IMCRC(5)

💖 IMCRC — the IMC scheme config files glow-up 💖

okay bestie, this is the man page for imcrc, aka the IMC scheme configuration commands file, living in the BP configuration files section of the manual. she's a file that talks to ipnadmin. let's get into it 🫶

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✨ NAME ✨

imcrc — IMC scheme configuration commands file. that's the whole name, she's simple like that 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so here's the vibe: IMC scheme configuration commands get handed to ipnadmin either as a file of text lines or interactively at ipnadmin's command prompt, which is :. the commands are interpreted line-by-line, and it's exactly one command per line. no sneaking two in, bestie. one line, one command, periodt.

what do these commands actually do? they establish which nodes are the local node's parents and children inside a single IMC multicast tree. that's it, that's the job. 🎀

this one single spanning tree is an overlay on a single BP-based network, and it's used to convey all multicast group membership assertions and cancellations in the network, for all groups. every node privately tracks which of its immediate "relatives" in the tree are members of which multicast groups, and based on that it selectively forwards bundles destined for the members of each group — directly, to all (and only) interested relatives. obsessed with the efficiency honestly ✨

🚨 important caveat incoming: all of a node's immediate relatives in the multicast tree must be among its immediate neighbors in the underlying network. why? because multicast bundles can only be correctly forwarded within the tree if each forwarding node knows the identity of the relative that passed the bundle to it — that's how the bundle doesn't get passed back to that relative and create a routing loop 💀. and the identity of that prior forwarding node can only be known if the forwarding node was a neighbor, because no prior forwarding node (aside from the source) other than the immediate proximate (neighboring) sender of a received bundle is ever known. that's just how it is, no cap.

IMC group IDs are unsigned integers, just like IPN node IDs are unsigned integers. the members of a group are nodes identified by node number, and the multicast tree parent and children of a node are neighboring nodes identified by node number. 🦋

the formats and effects of the IMC scheme configuration commands are described below, keep scrolling bestie ⬇️

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🌈 GENERAL COMMANDS 🌈

• ? — the help command. shows you a listing of the commands and their formats. it's the same as the h command. twins fr fr 👯
• # — comment line. any line starting with # does not get interpreted. a lil safe space for your thoughts 💭
• e { 1 | 0 } — echo control. set echo to 1 and all output printed by ipnadmin gets logged as well as sent to stdout. set echo to 0 and that behavior is disabled. simple as 🍓
• h — the help command. shows you a listing of the commands and their formats. it's the same as the ? command. (yes, again. iconic.)

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👑 KINSHIP COMMANDS 👑

family matters, let's go 🧚

• a node_nbr { 1 | 0 } — the add kin command. adds the neighboring node identified by node_nbr as an immediate relative of the local node. the Boolean value that follows the node number tells you whether or not this node is the local node's parent within the tree. ✨
• c node_nbr { 1 | 0 } — the change kin command. changes the parentage status of the indicated relative according to the Boolean value that follows the node number, exactly as noted for the add kin command. glow-up for your tree 🌟
• d node_nbr — the delete kin command. deletes the immediate multicast tree relative identified by node_nbr. that node still exists, bestie, she's just no longer a parent or child of the local node. we're not erasing her, we're just… not related anymore 😭
• i node_nbr — prints information (the parentage switch) for the multicast tree relative identified by node_nbr. the receipts 📋
• l — lists all of the local node's multicast tree relatives, and indicates which one is its parent in the tree. the whole family tree, laid out 💜

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💅 EXAMPLES 💅

a 983 1

Declares that 983 is the local node's parent in the network's multicast tree. mother is mothering, that's the parent right there 👑

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• imcadmin(1)

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and that's the page, bestie!! written for perl v5.24.1, dated 2016-07-07, IMCRC(5) — she's an oldie but a goodie and she ate, no crumbs left 🌸💖 periodt 🫶