The configuration of the POPular proxy is done by sending commands to the running proxy server via the pcontrol utility program. When the proxy server is started it will configure itself with a few default values but will not open any ports. Much like a UNIX kernel, that has no network interfaces configured after booting and only a minimal root filesystem mounted, the proxy then has to be contacted to be configured for use.
The pcontrol utility program will read commands for the running pproxy from the command line, a file or from STDIN.
On startup the init-Skript will read the commands in the file /etc/popular/pproxy.rc and execute them.