.B "\-u, \-\-usage"
Writes a brief usage summary to standard output and exits with status 0.
.TP
+.B "\-\-tunnel"
+Writes a string to standard output describing the configured tunnelling
+method and exits with status 0. This is intended for the use of the
+start-up script, so that it can check that it will actually work.
+.TP
.B "\-D, \-\-daemon"
Dissociates from its terminal and starts running in the background after
completing the initialization procedure described above. If running as
.hP 7.
Congratulations. The two servers will exchange keys and begin sending
packets almost immediately. You've set up a virtual private network.
+.SS "Using elliptic curve keys"
+The
+.B tripe
+server can use elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman for key exchange, rather
+than traditional integer Diffie-Hellman. Given current public
+knowledge, elliptic curves can provide similar or better security to
+systems based on integer discrete log problems, faster, and with less
+transmitted data. It's a matter of controversy whether this will
+continue to be the case. The author uses elliptic curves.
+.PP
+The server works out which it
+should be doing based on the key type, which is either
+.B tripe\-dh
+for standard Diffie-Hellman, or
+.B tripe\-ec
+for elliptic curves. To create elliptic curve keys, say something like
+.VS
+key add \-aec\-param \-Cnist-p192 \-eforever \e
+ \-tparam tripe\-ec\-param
+.VE
+to construct a parameters key, using your preferred elliptic curve in
+the
+.B \-C
+option (see
+.BR key (1)
+for details); and create the private keys by
+.VS
+key add \-aec \-pparam \-talice \e
+ \-e"now + 1 year" tripe\-ec
+.VE
+Now start
+.B tripe
+with the
+.B \-ttripe\-ec
+option, and all should be well.
+.SS "Using other symmetric algorithms"
+The default symmetric algorithms
+.B tripe
+uses are Blowfish (by Schneier) for symmetric encryption, and RIPEMD-160
+(by Dobbertin, Bosselaers and Preneel) for hashing and as a MAC (in HMAC
+mode, designed by Bellare, Canetti and Krawczyk). These can all be
+overridden by setting attributes on your private key, as follows.
+.TP
+.B cipher
+Names the symmetric encryption scheme to use. The default is
+.BR blowfish\-cbc .
+.TP
+.B hash
+Names the hash function to use. The default is
+.BR rmd160 .
+.TP
+.B mac
+Names the message authentication code to use. The name of the MAC may
+be followed by a
+.RB ` / '
+and the desired tag length in bits. The default is
+.IB hash \-hmac
+at half the underlying hash function's output length.
+.TP
+.B mgf
+A `mask-generation function', used in the key-exchange. The default is
+.IB hash \-mgf
+and there's no good reason to change it.
+.SS "Using SLIP interfaces"
+Though not for the faint of heart, it is possible to get
+.B tripe
+to read and write network packets to a pair of file descriptors using
+SLIP encapsulation. No fancy header compression of any kind is
+supported. The intended use is that you allocate a pty pair, set the
+slave's line discipline to SLIP, and hand the
+.B tripe
+server the master end, though in fact any old file descriptors will do.
+.PP
+The SLIP descriptors must be set up and running before the daemon is
+started, and you must inform it about the SLIP descriptors it's meant to
+use in an environment variable
+.BR TRIPE_SLIPIF ,
+whose value must be a colon-separated list of items of the form
+.IR infd [ \c
+.BI , outfd \c
+.RB ] \c
+.BI = \c
+.IR ifname .
+If the
+.I outfd
+is omitted, the same file descriptor is used for input and output.
+.PP
+The output file descriptor should not block unless it really needs to:
+the
+.B tripe
+daemon assumes that it won't, and will get wait for it to accept output.
.SS "About the name"
The program's name is
.BR tripe ,
~mdw / tripe / blobdiff