Man Linux: Main Page and Category List


       floppyd - floppy daemon for remote access to floppy drive
       floppyd_installtest - tests whether floppyd is installed and running

Note of warning

       This  manpage  has  been  automatically generated from mtools’s texinfo
       end of this man page for details.


       Floppyd  is  used  as  a  server to grant access to the floppy drive to
       clients running on a remote machine, just as an X server grants  access
       to the display to remote clients.  It has the following syntax:

       floppyd  [-d]  [-l]  [-s  port]  [-r  user]  [-b  ipaddr]  [-x display]

       floppyd is always associated with an X server.  It  runs  on  the  same
       machine as its X server, and listens on port 5703 and above.


       floppyd  authenticates  remote  clients  using the Xauthority protocol.
       Xhost authentication is not supported. Each floppyd is associated  with
       an  X  server.  When a remote client attempts to connect to floppyd, it
       sends floppyd the X  authority  record  corresponding  to  floppyd’s  X
       server.   Floppyd  in  turn then tries to open up a connection to the X
       server in order to verify the authenticity of the xauth record.  If the
       connection  to  the  X  server  succeeds, the client is granted access.

       Caution: In order to make authentication work correctly, the local host
       should not be listed in the xhost list of allowed hosts.
        Indeed,  hosts listed in xhost do not need a correct Xauthority cookie
       to connect to the X server. As floppyd runs on the same host as  the  X
       server,  all  its  probe  connection would succeed even for clients who
       supplied a bad cookie.  This means that your floppy drive would be open
       to the world, i.e. a huge security hole.
        If  your X server does not allow you to remove localhost:0 and :0 from
       the xhost list, you can prevent  floppyd  from  probing  those  display
       names with the -l option.

Command line options

       d      Daemon  mode.  Floppyd  runs its own server loop.  Do not supply
              this if you start floppyd from inetd.conf

       s  port
              Port number for deamon mode.  Default is 5703  +  displaynumber.
              This  flag  implies  daemon  mode.   For  example,  for  display
              hitchhiker:5, the port would be 5708.

       b  ipaddr
              Bind address (for multihomed hosts). This  flag  implies  daemon

       r user
              Run the server under as the given user

       x display
              X  display  to use for authentication. By default, this is taken
              from the DISPLAY variable. If neither the x attribute is present
              nor DISPLAY is set, floppyd uses :0.0.

       devicenames  is  a  list  of  device  nodes  to  be opened.  Default is
       /dev/fd0. Multiple devices are only supported on mtools versions  newer
       than 3.9.11.

Connecting to floppyd

        In order to use floppyd, add the flag remote to the device description
       in your ‘~/.mtoolsrc’ file.  If the flag  remote  is  given,  the  file
       parameter  of  the  device description is taken to be a remote address.
       It’s           format           is            the            following:
       hostname:displaynumber[/[baseport][/drive]].  When  using  this  entry,
       mtools connects to port baseport+displaynumber at hostname. By  default
       baseport  is 5703. The drive parameter is to distinguish among multiple
       drives associated with a single  display  (only  mtools  versions  more
       recent than 3.9.11)


        The  following  starts  a  floppy  daemon giving access to ‘/dev/fd0’,
       listening on the default port 5703, tied to the default X servers:

          floppyd -d /dev/fd0

        Each of  the  following  starts  a  floppy  daemon  giving  access  to
       ‘/dev/fd1’, tied to the :1 local X servers, and listening on port 5704.
       We assume that the local host is named hitchhiker.

          floppyd -d /dev/fd0
          floppyd -d -x :1 -p 5704 /dev/fd0

        If you want to start floppyd by inetd  instead  of  running  it  as  a
       daemon, insert the following lines into ‘/etc/services’:

          # floppy daemon
          floppyd-0    5703/tcp    # floppy daemon for X server :0
          floppyd-1    5704/tcp    # floppy daemon for X server :1

        And  insert  the  following  into ‘/etc/inetd.conf’ (assuming that you
       have defined a user named floppy in your ‘/etc/passwd’):

          # floppy daemon
          floppyd-0 stream  tcp  wait  floppy  /usr/sbin/floppyd floppyd /dev/fd0
          floppyd-1 stream  tcp  wait  floppy  /usr/sbin/floppyd floppyd -x :1 /dev/fd0

        Note that you need to supply  the  X  display  names  for  the  second
       floppyd.   This  is because the port is opened by inetd.conf, and hence
       floppyd cannot know its number to interfere the display number.

       On the client side, insert the following  into  your  ‘~/.mtoolsrc’  to
       define a drive letter accessing floppy drive in your X terminal:

          drive x: file="$DISPLAY" remote

       If  your  X  terminal  has  more  than  one  drive,  you may access the
       additional drives as follows:

          drive y: file="$DISPLAY//1" remote
          drive z: file="$DISPLAY//2" remote

See Also

       Mtools’ texinfo doc

Viewing the texi doc

       This manpage has been automatically  generated  from  mtools’s  texinfo
       documentation.  However,  this  process is only approximative, and some
       translation   process.    Indeed,   these  items  have  no  appropriate
       representation in the manpage format.  Moreover,  not  all  information
       has  been  translated into the manpage version.  Thus I strongly advise
       instructions how to view the texinfo doc.

              following commands:

                     ./configure; make dvi; dvips mtools.dvi

       *      To generate a html copy,  run:

                     ./configure; make html

              A      premade      html       can       be       found       at


                     ./configure; make info

       the  info  version  certain  examples  are difficult to read due to the
       quoting conventions used in info.