Gated is a very complex system which often turns out to be a source of frustration for the new users. The present section is an attempt to provide a few guidelines for people not familiar with gated and explains how to start with gated. Do not forget that Gated transforms your Unix box into a Internet router, and that you must be familiar with the IP protocol and IP routing protocols in order to design a correct and efficient routing scheme.
The first thing to do in to install gated on your system if it is not installed yet. Chapter 3 explains where to get gated, how to build and install it. It also lists advices for some operating system.
Then the configuration of gated is the next step. gated relies on a configuration file (usually /etc/gated.conf) to tell it what to do. Since gated runs routing protocols and transforms you Unix system into a router, its configuration parameters can be very complex. Chapter 4 details the syntax and semantic of a configuration file. This chapter is very long due to the numerous protocols and features gated can support. You may not need to read the whole chapter but just the introduction, the sections about route preference, tracing, and any section about the protocols you plan to run on your router. The policy section is also very important (section 4.4) and has applications for almost any kind of configuration.
The next stage is to start and control the execution of gated. gated command line syntax and options, and the tool to control gated (start, stop, reconfigure) are explained in chapter 5. This chapter also presents some tools to monitor the RIP and OSPF protocol operations.
If something goes wrong at any time of this process, or if gated is not behaving as you planed, chapter 6 tries to solve the most common problems people can experience when using gated. It won't give you all the answers to your questions but provides good leading tracks to solve your problems. Also note that section 4.29 lists a few most common configuration files, which illustrate the use of the different statements in the configuration file. Some standard router setups are presented there and can be used for a base to your configuration.
People using gated can also join a few mailing lists. The gated consortium official lists are gated-people@gated.merit.edu for general question about gated and gated-alpha@gated.merit.edu for questions about the alpha release of gated. The developers and technical people can also be reached on gated@gated.merit.edu or gated-bugs@gated.merit.edu for bug reports.
Chapter 7 is reserved for the gated developers or anyone involved in porting a new protocol into gated. It details some of the basic gated internal mechanisms.