BLINKENLIGHTS(1)

📦 version 2.2.3, in arch rolling

🎀 NAME 🎀

blinkenlights — DNSSEC-Tools rollerd GUI. Yep bestie, this is the blinkenlights(1) page, manual name folded in near the top like a little name tag 💖

💖 SYNOPSIS 💖

blinkenlights <rollrec-file>

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Okay so blinkenlights is a GUI tool for monitoring and controlling the DNSSEC-Tools rollerd program. It shows you info about the current state of the zones rollerd is managing, and you can control some aspects of rollerd's execution using blinkenlights menu commands. Iconic.

blinkenlights makes a window that displays information about every zone rollerd is managing. Bestie, those are the zones in rollerd's current rollrec file. When a zone's rollover status changes, blinkenlights updates its display for that zone. Skipped zones — zones listed in the rollrec file but which are not in rollover or normal operation — are displayed, but they have very little useful information to display.

You can also select a set of zones to hide from the display. Those zones, if in the rolling state, will continue to roll; however, their zone information will not be displayed. Display state for each zone will persist across blinkenlights executions. Obsessed with the persistence, ngl.

Menu commands are available for controlling rollerd. The commands which operate on a single zone may be executed by keyboard shortcuts. The zone may be selected either by clicking in its "zone stripe" or by choosing from a dialog box. Display and execution options for blinkenlights are also available through menu commands. More information about the menu commands is available in the MENU COMMANDS section.

🫶 Important vibe check: blinkenlights is only intended to be started by rollerd, not directly by a user. Do not just launch it yourself, bestie.

There are two ways to have rollerd start blinkenlights. First, rollctl may be given the -display option. Second, the -display option may be given on rollerd's command line. Slay.

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

blinkenlights takes the following options:

  • -display — Tells rollerd to execute blinkenlights as a child process.
  • -maxzones — Tells blinkenlights how many zones to display.
  • -Version — Displays the version information for blinkenlights and the DNSSEC-Tools package.
  • -help — Displays a usage message and exits.

🦋 SCREEN LAYOUT 🦋

The blinkenlights window is laid out as a series of "stripes". The top stripe contains status information about rollerd, the second stripe contains column headers, and the bulk of the window consists of zone stripes. The list below provides more detail on the contents of each stripe.

See the WINDOW COLORS section for a discussion of the colors used for the zone stripes.

  • rollerd information stripe — The information stripe contains five pieces of information: rollerd's current rollrec file, the count of rolling zones, the count of skipped zones, the count of zones to be displayed, and the amount of time rollerd waits between processing its queue. Coincidentally, that last datum is also the amount of time between blinkenlights screen updates. Cute coincidence, fr fr.
  • column headers stripe — This stripe contains the column headers for the columns of each zone stripe.
  • zone stripes — Each zone managed by rollerd (i.e., every zone in the current rollrec file) will have a zone stripe which describes that zone's current state. The stripe is divided into three sections: zone identification, the current rollover state, and the zone's DNSSEC keys.

The zone identification section contains the name of the zone, the name of the zone's rollrec entry, and the zone's zonegroup.

The rollover state section contains the rollover phase number, a text explanation of the phase, and the amount of time remaining in that rollover phase. The phase explanation is "normal operation" when the zone isn't currently in rollover.

The DNSSEC key section contains two subsections, one for the zone's ZSK keys and another for the zone's KSK keys. Each subsection contains the names of the signing sets active for the zone. The ZSK subsection lists the Current, Published, and New ZSK keys; the KSK subsection lists the Current and Published.

See the WINDOW COLORS section for a discussion of the colors used for the zone stripes.

🌈 WINDOW COLORS 🌈

The default blinkenlights configuration uses window coloring to provide visual cues and to aid in easily distinguishing zone information. The default window coloring behavior gives each zone stripe its own color, and the rollover state section of each zone stripe is shaded to show the zone's phase. Window coloring can be turned off (and on) with configuration options and menu commands. Periodt.

🎨 Color Usage 🎨

The two window coloring behaviors are discussed more fully below:

  • zone stripe colors — Each rolling zone's stripe is given one of three colors: blue, red, or green. The color is assigned on a top-down basis and the colors wrap if there are more than three zones. So, the first zone is always blue, the second zone red, the third zone green, the fourth zone blue, etc. The colors do not stay with a particular zone. If a rolling zone becomes a skipped zone, the zone stripes will be reassigned new colors to account for that skipped zone. Skipped zones are not colored with these three colors. Stripes for skipped zones are colored either grey or a color set in the configuration file. If you choose to use a non-standard color for skipped zones you should ensure that it is not one of the colors used for rolling zones' stripes. Modifying the skipcolor configuration field allows the skipped-zone color to be changed. The colors configuration field can be used to turn on or off the use of colors for zone stripes. If stripe coloring is turned off, then every stripe will be displayed using the skipcolor color.
  • rollover-state shading — The only portion of a zone stripe that changes color is the status column; the color of the rest of the zone stripe stays constant. Before a zone enters rollover, the status column is the same color as the rest of the stripe. When the zone enters rollover, the status column's color is changed to a very light shade of the stripe's normal color. As the rollover phases progress towards rollover completion, the status column's shade darkens. Once rollover completes, the status column returns again to the same shade as the rest of that stripe. The shading configuration field can be used to turn on or off the use of shading in the rollover-state column. If shading is turned off, then the zone stripe will be a solid color. See the CONFIGURATION FILE section for information on setting the configuration fields.

