SINFOD(8)

💖 SINFOD(8) — the sinfod page, but make it make sense 💖

okay so bestie, welcome to sinfod — the section 8 user-manual glow-up. She's a monitoring tool for networked computers, and honestly? She ate. 🍓

✨ NAME ✨

sinfod — a monitoring tool for networked computers. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 👑

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

sinfod [-F] [-q] [-V] [-b #.#.#.#] [-c] [-n card ] [ -N nicevalue ] [ -m
marker ] [ -i processname ] [-s][-W]

yes queen, those brackets are nesting, look at her go 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So like. sinfod distributes system information to other sinfods on your local network. it's a whole group chat but for system stats. 🫶

These Information include the system load, memory utilization, and the TOP-5 processes on every machine. the receipts, basically. ✨

It's main advantage is, that these informations are broadcasted using the udp(7) protocol. no handshake, just yeet it into the void. 💀

If each node broadcasts it's information in a cooperative manner, the network load is O(N), where N is the number of nodes in your network. linear!! we love a scalable queen. Other systems to monitor your cluster load (e.g. rup(1)) are using a polling scheme where every node has to ask every other node for the system information: In that case the network load is O(N**2). quadratic. embarrassing. not her era. 😭

The task of sinfod is to broadcast the relevant information for the local node and to collect broadcasts from other nodes. Other programs (sinfo(1)) can get access to this information via a simple tcp(7) connection that normally is routed through the local loopback interface. loopback bestie, she's right there, no networking drama. 🎀

💅 OPTIONS 💅

every single flag, no skipping, we're thorough in this house ✨

• -F/--foreground — Unlike normal operation, sinfod will not detach from the terminal when given this option. Some debugging informations will be visible. she stays in the room with you. debugging o'clock. 👀
• -q/--quiet — Start quietly — for init scripts. shhh, she's being polite for the boot process 🤫
• -V/--version — Print the version number and exit. identity check, then she's out 🦋
• -b #.#.#.#/--bcastaddress=#.#.#.# — Set the broadcast address of the sinfod. Default is 255.255.255.255. In you want to run sinfod without a network card "-b 127.0.0.1" may be necessary. yes, the manpage says "In you want", we are preserving the artifact exactly, no notes 💀
• -c/--cmdline — Broadcast the full command line of a process instead of the command only. give us the whole story, not just the headline 💖
• -m marker/--marker=marker — Mark the machine with a name. e.g. laboratory, pool or cluster. name tag energy 🏷️
• -i/--ignore <process> — Don't broadcast any information on <process> ; --ignore may be set multiple times. stackable. she's not nosy about that one process, okay? 🙈
• -t/--top <count> — Broadcast information on the top <count> processes; default: 5. five. iconic number. ⭐
• -n card/--networkcard=card — Set the name of the network card whose informations will be broadcasted. (e.g. eth0). Default is the network card that saw the most traffic at the start of sinfod. main character NIC gets the mic 🎤
• -N nicevalue/--nice=nicevalue — Set the priority of this demon to nicevalue. Default is 15. yes the manpage says "demon". it's a demon. a nice one. nicevalue 15 of niceness 😇
• -s/--spymode — Deactivate the TCP interface and the collection of received packets. The demon starts in a broadcast-only mode. spy mode!! she talks but doesn't listen. lowkey iconic. 🕵️♀️
• -W/--watchdog — Start with simple watchdog. a lil guardian angel situation 🐕✨

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Juergen Rinas <jrinas@gmx.de> — the original main character who wrote all of this. respect. 🫶

🌸 SEE ALSO 🌸

• sinfo(1)
• sshallsinfo(1)

(yeah there's a trailing comma in the original, we keep it, it's part of the lore) 😌

fr fr bestie: this page is from Linux, dated JANUARY 2005. the vibes are vintage, the facts are eternal 💜 slay, periodt, go monitor something ✨🎀🦋