Latest Release: 0.4.5
Current in CVS: 0.4.5
MUTELLA(1) BSD General Commands Manual MUTELLA(1)
NAME
mutella - A command line and HTTP-based Gnutella servent
SYNOPSIS
mutella
DESCRIPTION
mutella is a high-performance Gnutella servent supporting v0.4 and v0.6
of the Gnutella protocols. It is compatible with a broad range of
clients from other platformsand development groups, including LimeWire,
BearShare, Morpheus, and many more.
mutella is referred to as a servent - it is both client and server to the
network, allowing the user to both serve files to other Gnutella network
members and to receive files from those members. It is designed to be
very easy to use and configure.
mutella is designed to be very easy to use and configure. It has no com-
mand line options; instead, it provides an interactive prompt to the
user, and accepts commands and provides feedback and information to that
interactive session. The interactive session supports command history,
command line editing, and completion through the GNU readline library on
the input line. Command completion can be used to complete commands and
variable names in this version. Commands can be abbreviated, as long a
they are still unique. For example, the results command can be shortened
to res (or even r).
Optionally, the user may choose to interact using a web-based interface.
A remote interface (which operates on the same interface as the Gnutella
port) can be configured which allows the user to perform most of the
basic and many of the complex tasks of monitoring activity, performing
searches, viewing results, selecting results for transfer, and managing
and viewing uploads, downloads, and event messages. Note that, by
default, the web interface is disabled in order to maintain high security
standards.
Using The Terminal Interface
The terminal interface provided on the command line allows the user to
operate on information displayed. Many commands will provide a numbered
list in its output; the command line interface remembers which numbers
were assigned during the last listing of the output type in question,
whether that be the list of connections, the list of searches, or the
last displayed list of results. Rerunning the command that generated the
list will change the numbers which the user must use in following com-
mands to the newly generated numbers.
It is therefore important that when users attempt to close a connection,
list, clear, or stop a search, get a from a result list, or stop or kill
transfers in progress that they do so with the information from their
most recent listing of those commands. This presents a known problem when
using multiple windows in the web display, which operates on a similar
principle. Be aware that if you are using multiple windows to view and
operate on data that you may accidentally operate on information gener-
ated in the wrong list. Future versions may make these identifiers
global and unique references to ensure that users do not experience this.
IMPORTANT NOTE
This manual page may appear corrupted if your man subsystem uses GNU
groff prior than version 1.17.
COMMANDS
The terminal session supports a broad range of commands geared towards
providing full operability from the terminal. Everything which can be
performed in the web interface (and at the moment, a good deal more) can
be performed from the terminal in a fast and efficient manner. The ter-
minal session supports ANSI colorization to make information easier to
locate, organize, and read.
Online Help System Commands
Online help is available for all commands and options in the client. You
can get a list of all commands by typing help or ? Alternately, you can
get a list of variables which can be set by typing "set", which will pro-
vide a grouped list of variables and their current settings to the user.
The commands to access the help system are
help [context]
When invoked without arguments, this command will display a summary of
all commands available witha short one-line description of each com-
mand.
When invoked with a specific command it displays a more detailed
description of that command. Tab completion can be used to assist in
completing command names.
When invoked with a specific variable it displays a detailed descrip-
tion of that variable.
Network Commands
Network commands are used to retrieve information about the status of the
user's network connections to the Gnutella network, and retrieve informa-
tion and statistics about the operation of Gnutella and the user's visi-
ble horizon.
info [options ...]
Displays a broad range of information regarding current status of
the client and its activities. If executed without arguments, it
will list information from all sections, as if the user had sup-
plied all options to the command. Using options will display only
the requested information. Multiple options may be provided.
These options are
network
Displays information about the current network horizon
(reachable hosts, number of hosts sharing information, and
vague estimates of the number of files and size of the visi-
ble part of the Gnutella network to which the client is cur-
rently able to reach.
connections
Displays all current connections to the Gnutella network.
