Configuration file

To describe to which networks a forwarder gives an access to, users pass a configuration file to the executable through the --net-config option. This file contains several rules describing which network is reachable using this forwarder:

• The accept rules: these rules describe which network can be accessed using the forwarder.
• The reject rules: these rules describe which network cannot be accessed using the forwarder.
  

A rule is a regular expression that describes a set of hostnames or IP addresses. localhost is a special rule that represent, the ``localhost'' string, but also the 127.0.0.1 IP address and the main network interface IP addresses.

A DIET forwarder configuration file line always starts with accept: or reject: immediately followed by a regular expression.

The rules are evaluated starting by the accept rules. Then the rule accept:.* (accept every hostname) followed by the rule reject:localhost means that the forwarder manage the connections to every hosts except the local host.

Examples of configuration files are given in section 18.3.