SYNOPSIS

asp [-uv] [-f | [-d dir] [-e ext]] [-a addresses] [-r repetitions] [-s send_delay] [-w wait_time] [-p port] hostname
asp -V

DESCRIPTION

Asp finds the IP address of an Internet connected host. In order to find it, the peer hostname (not the FQDN), and the range of its possible IP addresses need to be specified. Those IP addresses could be simple IP addresses as 127.0.0.1 or "metaip" addresses as 127.0.0.1-20 or 127.0.0.*: the former is a simple way to avoid to type a lot of consecutive addresses, the latter is short for 127.0.0.1-254.

In order to simplify the management of the associations between hostnames and addresses, asp searches in a specified directory a text file containing the possible IP addresses of the looked for host. The name of the text file has to be formed by the hostname followed by an optional extension of your choice.

For example to find the author's dynamic IP address, obviously if I am on line, you can provide my metaip address on standard input with the command:

echo "195.31.186.1-62
194.166.58.2-18" | asp -f atomic

or you can put my metaip address in a file called atomic in your ~/.asp directory, like this:

echo "195.31.186.1-62
194.166.58.2-18" > ~/.asp/atomic

and then you can simply do:

asp atomic

OPTIONS

-u

Update the file /etc/hosts with the IP address of hostname or delete the possible old entry if the address is not found. Obviously the file have to by writable by the user.

-v

Include more verbiage to make output readable by humans. Default consists only of dotted quad IP address, which is intended for output substitution in scripts.

-f

Force the reading of addresses from standard input instead that from the hostname's file.

-d dir

Set the directory containing the addresses file referred by hostname to dir. Default is ~/.asp.

-e ext

Set addresses files extension to ext. Default is no extension.

-a addresses

Set the number of queries to send before make a pause of send_delay seconds. Default is 12 queries.

-r repetitions

Set the number of times to try the same address. Default is 3 times.

-s send_delay

Delay the sending of the next group of addresses send_delay seconds. Default is 2 seconds.

-w wait_time

Wait the peer reply for wait_time seconds. Default is 5 seconds.

-p port

Specify an alternative port number. For default the port number is obtained searching the asp entry in /etc/services.

-V

Show version information.

AUTHOR

Stenio Brunetta <[email protected]>

Comments and suggestions are welcome.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Steven N. Hirsch <[email protected]> for v1.3 bug fix and for the verbose option.
Colin Phipps <[email protected]> for the tmpnam security issue.