Note that these are the actual Gnutella connections used to
query and recieve queries from peers, and not the connections
used for transferring files (which appear under the transfers
option results). It displays, for each connection, the host
and port to which the servent is connected, the horizon esti-
mates for that particular host connection, and the time that
connection has been operational for. Each connection is num-
bered; individual connections can be manually closed using
the close command, and new connections to specific hosts man-
ually opened using the open command to connect to specific
Gnutella hosts by their IP address or DNS name.
transfers
Displays all current transfers in progress. Actually displays
results as if the user had selected both uploads and
downloads as options to the command.
uploads
Displays each upload, or file sent to another Gnutella user.
Each upload lists the host and port which the file is being
sent to, and various transfer statistics about the file
transfer in progress. The number of simultaneous uploads
allowed and the maximum bandwidth can be set and displayed
from the set command. Each transfer is numbered, and can be
stopped using the stop command.
downloads
Displays all currently active downloads. For each download,
information concerning the remote host selected for download-
ing and transfer statistics are provided.
mutella attempts to establish simultaneous connections to
multiple peers providing the same file, and tries to deter-
mine the fastest possible transfer partner by downloading a
small portion of that file data from each replying host.
Even if the download process starts successfully, mutella as-
sociates with with a special kind of search, listed as
AUTOGET in the search list. These searches are automatically
generated, and are used to find alternative locations for
that file. Once transfer begins, however, new connection
efforts will only be performed once the current download
socket is disconnected.
To avoid slow transfers, it can be useful to set minimum
transfer rates; configuration of parameters are discussed
later.
As with the uploads option, each transfer is numbered, and
can be stopped using the stop command. However, in addition,
the user may choose to kill a download transfer - this
results in the removal of the partial file, the removal of
the .Ar AUTOGET search associated with that file, and the
stopping of the download.
hosts
Displays the current content of the hosts cache, the top of the
iceberg of our 'known universe'. Hosts in this list may be used to
create additional/future Gnutella-net connections. When the client
is in operational state, the host cache contains at least a few
dozen entries; normally not more than 100.
open host [port]
Opens Gnutella-net connection to the specified host. When the port
argument is omitted, the default Gnutella network protocol port of
6346 is assumed.
close ID [...]
Closes one or more connections corresponding to the last displayed
list of connection IDs. The connection matching the given connec-
tion IDs will be taken from the last output of the info command.
Search-Related Commands
These commands are used to manage the searches in progress on the net-
work. Users may define new searches using find , list subsets or spe-
cific types of the current searches and get a listing of all current
searches, remove searches with delete , or flush out current results with
the clear command.
Note that searches are continuous operations - search requests are per-
formed periodically to refresh the list of search results. Over time our
visible horizon changes, and with it, new providers of the requested
files may become available. Clearing the search results will update
search results to be more accurate to the current visible horizon, but it
is safe to leave searches running for long periods of time. Hundreds of
searches may be run simultaneously, each with hundreds or a thousand pos-
sible results - judicious use of pattern matching in the list function
can help manage long search lists.
The commands to create and manage searches are
find keyword ... [options]
Adds new query to the current list of searches. All the keywords
are matched as a boolean AND, ignoring upper/lower case. In addi-
tion, the following search options may be used
-word
Users may exclude specific words from searches using a '-'
before the word (e.g., "find hook .avi -hookers" will only
locate files containing "hook" and ".avi", but will exclude
any file containing the word "hookers". (and we are abso-
lutely certain you've never seen that word legitimately used
in a man page)
size:bytes
Specify the exact size of the file to locate, in bytes.
min:bytes
Specify the minimum size of the file to locate, in bytes.
max:bytes
Specify the maximum size of the file to locate, in bytes.
