This file contains information on the ecdl2K-108 RPM for Alpha Linux. Note: To use the source code on its own without installing the RPM, please see the instructions at the top of the .c file instead! Consult the following URL for the most up-to-date information: http://pauillac.inria.fr/~harley/ecdl7/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** Using the RPM *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. First of all, go to this form to join the ECDL project: http://cristal.inria.fr/bin/ecdldb Give your email address (or at least something that identifies you uniquely) and a passphrase you just invented. Keep a safe copy somewhere! You can then join a team and give other optional info. You can change these at any time. Note: If you prefer to stay anonymous and not sign up, that's fine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 2. As root, install or upgrade the RPM with a command like: rpm -Uvh ecdl2K-108-1.1.0-1.alpha.rpm The RPM name is ecdl2K-108 so you can query it by: rpm -qi ecdl2K-108 The install puts some files in /usr/local/ecdl/ and some in /etc/rc.d/ When complete it should display the following message: Please edit /usr/local/ecdl/launch to set your name and options Then type: /etc/rc.d/init.d/ecdl start ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3. As root, open /usr/local/ecdl/launch in your favourite editor and change this line: EMAIL=dude@example.com Give the exact same string you used when signing up, since otherwise the Web pages will not be able to show correct statistics for your contribution. You may change the second line: MODE=mail The useful modes are batch, mail, alt, or http. To explain their meaning, here is some background. When running, the program produces things called "distinguished points" every few hours. Each distinguished point looks something like this: Distinguished point found at: Wed Nov 24 03:52:02 1999 ECC-L0|Unix64|1.1.0| ECC-L1|6B445FC02D031AEA01F28B7AF92|ABD2FF8960D196A4AB43719A64F| ECC-L2|me@here| ECC-L3|000015AE4C35| ECC-L4|bla| These points are valuable! The ECDL project needs to collect roughly 1.3 million of them to solve Certicom's ECC2K-108 problem. The points are always appended to a file /usr/local/ecdl/dist.points and also written to stdout along with some verbose info for human consumption. Note that stdout is redirected to a log file: /usr/local/ecdl/ecdl.log. When running in "mail" mode each point is automatically emailed (via a pipe to sendmail) to ecdl2K-108@pauillac.inria.fr. INRIA's excessively aggressive spam filters might refuse the email; in that case switch to "alt" mode which sends to ecdl2K-108@rupture.net instead. When running in "http" mode each point is automatically sent (using the HTTP POST protocol) to the Web server on cristal.inria.fr. If your machine is behind a firewall, you'll need to specify a Web proxy to use for sending the points via HTTP. To do so, change this line: PROXY= to show the proxy host and port number, something like this: PROXY=proxy.example.com:3128 Note: this does not work with firewalls using the SOCKS protocol. For machines unable to send email or make HTTP connections, for instance not permanently connected to the Net, use "batch" mode. Then every few days do: cd /usr/local/ecdl/ mv dist.points dist.points.nov.25 or similar using the correct date, and email the "dist.points.nov.25" file manually. When the next distinguished point is found, a new "dist.points" file will be created for it and further points will be appended to this new file until the next time you "mv" it. Mode: batch mail alt http ------------------------------------------------------------------ Writes info on stdout (ecdl.log) x x x x Writes points to "dist.points" x x x x Sends points via sendmail x x Sends points via http x Finally you may wish to change this line: MACHINE=`hostname` for instance to give a fake machine name. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. As root, start up the ECDL program like this: /etc/rc.d/init.d/ecdl start the program will look for the saved state file /usr/local/ecdl/saved.state. As there is none, it will generate a new state and work from there. When the program is running it saves its internal state in /usr/local/ecdl/saved.state from time to time. If you want to stop the program, send it a SIGINT or SIGTERM signal so it can save its state before exiting. You can stop it by: /etc/rc.d/init.d/ecdl stop When you start again by: /etc/rc.d/init.d/ecdl start the program will look for the saved state file /usr/local/ecdl/saved.state, read it and continue where it left off. Note that the additions to /etc/rc.d/ ensure that the ECDL program will restart automatically after a reboot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 5. If you uninstall the RPM by: rpm -e ecdl2K-108 it stops the ECDL program running, removes the additions to /etc/rc.d/ and most of the stuff in /usr/local/ecdl. It will leave dist.points, ecdl.log and saved.state though. The saved state is precious if you ever want to restart. The points in dist.points are precious too. Please be certain that they have been successfully emailed and recorded here at INRIA before deleting them! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 6. Good luck! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------