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RFS: procserv



Dear mentors,

I am looking for a sponsor for my package "procserv".

* Package name    : procserv
 Version         : 2.5.0-3
 Upstream Author : Ralph Lange <Ralph.Lange@bessy.de>
* URL             : http://sourceforge.net/projects/procserv/
* License         : GPLv3
 Section         : utils

It builds these binary packages:
procserv - A process server with telnet console and log access

The package appears to be lintian clean.

My motivation for maintaining this package...
procServ origins as a tool for the open source accelerator and physics control system software EPICS (http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics). In that context it is mainly used to run "soft" I/O controller processes in the background, while giving access to the console (stdin/stdout) of the process through a local telnet port. A ssh/screen combination was initially used to achieve this, but using the rich feature set of screen turned out to be sometimes crashing the child process. Also screen sends VT100 escape sequences, which clog up log files pretty much when used under a generic console access package. So procServ was created as a small, simple, stable, generic system-level tool to just run a command line process in the background and connect its stdin/stdout to a telnet port. Plus restarting the child (manually or automatically), PID file handling, blocking potentially dangerous input characters, etc. It does not implement multi-user modes, authorization, authentication etc - all this is left to the next layer console server, e.g. the conserver package. For security reasons, procServ restricts r/w connections to localhost. It optionally provides r/o access from outside (for central logging services). I think this tool is mature, simple, and useful enough to be in the distribution. I am willing to maintain it and keep it there.

The package can be found on mentors.debian.net:
- URL: http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/p/procserv
- Source repository: deb-src http://mentors.debian.net/debian unstable main contrib non-free - dget http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/p/procserv/procserv_2.5.0-3.dsc

I would be glad if someone uploaded this package for me.

Kind regards
Ralph Lange


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