README for Cricket version 1.0.3
================================

This is Cricket. It is a configuration, polling, and data-display
engine wrapped around the RRD tool by Tobias Oetiker. There are
three user-visible pieces to Cricket: the collector, the grapher, and
the config tree. The collector runs from cron and fetches data
from a number of devices according to the info it finds in the
config tree. The grapher is a CGI application that allows users to
traverse the config tree from a web browser and see the data that
the collector recorded. To use Cricket you need to do these things:

	* make a config tree
	* setup the collector to run on a regular basis
	* setup the grapher to let you look at the data

Installing
----------

If you are a brand new Cricket user, you should read and
closely follow the directions in doc/beginner.html.

If you are a more advanced user, simply read the CHANGES
to see what's new with this version and then install
this version. Run the collector by hand once to make certain
it's still working, then cutover to the new version by
swapping the $HOME/cricket softlink to the new version.
(You _are_ using the softlink, aren't you?)

Documentation
-------------

Point your web browser at the doc/index.html file and choose
the most appropriate document from there.

Patches
-------

If you manage to add a useful feature to the code (or need to
make a bugfix just to get it running) please share a patch with
the Cricket community, or consider becoming a Cricket developer
and adding your code in to the next release.

You can generate a patch like this:

	tar xvf cricket.tar
	mv cricket my-changes
		# make your changes to this this copy
	tar xvf cricket.tar
	gnudiff -u -r cricket my-changes

This will create a unified context diff from the dist directory
to the "my-changes" directory. It will allow people to apply
your changes to their copies of Cricket.

You can find out more about contributing to Cricket development
here:

	http://cricket.sourceforge.net/devel

Support
-------

You can find the most recent version of Cricket at:

	http://cricket.sourceforge.net/

There is information about how to get help with Cricket
online here:

	http://cricket.sourceforge.net/support/

At that website, you can find the FAQ, mailing lists
to join, mailing list archives to search, and other useful
information about how other people are using Cricket.

License
-------

Cricket is covered by the GNU General Public License.
See the file COPYING for copying permission.

Cricket is Copyright (c) 1998-2001 by Jeff Allen

Individual pieces are copyrighted by their contributors, though
they are covered by same license as Cricket, namely the GPL.