (not implemented yet)
 5 : scan for other fgd's                        (not implemented yet)
 6 : update (fgd sends it's database to user)    (not implemented yet)
 8 : unregister from fgd
 9 : shutdown fgd

Comments:
---------
Commands 1/2/8 use the last parameter (see above, dummy-string) for the
ip or hostname or fqdn of the fgfs-machine which will be added/listed/removed
from fgd.
Try registering and unregistering various hosts to see if the add/remove
mechanism works well. It should work correctly.


Examples:
---------
- fgd olk 10003 10003 -vv
  fgd runs on host "olk" using port "10003" using max. verbose level

- fgd_com olk 10003 10003 -vv 1 johnny
  send "register host"-command to fgd running on host "olk" using port"10003"
  and register machine "johnny"

To do:
------
- clean-up code
- document the code
- convert code from c to c++
- find a place within FGFS where to reside
- make the code more autodetectable, to reduce commandline params
- implement missing commands
- find other useful commands
- find and resolve bugs ;-)


REMEMBER:
---------
This 3 toys are pre-alpha and dirty and need also to be documented.

Send comments/flame/beer/whatever to delise@rp-plus.de

Oliver Delise 25/May/99