If no parameters are provided to this command, it provides the
same results as the list command.
list [pattern / ID] [options]
Displays the current list of searches. Optionally, this command
takes a pattern as a parameter. Each search result listed is num-
bered; that number, the search ID, may then be fed into other com-
mands to perform operations on those searches, such as delete to
delete searches from the list, clear to clear results, or results
to list the results of one or more searches.
When a pattern is provided, only searches matching the specified
pattern will be listed. This feature is most useful when the
search list grows above 5-10 entries.
In addition, the following options can be used
-empty Filter out all searches which have no results
('hits').
-auto Filter out automatically generated search results
created by downloads. Searches which will be fil-
tered out are marked as AUTOGET in the results list.
These searches are automatically created by down-
loads and partial files.
ls Provides the same results as if the user had typed in
list -empty
as an interactive command.
delete ID [...]
Delete one or more queries from the current list of searches.
Numeric IDs should be taken from the last output of the list com-
mand.
IDs can be given in fairly relaxed way. For example, ".Ic delete
2,5, 1,8-10" will delete searches listed under numbers 1, 2, 5, 8,
9, and 10. Another example might be "delete 1-" which would
delete all the searches listed by the last list command.
clear ID [...]
Clear the results of one or more queries from the current list of
searches. Numeric IDs should be taken from the last output of the
list command.
As with the delete command, search IDs to delete may be given in a
similarly relaxed way.
Results-Related Commands
Once a search has located results, those results may be listed. (The
search entry, as reported by the list command, reports a nonzero "hits"
in its results.
The results for one or more specific searches can be requested by using
the results command,. One or more search IDs taken from the output of
the list command may be provided as optional parameters. Alternatively,
a text string may be provided as a filter to limit the output only to
those searches which match the supplied filter contents.
Once the user has viewed the results, he may use the result ID provided
in that list to perform a get, and attempt to download that file.
results [pattern ...] or [ID ...]
This command displays the results of currently active searches. With-
out arguments, this command will display all results collected by the
search subsystem. The output of the command can be made more specific
using two different mechanisms: either by providing one or more search
IDs taken from the list command, or by providing a pattern to match
against the search strings of individual searches.
A list of results will be provided, separating the results of each
query and listing the number of results in each query group. Files may
be grouped according to name and size, the number of hosts providing
that file listed below with host details. A "REF" number represents
the "reference" part of the Gnutella file transfer query (which is
built like http://HOST:PORT/get/REF/FILE_NAME).
get ID [...]
Initiates download of one or more files defined by specific result IDs
taken from the last results command.
IDs can be given in fairly relaxed way. For example "get 10, 15, 22-25"
will start download of the search results listed under numbers 10, 15,
21, 22, 23, 24, 25.
The progress of downloads can be examined with the info command.
Once download is started, mutella will try to get the requested file
from any hosts providing that file for an unlimited amount of time.
The download will complete only when the transfer is successful or
stopped with the stop or kill transfer commands.
Upon download start, Mutella generates the search for alternative loca-
tions for the file. The results, received by that search entry are
always automatically used to update host lists for the download. If
the automatically generated search is deleted while the download is
still active, it will be re-created again after a period of time.
Upon download start or disconnection of a transferring file connection
from the remote peer, the servent tries to connect to all the hosts in
the download list until a successful connection is established. If a
host is not responding during the last 20 attempts, it is removed from
the peer list. If for any reason the peer list becomes empty, an
AUTOGET search is added (if the search associated with that transfer
exists already, it will be changed to AUTOGET status) and download
failure is reported. If that file appears again on the Gnutella hori-
zon, the servent will automatically attempt to continue transfer.
AUTOGET searches are also created for all partial files found in the
download directory on the client start to allow for automatic resume of
partial downloads between mutella sessions.
Transfer Commands
Transfer commands need to be provided with the ID of the transfer to
stop; these IDs can be shown from the info command.
stop ID [...]
Stops the file transfers corresponding to one or more
transfer IDs. Note that this command does not remove par-
tial files from the download directory.
kill ID [...]
