pass in quick on $ExtIF inet proto udp from any to any port 29609 >< 29621
If you have a direct connection to the internet, you can skip ahead to the next section.
If you are running behind a masquerading (NAT) network, the Circle will need to run a proxy on your firewall (or at least some computer with a direct connection to the internet). This is because masquerading does some tricky address translation stuff that confuses the Circle.
Circle connects to your firewall using SSH. You need to have installed an SSH server and python on your firewall (which means your firewall will probably have to be running a Unix variant, sorry Windows users).
If you use Windows (on this machine, not your firewall), you will need the PuTTY and plink utilities. Download putty.exe and plink.exe and place them somewhere in your path (eg C:\Windows). Run PuTTY and create an SSH session for your firewall. Use PuTTY to log in to your firewall at least once so that it has the firewall's identifier.
The Circle will prompt you for a proxy location. Under Linux, this is in the form username@machinename. For example, if your firewall is 10.0.0.1, and your username is jsmith type:
jsmith@10.0.0.1
Under Windows, you should enter the name of the session you saved in PuTTY.
The Circle will then use SSH to start a small python program on the firewall that relays data between itself and the outside world.
If your firewall does some kind of packet filtering, make sure it doesn't reject UDP packets for ports in the range 29610 to 29619. BSD users should make sure their firewall's packet filter isn't stateful (see start of this section).
The Circle for the most part behaves just like you would expect of a modern graphical application, but one thing that might not be clear at first is funny little arrows in the various windows. These show or hide parts of windows. For example clicking on many of the arrows will display some helpful information. Clicking again hides it.
Go on, click on a few, they don't bite ;-)
Next, you need to enter some information about yourself so that other people can find you. You may also elect to make some files on your hard disk available to other people on the network, and specify a directory in which to place files you download.
To do this, choose the "Configure" option in the "Network" menu.
To search for a file, enter some keywords or the full file name in the search box, then press the "Find file" button (just like an internet search engine). The Circle will then display a list of matching files and you can choose which ones you wish to download.
To find a person, enter their name or username in the search box, and click "Find person". This will bring up a list of people matching your search.
Select the person you are looking for and click "Add to acquaintances". This will add their username to the list of acquaintances on the right hand side of the main window. It will also let you specify some options, such as whether you want to be told when they arrive and leave.
A list of people you can send messages to is displayed in the right hand column of the main window. Click on the check-box of the person you want to talk to, then type in your message in the main area of the window and press enter.
You can do a number of other funky things related to messaging. For more information, see the messaging documentation.
The Circle has a system for gathering items of news posted by other Circle users, called gossip. It uses a trust network, rather like Advogato except that rather than raph et al being the root of the network, you are. What this means is you can individually tailor the news items you receive by specifying people you trust.
To specify that you trust someone, bring up their details window by clicking on their name or searching for them. Then tick the "Trust this person" checkbox and move the slider to specify the degree to which you trust them.
Once you have specified some people you trust you can view current news items using the "Show hot gossip" option in the "Gossip" menu. You can also post your own gossip using the "Post gossip" option, and other people will be able to read it.
If you don't know what goofey is, you don't need to read this section.
The Circle can run arbitrary shell commands in the main area of the window. Simply prefix the command with a double slash ("//"). So, for example, you can run goofey by typing:
//goofey
And of course you can do all the other goofey things goofey can do.
Note: Goofey does not work on masquerading networks, even if you start a proxy with The Circle.