🌟 Colors Used 🌟

The color names are taken from the X11 rgb.txt file (X11 1.1.3 - XFree86 4.4.0 for MacOS X.) If these aren't available in your rgb.txt file, similar names should be selected. The actual red/green/blue values used are given below to assist in finding suitable replacements. These values were taken from the rgb.txt file.

Blue Shades:

blue                0   0 255
lightblue2        178 223 238
darkslategray1    151 255 255
skyblue1          135 206 255
steelblue1         99 184 255
turquoise1          0 245 255
cornflower blue   100 149 237
dodger blue        30 144 255

Red Shades:

red               255   0   0
pink              255 192 203
lightsalmon1      255 160 122
tomato            255  99  71
indianred         205  92  92
violetred1        255  62 150
orangered1        255  69   0
firebrick1        255  48  48

Green Shades:

green               0 255   0
darkseagreen1     193 255 193
darkolivegreen1   202 255 112
lightgreen        144 238 144
seagreen1          84 255 159
spring green        0 255 127
greenyellow       173 255  47
lawngreen         124 252   0

A number of menu commands are available to control the behavior of blinkenlights and to send commands to rollerd. These commands are discussed in this section.

📁 File Menu 📁

The commands in this menu are basic GUI commands.

  • Halt Rollerd After Current Operations — rollerd's execution is halted after completing its current set of zone operations. As a result, blinkenlights' execution will also be halted.
  • Halt Rollerd Now — rollerd's execution is halted immediately. As a result, blinkenlights' execution will also be halted. If rollerd's command queue already contains a set of commands, they may be processed prior to this command.
  • Quit — blinkenlights will stop execution.

🛠️ Options Menu 🛠️

The commands in this menu control the appearance and behavior of blinkenlights.

  • Row Colors (toggle) — This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the coloring of zone stripes. If row coloring is turned off, zone stripes will all be the same color. If row coloring is turned on, zone stripes will be displayed in varying colors. See the WINDOW COLORS section for a discussion of row coloring.
  • Status Column Shading (toggle) — This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the shading of the zone status column. If shading is turned off, the zone stripes will present a solid, unchanging band of color for each zone. If shading is turned on, the color of the zone status column will change according to the zone's rollover state.
  • Skipped Zones Display (toggle) — This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of skipped zones. If display is turned off, zone stripes for skipped zones will not be displayed. If display is turned on, zone stripes for all zones will be displayed.
  • Status Times Display (toggle) — This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of status times. If display is turned off, the remaining time for a rollover phase will not be displayed in the "Status" column. If display is turned on, the remaining times will be displayed.
  • Modification Commands (toggle) — In some situations, it may be desirable to turn off blinkenlights' ability to send commands to rollerd. This menu item is a toggle to turn on or off this ability. If the commands are turned off, then the "ZSK Control" and "KSK Control" menus and their keyboard shortcuts are disabled. If the commands are turned on, then the "ZSK Control" and "KSK Control" menus and their keyboard shortcuts are enabled.
  • Font Size

This menu item lets you pick the font size of text displayed in the main window. 💖

Normally, changing the font size causes the window to grow and shrink as required. But on Mac OS X there seems to be a problem when the size you select increases the window size so it’s greater than what will fit on the screen. If the font size is subsequently reduced, the window size does not shrink in response. 😭

Mac OS X heads up: this is the exact caveat from the page, bestie — the window can get stuck too big. No cap.
  • Zones to Display — this menu item lets you select the number of zones that get displayed in the main window. ✨

🌸 General Control Menu 🌸

These commands are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands related to general zone management. 🫶