Stops transfers corresponding to the given transfer IDs and
deletes appropriate patrial files in case of download.
Application Preferences
Application preferences are set using the set command, which allows you
to list, set, and view the settings of all servent preferences. Each
variable has online help through the help system to assist in configura-
tion.
set [variable] [value]
This command is used to access the application's many options and pref-
erences. Using the command without any parameters provides an organised
list of all options available and their current values. When the com-
mand is called with a single variable name, but without a value, it
will display the current settings of that variable. To set a vari-
able's contents, supply the value as the second parameter to the com-
mand.
To clear a variable of its value, a variable can be set to "" (an empty
string).
Note that to disable the effects of some variables, the value is 0; for
others, 0 has a meaning, and -1 will disable the feature. More infor-
mation about how a variable behaves can be found in the online help
system by supplying the variable name as the option to the help com-
mand.
All mutella options are stored in '~/.mutella/mutellarc' file.
color [field [ANSI-code]]
This command can be used to set the ANSI escape codes used to produce
colors for the terminal UI. The syntax for this command is similar to
`set'.
The color scheme is stored in the location ponted by the ColorScheme
variable (the default is '~/.mutella/termclr').
Other Commands
Commands in this section include the ability to list all currently shared
files, rescan for new files in the library, and performing scripting
actions. Also, the system command, which allows users to execute
arbitrary shell commands, and the exit command, which allows users to
terminate execution of the client.
scan Forces a rescan of the list of files present in the library
directory and makes those files available as query responses.
A rescan will automatically take place at the successful com-
pletion of any download.
library This command provides a list of all currently shared files.
This command is most useful when testing the effects of filters
which can be set in mutella's preferences to determine what
files can be shared. It also reports search popularity of the
files and the number of upload requests for each file.
load filename
Loads and executes a script file containing commands in the
servent's command interpreter.
system command [arguments ...]
Executes the shell command provided.
! command [arguments ...]
Shorthand; same as "system".
version This command displays the current program version.
exit Exits the servent.
Unix Pipes
All commands support Unix pipes. The output of any command can be redi-
rected to the shell using standard Unix pipeline syntax, e.g. "res 1-3 |
grep something" to grep the output of that command for specific result
patterns.
FILES
Configuration is retained within the user's home directory; a .mutella/
directory will be created containing a mutellarc and other app-specific
files.
VERSION
This manual documents mutella 0.4.0
AUTHORS
Max Zaitsev Original author and maintainer.
Gregory R. Block
Co-maintainer and co-developer, build system, and portabil-
ity changes
Other Contributors
Marco Herrn Original author of this manual page.
Greg Parker Contribution of a one-shot replacment for poll() for sys-
tems only supporting select()
LIMITATIONS
· mutella has a known problem with hostname translation. Hostnames are
resolved by gethostbyname() during connection open; this halts pro-
cessing of the core network heartbeat, which causes the application
(in specific circumstances) to hang for long periods of time. During
this, the application may refuse to report connection lists and simi-
lar activities which would need access to that locked information.
Please ensure that autoconnect host entries are valid host entries on
your system and can be located with nslookup if you find you are hav-
ing problems like this. Future versions will perform these activi-
ties asynchronously.
· Mutella is dependent on the availability of GNU readline version 4.2.
· Rates displayed for individual Gnutella-net connections in info do
not reflect the bandwidth consumed and are given only for the refer-
ence. Total connection speed, however, is quite reliable parameter.
SEE ALSO
pipe(2), readline(3), mutellarc(5), mutella-templates(5)
TODO
· Explain concepts and special features better, including auto-search,
auto-get, and other search-time options.
· Add a TIPS section (and mention the extreme usefulness of "screen"
when used with Mutella to keep long-term sessions
· Mention the ./mutella/termrc scripts for performing specific commands
at startup.
POSIX May 15, 2002 POSIX