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PKS-INTRO(8)		     System Manager's Manual		    PKS-INTRO(8)

NAME
     pks-intro - OpenPGP Public Key Server Introduction

DESCRIPTION
     The OpenPGP Public Key Server system is a set of programs which manages and
     provides general access to a database of OpenPGP public keys.

     The  database  itself is not a standard OpenPGP keyring.  Instead, the keys
     which are managed by the server are stored in a set of Berkeley DB 2.x for-
     mat database files.  Most operations only take a fraction of a second,  and
     even large operations involving tens of thousands of keys usually take only
     a few minutes.

   Programs
     pksclient(8)
	    This  is  a command-line program for managing the database.  It sup-
	    ports All the operations of the daemon, and a few more.

     pksd(8)
	    This is the public key server daemon.  It  processes  HTTP	requests
	    and mail requests to add keys to the database and query the database
	    contents.

     pksdctl(8)
	    This is a helper program used by pksd-mail.sh and pksd-queue-run.sh.

     pks-mail.sh
	    This  script is run for each mail message received to queue the mes-
	    sage.

     pks-queue-run.sh
	    This script is used to process the queue of incoming mail messages.

   Configuration files and data files
     pksd.conf(5)
	    This file contains all the configuration data needed to run the sys-
	    tem.

     <db_dir>/keydbXXX
	    These files contain the actual database.  The  first  files  contain
	    the OpenPGP key information, indexed by the key ID.  The XXX is 000,
	    001, 002, up to the number of key database files minus 1.

     <db_dir>/num_keydb
	    This  file	contains  the number of key database files.  In order to
	    handle very large databases on operating systems with  limited  file
	    sizes, the key database can be split into up to 1000 separate files.

     <db_dir>/timedb
	    This  file	indexes  the key ID's by the time they were added to the
	    database.

     <db_dir>/worddb
	    This file indexes the key ID's by the words in the key's user ID's.

SEARCHING
     The search engine is not the same as that used by the gpg(1) or pgp(1) pro-
     grams.  It will return information for all keys which contain all the words
     in the search string.  A ``word'' in this context is a string  of	consecu-
     tive  alphabetic  characters.  For example, in the string user@example.com,
     the words are user, example, and com.

DATABASE ADMINISTRATION
     pksd uses the locking, logging, and transaction facilities of Berkeley  DB.
     This provides for added safety in the event of a server crash, and also al-
     lows for multiple pksd and/or pksclient processes to access the database at
     the same time.

     This  does  make management of a key server a little more complicated.  The
     Berkeley DB reference section on Berkeley DB Transactional  Access  Methods
     Applications
     <http://www.sleepycat.com/docs/ref/toc.html#transapp>
     describes	the  procedures  and  commands which are used for checkpointing,
     archive (backup), and recovery.  You should familiarize yourself with  this
     information before running a key server.

DESIGN
     The key server was Marc Horowitz's Advanced Undergraduate Project (which is
     really  a	thesis,  but with a different name) for his Bachelor's degree in
     Computer Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-
     ogy.  You can read detailed discussion of the internals of this key server,
     you can read the his AUP at
     <http://www.mit.edu/people/marc/pks/thesis.html>.

FILES
     pksd.conf,    <db_dir>/keydbXXX,	 <db_dir>/num_keydb,	<db_dir>/timedb,
     <db_dir>/worddb

AUTHOR
     Marc Horowitz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

BUGS
     Visit    the    bug    tracking	system	  linked   from   http://source-
     forge.net/projects/pks to view or report bugs.

COPYRIGHT
     Copyright (c) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, Marc Horowitz.  All rights reserved.

     This software doesn't have a warranty, express or implied. See the  LICENSE
     file in the source distribution for full conditions.

SEE ALSO
     gpg(1),   pgp(1),	 pksclient(8),	pksd(8),  pksd.conf(5),  pksdctl(8),pks-
     mail.sh(8), pks-queue-run(8)

				 24 January 1996		    PKS-INTRO(8)

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