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Web Utilities - quoted

The QOTD Daemon 'quoted' is a free software package that either runs as a stand-alone daemon (listening by default on the 'qotd' port 17), or can be invoked from 'inetd'. It has been tested on Debian Linux, FreeBSD, and Interix (windows 'Services for Unix').

Access to the QOTD Daemon can be via telnet to port 17. A web browser that specifies port 17 in the URL can also be used. The QOTD Daemon will close the connection after sending a random quote from its 'quotes' file. The supplied 'quotes' file can be easily edited with a text editor, and contains over 130 good quality (aka 'not cheesy') quotes. You can either use the included file, or create your own. On most systems, the 'quotes' file will be installed to the '/usr/local/etc' sub-directory.

To download the latest source, you can visit the following link:
   http://www.mrp3.com/webutil/quoted-1.0.tar.gz

You can extract this into the /usr/local/src/quoted-1.0 directory, and then run 'configure' and 'make install' to install 'quoted' on your system.

INSTALLATION

The configure script takes an option 'use-daemon' to enable (or disable) installing supporting scripts for automatic startup of 'quoted' as a daemon when the system boots up (or changes run levels, for systems such as Linux that support multiple run levels). Specify 'yes' (the default) to install 'quoted' as a daemon, and install the startup scripts to their appropriate locations, based upon your OS. Specify 'no' to install 'quoted' without any startup scripts. You will either need to supply these startup scripts yourself, or else add the appropriate entries to 'inetd.conf' to have 'inetd' invoke 'quoted'.

LINUX

For a Linux install, the script 'quoted.rc.linux' is normally installed to invoke 'quoted' at startup, when your version of Linux supports the 'inittab' and 'initscript' implementation, consistent with the 'System V' approach for initialization scripts via 'init'.

Type 'man init' for your OS to verify support. If you are sure that your operating system supports this method, including the use of 'update-rc.d' to install the symbolic links to the appropriate rc#.d directories, please e-mail the maintainer, and provide the complete output of 'config.guess' in the e-mail.

Installation of the init script is normally done via 'update-rc.d' for those operating systems that support it. For others, you can try copying the script 'quoted.rc.linux' manually to the '/etc/init.d' directory as 'quoted', and mark it executable. Then, create the symbolic links as documented. Usually they will take the form of 'S##quoted' where '##' is a sequence number between 00 and 99, for run levels 2 through 5. Run levels 0, 1, and 6 can also have a similar link 'K##quoted'.

INTERIX

For an Interix install, there is no 'update-rc.d' script, so the script 'quoted.rc.interix' is copied directly to the '/etc/init.d' as 'quoted' when you install the application as a daemon. Then, a single symbolic link 'S50quoted' is created by the installer within the '/etc/rc2.d' directory. Optionally, you could add a 'K50quoted' link as well to shut down the daemon gracefully, though it is not required.

FREEBSD

For a FreeBSD install, the script 'quoted.sh.rc.freebsd' should be copied to the /usr/local/etc/rc.d directory as 'quoted.sh'. The 'make install' will normally handle this for you. To run 'quoted' as a daemon, add the following line to the /etc/rc.conf file:

  quoted_enable=YES

If you want to listen on a different port, you can specify this with the following rc.conf entry:

  quoted_param="-p:#"

where '#' is the port number. The default value (unspecified) is port 17, the normal 'qotd' service port.

A 'port' for FreeBSD has been submitted. Upon approval, it is likely to be located in the 'net/quoted' directory within the ports tree.