BUBBLES(1)

📦 version 2.2.3, in arch rolling

💅 BUBBLES(1) — like, the DNSSEC-Tools Rollrec Simple GUI Display, bestie

okay so real talk, this is bubbles from the DNSSEC-Tools crew — the cute little GUI that shows you your roll status at a glance. Let's get into it ✨

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

bubbles [options] <rollrec-file>

🫶 DESCRIPTION 🫶

bubbles gives you a simple display of the roll status of a set of zones that are listed in a rollrec file. Like, simple simple. In contrast — and I need you to hear this — blinkenlights gives a detailed display of the roll status of a set of zones. So bubbles is the chill, low-effort one of the two.

Because of that, bubbles gives you very little control over rollerd — nowhere near the level of control blinkenlights has. Honestly the only thing bubbles can do is halt rollerd's execution. That's it. That's the whole power move. 💀

So, a rollrec file contains one or more rollrec records. These records are what the DNSSEC-Tools rollover utilities (rollerd, etc.) use to describe zones' rollover states. Each zone's rollrec record is full of stuff like the zone file, the rollover phase, and the logging level. And rollrec files are text files, no cap.

When bubbles starts, a window pops up with "bubbles" for each zone that has a rollrec record in the rollrec file you gave it. (And yeah — clicking on a bubble doesn't do anything. It's decorative. It's art. 🎀) By default, all zones that have a display flag set on will be showing in the bubbles window. But you can pass options to change that behavior, bestie, don't worry.

The zone bubbles are color-coded according to roll-over state. Here are the default colors:

  • green: not in roll-over
  • yellow: in ZSK roll-over
  • red: in KSK roll-over

And you can totally specify these colors yourself via command-line options. Main character energy tbh. 🔥

When it's building the bubble window, bubbles defaults to making a square window. You can override that by specifying the number of columns with the -columns option. Slay.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

bubbles supports the following options. Buckle up, there's a bunch 🌈

  • -columns columns — lets you pick the number of columns used in the Button Window.
  • -kskcolor color — sets the bubble color for zones that are performing KSK roll-overs.
  • -zskcolor color — sets the bubble color for zones that are performing ZSK roll-overs.
  • -noncolor color — sets the bubble color for zones that are not in roll-over.
  • -ignore-display — ignores the rollrec display flag and displays every zone in the rollrec file. Everyone shows up to the party, no invitations checked.
  • -interval wait-time — the interval between checks of the rollrec file. By default, wait-time is given in minutes. You can adjust that by tacking on one of these time-unit suffixes:
    • s — seconds
    • m — minutes
    • h — hours

Examples, because examples are everything:

  • -interval 24 — 24 minutes
  • -interval 24s — 24 seconds
  • -interval 24m — 24 minutes
  • -interval 24h — 24 hours
  • -no-filter — turns off name filtering when bubbles pops a file-selection dialog for choosing a new rollrec file. If you don't give this option, the file-selection dialog will only list regular files with a suffix of .rrf. So like, keep that in mind 👀
  • -showksk — show the zones that are performing KSK roll-overs.
  • -shownonrolls — show the zones that are not in roll-over.
  • -showrolls — show the zones that are performing either type of roll-over.
  • -showzsk — show the zones that are performing ZSK roll-overs.
  • -help — gives you a usage message and exits. Our humble little exit. 🙈
  • -Version — displays the version information for bubbles and the DNSSEC-Tools package. (Note the capital V, bestie — it's -Version, not -version. iykyk.)

🦋 REQUIREMENTS 🦋

bubbles is implemented in Perl/Tk, so both Perl and Perl/Tk absolutely have to be installed on your system. No Perl/Tk, no bubbles. Periodt.

Copyright 2009-2014 SPARTA, Inc. All rights reserved. See the COPYING file included with the DNSSEC-Tools package for details.

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Wayne Morrison, tewok@tislabs.com

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

ok that's the whole page, you made it, I'm so proud of you 🥹 go forth and bubble responsibly

perl v5.44.0 · 2026-10-17 · that's the version, the date, and the whole BUBBLES(1) vibe — mwah 💋🌸

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