5. SLB Configuration File

Upon startup, slb reads its settings from the configuration fileslb.conf’. This file is normally located in $sysconfidr (i.e., in most cases ‘/usr/local/etc’, or ‘/etc’), but an alternative location can be specified using the ‘--config’ command line option (see section config-file).

If any errors are encountered in the configuration file, the program reports them on its error output and exits with a non-zero status.

To test the configuration file without starting the server use the ‘--lint’ (‘-t’) command line option. It instructs the program to check configuration file for syntax errors and other inconsistencies and to exit with status 0 if no errors were detected, and with status 1 otherwise.

Before parsing, the configuration file is preprocessed using m4 (see section Preprocessor). To see the preprocessed configuration without actually parsing it, use the ‘-E’ command line option. To disable preprocessing, use the ‘--no-preprocessor’ option.

The rest of this section describes the configuration file syntax in detail. You can receive a concise summary of all configuration directives any time by running slb --config-help.