c7da6212382f6efa86b8c2f4ca9f267d8273bfdc
max
  Mon Mar 9 03:08:07 2015 -0700
fixing the help message and the tester in hgBeacon.

diff --git src/hg/hgBeacon/README.txt src/hg/hgBeacon/README.txt
index 42e7f96..93b993e 100644
--- src/hg/hgBeacon/README.txt
+++ src/hg/hgBeacon/README.txt
@@ -8,17 +8,30 @@
 information, so as to prevent the identification of patients or at least make
 it quite hard to identify them.
 
 It's implemented as a CGI script (hgBeacon) which stores the data in a sqlite
 database under /gbdb/hg19/beacon.
 We don't have personal data at UCSC so the beacon in this directory serves
 primarily LOVD and HGMD, which we cannot distribute.  These tracks are also
 not in the table browser, but the beacon makes it possible to query
 their positions at least. 
 
 To get usage info, run the CGI with no option, e.g.
 http://genome-test.soe.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgBeacon
 
 The CGI currently only supports hg19.
 
+The file help.txt is used as a flag: if it is not present, hgBeacon will just
+output an error message that it is not activated on this machine. This makes
+sure that mirrors do not get confused by a additional CGI.
+
 API ref at
 https://docs.google.com/document/d/154GBOixuZxpoPykGKcPOyrYUcgEXVe2NvKx61P4Ybn4
+
+"test" is a special chromosome that can be used for testing. Chromosome="test"
+and position="0" will always return "true".
+
+the 'testBeacon' script can be used to test a beacon. The first parameter can be a URL
+to the hgBeacon, e.g. on hgwbeta. It will test the usual replies, true false
+and some meta data.
+example:
+        testBeacon http://genome-test.soe.ucsc.edu/cgi-bin/hgBeacon