  • Sign Selected Zone — rollerd is instructed to sign the selected zone. The zone will only be signed; no key rollover will occur. 💅
  • Sign All Zones — rollerd is instructed to sign all the zones it manages. The zone will only be signed; no key rollover will occur. ✨
  • Sign Active Zones — rollerd is instructed to sign all the zones it manages. Skipped zones will not be signed. The zone will only be signed; no key rollover will occur. 💖
  • Run the Queue — rollerd is awoken and runs through its queue of zones. The operation required for each zone is then performed. 🔥
  • Skip Selected Zone — the selected zone will be moved to the skipped state. This only has an effect on rolling zones. A zone may be selected by clicking on its zone stripe. If this command is selected without a zone having been selected, a dialog box is displayed from which a currently rolling zone may be chosen. 🦋
  • Skip All Zones — all zones will be moved to the skipped state. This has no effect on currently skipped zones. 💀
  • Restart Selected Skipped Zone — the selected zone will be moved from the skipped state to the roll state. The zone will re-enter the roll state at the same point from which it entered the skip state; it will not be moved to the beginning of either KSK or ZSK rollover. This only has an effect on skipped zones. A zone may be selected by clicking on its zone stripe. If this command is selected without a zone having been selected, a dialog box is displayed from which a currently skipped zone may be chosen. 🌈
  • Restart All Skipped Zones — all zones will be moved from the skipped state to the roll state. The zones will re-enter the roll state at the same point from which they entered the skip state; they will not be moved to the beginning of either KSK or ZSK rollover. This has no effect on currently rolling zones. 👑

🦋 ZSK Control Menu 🦋

These commands are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands related to ZSK-specific zone management. 💜

  • Roll Selected Zone's ZSK — the selected zone’s ZSK will be moved to the rollover state. This has no effect on zones that are already in rollover. A zone may be selected by clicking on its zone stripe. If this command is selected without a zone having been selected, a dialog box is displayed from which a currently skipped zone may be chosen. 🎀
  • Roll All Zones' ZSKs — all zones’ ZSKs will be moved to the rollover state. This has no effect on currently rolling zones. ⭐

👑 KSK Control Menu 👑

These commands are GUI interfaces for the rollctl commands related to KSK-specific zone management. 💖

  • DS Published for Selected Zone — this command is used to indicate that the selected zone’s parent has published a new DS record for the zone. It moves the zone from phase 5 to phase 6 of KSK rollover. 🔥
  • DS Published for All Zones — this command is used to indicate that all the zones in KSK rollover phase 5 have new DS records published by their parents. It moves all these zones from phase 5 to phase 6 of KSK rollover. There is no effect on zones not in KSK rollover phase 5. ✨
  • Roll Selected Zone's KSK — the selected zone’s KSK will be moved to the rollover state. This has no effect on zones that are already in rollover. A zone may be selected by clicking on its zone stripe. If this command is selected without a zone having been selected, a dialog box is displayed from which a currently skipped zone may be chosen. 🌸
  • Roll All Zones' KSKs — all zones’ KSKs will be moved to the rollover state. This has no effect on currently rolling zones. 🫶

🌈 Display Menu 🌈

The commands in this menu control what is being displayed. There are commands for displaying and hiding both zone stripes, columns of key sets, columns of rollrec names, and columns of zonenames. 👀

The zonestripe commands allow all, some, or none of the zone stripes to be displayed. Undisplayed rolling zones will continue to roll, but they will do so without the blinkenlights window indicating this. 😭

The data column commands allow individual columns of data to be hidden or displayed. The zone status column may not be hidden. Only one of the rollrec name and zonename columns may be hidden at a time. 💅

  • Zone Selection — a dialog box is displayed that holds a list of the zones currently managed by rollerd. The user may select which zones should be displayed by clicking on the zone’s checkbox. Zones with a selected checkbox will be displayed; zones without a selected checkbox will not be displayed. 🦋
  • Display All Zones — all zones will be displayed in the blinkenlights window. ✨
  • Hide All Zones — no zones will be displayed in the blinkenlights window. 🙈
  • Rollrec Name (toggle) — this menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of rollrec names. If display is turned off, the column holding the rollrec names will be removed from the display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the column holding the rollrec names will be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded. When displayed, the rollrec names will always be the leftmost columns. 💖
  • Zone Name (toggle) — this menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of the zone names in a rollrec entry. If display is turned off, the column holding the zone names will be removed from the display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the column holding the zone names will be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded. When displayed, the zone name will always be the second-from left or leftmost column, depending on if the rollrec name is also being displayed. 🌸
  • Zonegroup Name (toggle) — this menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of the zoneground in rollrec entries. If display is turned off, the column holding the rollrec names will be removed from the display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the column holding the rollrec names will be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded. When displayed, the rollrec names will always be in one of the first through third columns, depending on if the rollrec name and zone name are also being displayed. (yep, the page says zoneground and then rolls with “rollrec names” again — I’m just relaying, bestie 💀)
  • KSK Sets (toggle) — this menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of KSK signing set names. If display is turned off, the columns holding the KSK signing set names and labels will be removed from the display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the columns holding the KSK signing set names and labels will be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded. When displayed, KSK signing sets will always be the rightmost columns. 🔥
  • ZSK Sets (toggle) — this menu item is a toggle to turn on or off the display of ZSK signing set names. If display is turned off, the columns holding the ZSK signing set names and labels will be removed from the display and the display window will shrink. If display is turned on, the columns holding the ZSK signing set names and labels will be restored to the display and the display window will be expanded. When displayed, ZSK signing sets will always be immediately to the right of the zone status column. ⭐
  • Hide All Keysets — turns off display of the KSK and ZSK signing set names. 💀
  • Show All Keysets — turns on display of the KSK and ZSK signing set names. 👑
  • Refresh Display — refresh the blinkenlights display. The display will automatically refresh after a certain number of updates; this command forces it to happen immediately upon invocation. 🎀

