nuxwdog - Online in the Cloud

PROGRAM:

NAME

nuxwdog - Provides a simple watchdog process that can be used to start, stop, monitor, or
reconfigure a server process.

SYNOPSIS

nuxwdog -f configuration_file [-i]

DESCRIPTION

nuxwdog is a watchdog daemon that builds on the uxwdog service that is part of the
Netscape Enterprise Server (NES). nuxwdog can start, stop, monitor, and reconfigure
server programs, depending on the parameters passed to it in its configuration file.
nuxwdog opens a Unix domain socket to accept requests from any server process it is
managing. Optionally, nuxwdog can be configured to communicate only with clients that are
descendants of the nuxwdog process, limiting an avenue of potential access to any servers
managed by the watchdog.

Some servers require a high-level of security to protect their data or operations, which
means (for example) that they cannot store plaintext passwords in a password file to allow
the server to be started automatically. nuxwdog can be configured to prompt for server
passwords when a server first starts and then caches those passwords so that nuxwdog can
restart the server without intervention if the server crashes.

To make it easy for clients to communicate with nuxwdog, a C/C++ shared library is
provided with the nuxwdog source code (libnuxwdog.so). Additionally, nuxwdog provides JNI
interfaces and Perl bindings to the libnuxwdog.so library, so that calls can be made from
Java and Perl programs. For more information on this library and the client interfaces,
see https://fedorahosted.org/nuxwdog/wiki/HOWTO.

nuxwdog is used by Dogtag PKI to monitor and manage the subsystem server processes for
Java, Tomcat, and Apache servers.

OPTIONS

-f configuration_file
Passes the configuration file for the service which runs the subsystem. With Dogtag
PKI. For the CA, OCSP, TKS, and DRM, this is for the Java process. For the TPS, this
is for the Apache process.

-i
Runs the nuxwdog process in interactive mode and keeps nuxwdog open in the foreground
instead of running it as a daemon in the background.

CONFIGURATION FILE PARAMETERS AND EXAMPLES

ExeFile
Gives the full path to the executable to be started.

ExeArgs
Passes any arguments to the executable. The first argument must be the full path to
the executable (the same as the value in ExeFile).

TmpDir
Gives the full path to the executable to be started.

ChildSecurity
Sets whether the child server process should only allow requests from a parent (where
nuxwdog is the parent). nuxwdog checks the process ID for any client which sends a
request to the Unix domain socket and drops any message where the client is not a
descendant of the nuxwdog process. To allow any request, set this to 0; to allow only
parent or ancestor requests, sets this to 1.

ExeOut
Gives the file to write stdout for the server to be started.

ExeErr
Gives the file to write stderr for the server to be started.

ExeBackground
Sets whether to run the server and the nuxwdog processes in the background in daemon
mode after the watchdog is initialized. Setting this to 1 enables daemon mode, while 0
keeps this in the foreground.

PidFile
Gives the PID file to use to store the nuxwdog PID.

ChildPidFile
Gives the PID file to use to store the PID of the server process managed by nuxwdog.

ExeContext
Sets the SELinux context in which to start the server process.

nuxwdog can be used to manage many types of server processes. For Dogtag PKI, it manages
Java, Tomcat, and Apache servers. For the Dogtag PKI Certificate Authority, a Java-based
subsystem with a Tomcat web service, the configuration file identifies the appropriate JRE
and class paths, along with setting the output, error, and PID files. (The ExeArgs
argument should be all on one line.)

ExeFile /usr/lib/jvm/jre/bin/java
ExeArgs /usr/lib/jvm/jre/bin/java
-Djava.endorsed.dirs=/usr/share/tomcat5/common/endorsed
-classpath :/usr/lib/jvm/jre/lib/rt.jar
:/usr/share/java/commons-collections.jar
:/usr/share/tomcat5/bin/bootstrap.jar
:/usr/share/tomcat5/bin/commons-logging-api.jar
:/usr/share/java/mx4j/mx4j-impl.jar
:/usr/share/java/mx4j/mx4j-jmx.jar
:/usr/share/tomcat5/common/lib/nuxwdog.jar
-Dcatalina.base=/var/lib/pki-ca2
-Dcatalina.home=/usr/share/tomcat5
-Djava.io.tmpdir=/usr/share/tomcat5/temp org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap
start
TmpDir /var/lib/pki-ca2/logs/pids
ChildSecurity 1
ExeOut /var/lib/pki-ca2/logs/catalina.out
ExeErr /var/lib/pki-ca2/logs/catalina.out
ExeBackground 1
PidFile /var/lib/pki-ca2/logs/wd-pki-ca2.pid
ChildPidFile /var/run/pki-ca2.pid

For Dogtag PKI, the Token (smart card) Processing System uses an Apache-based server. This
example also sets the SELinux context, pki_tps_t, used by the TPS subsystem processes.

ExeFile /usr/sbin/httpd.worker
ExeArgs /usr/sbin/httpd.worker -f /etc/pki-tps1/httpd.conf
TmpDir /var/lib/pki-tps1/logs/pids
PidFile /var/lib/pki-tps1/logs/wd-pki-tps1.pid
ExeContext pki_tps_t

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

There is a more detailed how-to article, including information on available client calls
for nuxwdog, at https://fedorahosted.org/nuxwdog/wiki/HOWTO.

The nuxwdog server works in conjunction with the Dogtag PKI subsystems. The Dogtag PKI
project wiki is at http://pki.fedoraproject.org/wiki/.

For information specifically about nuxwdog, the nuxwdog project wiki is located at
https://fedorahosted.org/nuxwdog/wiki/[1]. The nuxwdog relates directly to nuxwdog code
changes and releases, rather than all PKI-related updates.

Mailing lists: [email protected] and [email protected]

IRC: Freenode at #dogtag-pki

AUTHORS

The PKI tools were written and maintained by developers with Netscape and now with Red
Hat.

Authors: Ade Lee <[email protected]>, Deon Lackey <[email protected]>.

COPYRIGHT

(c) 2010, Red Hat, Inc. Licensed under the GNU Public License version 2.

NOTES

1. https://fedorahosted.org/nuxwdog/wiki/
https://fedorahosted.org/nuxwdog/wiki

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