--daemonize

This options causes gtk-gnutella to become a daemon. It detaches from the terminal (if started from one) and forks itself into the background. It also changes it working directory to the root directory i.e., "/" so that it doesn't block a mount point for example. This is mainly meant for headless mode but you can also use it if the Gtk+ GUI is enabled.

For example, if you do not start gtk-gnutella from a terminal but from a window manager menu, there's little reason to not daemonize gtk-gnutella. Thus you might want to add the --daemonize option in this case.

Please note that when gtk-gnutella is started as a daemon all output which is normally send to the standard output and standard error output (usually your terminal or a common log file such as ~/.xsession-errors), is sent to /dev/null. The options --log_stderr and --log_stdout can be used to redirect log output in this case.

--geometry

This option can be used to force the main window of the GUI to a certain location on your screen and/or give it certain dimensions.

For example, the following would position the window in the lower left corner with a width of 800 pixels and a height of 600 pixels:

gtk-gnutella --geometry 800x600-0-0

Note that none of this can be guaranteed, your window manager has the last word on this. This option is a traditional command-line switch supported by most X11 applications.

--help

Show a summary of all supported options.

--log_stderr, --log_stdout

These options allow you to log everything which is written to stderr respectively stdout to some files. A typical use would look like this:

gtk-gnutella --daemonize \ --log_stderr ~/logs/gtkg.stderr \ --log_stdout ~/logs/gtkg.stdout

Redirecting these log messages also works without --daemonize. Of course, log files can become large and you might want to archive them. Therefore, you can sent gtk-gnutella a SIGHUP signal. gtk-gnutella will catch the signal and reopen these log files.

--ping

This option allows you to check whether gtk-gnutella is currently running. This option returns with a success code when gtk-gnutella is already running, and with a failure code when it is not.

This allows you to use the following code to start gtk-gnutella from a cron job or window manager menu and avoid starting it twice:

gtk-gnutella --ping || gtk-gnutella

--shell

When this option is used to connect to an already running gtk-gnutella process over a local unix domain socket. This socket is located at "$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/ipc/socket", thus normally "~/.gtk-gnutella/ipc/socket". The socket is only accessible by the user running gtk-gnutella which is enforced by filesystem permissions. The socket is in a dedicated directory because apparently not all systems honor the access permissions on sockets as seen through the filesystem.

You can disable this feature by setting the property "enable_local_socket" to FALSE. It is recommendable to use this local socket whenever possible instead of the TCP socket to access the shell interface remotely. The reason is that the authentication token is passed non-encrypted over the network and everyone who can sniff the network is able to connect to the remote shell. This may not matter over the loopback interface or a LAN, but it's a bad idea to use this over the Internet.

--version

Show the user-agent string used on the Gnutella network which also holds the version information.

You can have multiple searches running at once. To start another search while the first one is running, simply enter another search term into the edit box at the top of the window.

To stop a particular search and remove its tab from the search window, select the search by clicking on its tab and click the "Close search" button. If you want to clear the list for a particular search, but want to continue to see new files that are received for this search, click the "Clear results" button.

It is possible to apply filtering to search results using the filter editor. Click on "Edit filters" to access the editor. Use of the filtering editor goes beyond the scope of this man page, but there is a tutorial on this topic on the gtk-gnutella homepage.

When you find a file that you want to download, select the file in the list and click "Download selected". This file will be placed in the download queue. On the downloads view you can watch the download progress of the file(s) you are downloading.

It is also possible to select a bunch of files for downloading at once. By holding down the control or shift keys while clicking files, you can select several files and then click "Download selected" to put them all in the download queue at once.

If you linger your mouse over each configuration parameter, a tooltip window will popup explaining the meaning of that parameter. You may have to press "Enter" after a text input, or move the focus to another parameter to validate your entry. Items configured via spin buttons normally take effect immediately, unless you type text instead of using the spin buttons.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/config_gnet

Per-user configuration file, for Gnet. This can be edited when the program is not running, but it is best to use the GUI to change configuration variables. gtk-gnutella saves this file every time the program is exited normally.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/config_gui

GUI configuration. It is best to not edit this file.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/dmesh

This is where the download mesh is persisted. You don't need to worry about this.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/dmesh_ban

This is where temporarily banned download mesh entries are stored.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/done.namesize

This file holds the name and size of files completely downloaded by gtk-gnutella and which will now be ignored.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/done.sha1

This file holds the SHA1 of files completely downloaded by gtk-gnutella and which will now be ignored.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/downloads

This is where the download queue is persisted. Only the direct downloads (i.e. non-pushed) can be saved, since they don't need routing information.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/gwcache

This is the list of known other Gnutella web caches, which. gtk-gnutella refreshes regularly.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/hosts

This is the host cache. This is saved by gtk-gnutella on exit and should not be edited by hand.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/searches.xml

This is where the open searches and all the search filters are saved.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/sha1_cache

This is where the cache of all the computed SHA1 is stored.

$GTK_GNUTELLA_DIR/upload_stats

This file keeps track of the upload statistics.

There are probably other missing features that should be listed here.

A list of known bugs might be available at the gtk-gnutella web site (see below.)

Additional information about gnutella is available at

Raphael Manfredi <Raphael_Manfredi@pobox.com> is the current maintainer and project leader (since version 0.14, released early September 2001). Richard Eckart <wyldfire@users.sourceforge.net> is actively working on GUI issues.

For a full list of contributors, open the "About" menu.

Brian St. Pierre <bstpierre@bstpierre.org> wrote the initial version of this manpage.

License to use and copy gtk-gnutella is given under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. Please see the file COPYING in the distribution for complete information.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual page provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual page under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.