💖 Help Menu 💖

The commands in this menu provide assistance to the user. 🫶

  • Help — display a window containing help information. 🌸
  • About Blinkenlights — display a window containing version information on blinkenlights and DNSSEC-Tools. ✨

🛠️ CONFIGURATION FILE 🛠️

Okay so blinkenlights can be tamed from config files, bestie. Config values can go in the DNSSEC Tools configuration file, or in a more specific rc.blinkenlights. The system-wide blinkenlights config file lives in the DNSSEC-Tools configuration directory and is named blinkenlights.conf. You can have multiple rc.blinkenlights files on a system, but only the one in the directory where blinkenlights is executed gets used. Periodt.

The following are the available configuration values:

  • colors — turn use of colors on zone stripes on/off.
  • fontsize — the size of the font in the output window.
  • maxzones — the number of zones to display.
  • modify — turn execution of rollerd modification commands on/off.
  • noshow — turn off display of particular columns.
  • shading — turn shading of the status columns on/off.
  • showskip — turn display of skipped zones on/off.
  • skipcolor — the background color used for skipped zones.
⚠️ Real talk: the rc.blinkenlights file is only searched for in the directory where blinkenlights is executed. The potential problems inherent in this may cause these blinkenlights-specific configuration files to be removed in the future. So yeah, it’s giving temporary-era energy.

This file is in the field value format, where field specifies the output aspect and value defines the value for that field. The manual says the following are the recognized fields, and then it jumps into the formatting rules:

Empty lines and comments are ignored. Comment lines are lines that start with an octothorpe ('#').

Spaces are not allowed in the configuration values.

🎨 Choose your skipcolors carefully: the only foreground color used is black, so your background colors must work well with black. No cap, black is the whole foreground vibe.

The noshow command controls display of the various data columns. The command valid values are:

  • rollrecs — turn off display of the rollrec names column. This value may not be used with "noshow zonenames".
  • zonenames — turn off display of the zonenames column. This value may not be used with "noshow rollrecs".
  • zonegroups — turn off display of the zonegroups column.
  • kskset — turn off display of the KSK signing set columns.
  • zskset — turn off display of the ZSK signing set columns.
  • keysets — turn off display of the KSK and ZSK signing set columns.

🧚 REQUIREMENTS 🧚

blinkenlights is implemented in Perl/Tk, so both Perl and Perl/Tk must be installed on your system. Like, both. No skipping. Perl and Perl/Tk are a package deal, bestie.

💀 WARNINGS 💀

blinkenlights has several potential problems that must be taken into account. Not trying to scare you, but read these.

🧪 development environment

blinkenlights was developed and tested on a single-user system running X11 using a relatively small number of zones. While it works fine in this environment, it has not been run on a system with many users or in a situation where the system console hasn't been in use by the blinkenlights user.

⏳ long-term performance issues

In early tests, the longer blinkenlights runs, the slower the updates become. This is probably a result of the Tk implementation or the way Tk interfaces with X11. This is pure supposition, though.

This performance impact is affected by a number of things, such as the number of zones managed by rollerd and the length of rollerd's sleep interval. Large numbers of zones or very short sleep intervals will increase the possibility of blinkenlights' performance degrading.

This appears to have been resolved by periodically performing a complete rebuild of the screen. blinkenlights keeps track of the number of screen updates it makes and rebuilds the screen when this count exceeds a threshold. The threshold is built into blinkenlights and stored in the $paintmax variable. This threshold may be adjusted if there are too many screen rebuilds or if blinkenlights' performance slows too much. Raising the number will reduce the screen rebuilds; lowering the number will (may) increase performance.

🪞 display irregularities

If the user modifies the number of zones to be displayed, then sometimes the blinkenlights window is left in an irregular state. The requested number of zones are displayed, but there is a large grey void above and below the zone display. This is an occasional problem and will be fixed as time allows.

Copyright 2006-2014 SPARTA, Inc. All rights reserved. See the COPYING file included with the DNSSEC-Tools package for details. Legal tea, served.

💌 AUTHOR 💌

Wayne Morrison, tewok@tislabs.com

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

Page vibes: this is BLINKENLIGHTS(1), with source/version perl v5.44.0 and date 2026-10-17. Catch you in the group chat, bestie — bye! 💅✨

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