NAME

       bird - BIRD Internet Routing Daemon
       birdc - BIRD Internet Routing Daemon remote control
       birdcl - BIRD Internet Routing Daemon remote control light

SYNOPSIS

       bird [-c config-file] [-d] [-D debug-file] [-f] [-g group] [-l] [-p] [-P pid-file] [-R]
            [-s control-socket] [-u user]

       birdc [-l] [-r] [-s control-socket] [-v]

       birdcl [-l] [-r] [-s control-socket] [-v]

DESCRIPTION

       bird is an Internet Routing Daemon. That is, it sends and receives messages using different protocols in
       order to discover and exchange routing information with other routing daemons present on the same
       network. It is able to talk the most widely known routing protocols (such as BGPv4, RIPv2, OSPFv2 and
       OSPFv3), both on IPv4 and IPv6 and it features a very powerful language for route filtering.

       birdc is a remote control for bird. While bird is running, the system administrator can connect to it
       using birdc, to inspect its internal status and reconfigure it. The two processes use a Unix socket to
       communicate. Once started, bird will give access to an interactive shell: commands can be completed with
       TAB and help can be requested by pressing the key `?'. More documentation on the available commands can
       be found on the website, see below.

       birdcl is a light version of birdc remote control for bird without readline/ncurses support. TAB
       completion isn't available.

OPTIONS

       The bird accepts these options:

       -c config-file
           Use given configuration file instead of the default /etc/bird/bird.conf.

       -d
           Enable debug messages to stderr, and run bird in foreground.

       -D debug-file
           Enable debug messages to given file.

       -f
           Run bird in foreground.

       -g group
           Run bird with given group ID.

       --help
           Display command-line options to bird.

       -l
           Look for a configuration file and a communication socket in the current working directory instead of
           in default system locations. However, paths specified by options -c, -s have higher priority.

       -p
           Just parse the config file and exit. Return value is zero if the config file is valid, nonzero if
           there are some errors.

       -P pid-file
           Create a PID file with given filename.

       -R
           Apply graceful restart recovery after start.

       -s control-socket
           Use given filename for a socket for communications with the client (remote control), default is
           /run/bird/bird.ctl.

       -u user
           Drop privileges and run as given user instead of root. The bird would keep CAP_NET_ADMIN and other
           network-related capabilities necessary for its function.

       --version
           Display bird version.

       birdc and birdcl accept these options:

       -l
           Look for a communication socket in the current working directory.

       -r
           Run birdc in restricted mode: only the `show ...' commands are allowed.

       -s control-socket
           Use given filename for a socket for communications with the server, default is /run/bird/bird.ctl.

       -v
           Numeric return codes are dumped along with messages, making them easily parsable by a program. See
           the programmer's documentation for information about their meanings.

FILES

       /etc/bird/bird.conf
           The system-wide configuration file to control the behaviour of bird. See the website for more
           documentation.

SEE ALSO

       More documentation can be found on the website: https://bird.network.cz/.

AUTHORS

       Giovanni Mascellani <mascellani@poisson.phc.unipi.it>
           Wrote this manpage for the Debian system.

       Jakub Ružička <jakub.ruzicka@nic.cz>
           Updated this manpage for birdcl.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright © 2010 Giovanni Mascellani
       Copyright © 2022 Jakub Ružička

       This manual page was written for the Debian system (and may be used by others).

       Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General
       Public License, Version 2 or (at your option) any later version published by the Free Software
       Foundation.

       On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in
       /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.

bird                                               04/01/2024                                            BIRD(8)