The easiest way to use etherdump is to create a padinfo JSON file that contains all the information necessary to connect to a particular etherpad server (including hostname, port, and API key).
All pad-specific settings are loaded from a file called "padinfo.json" -- by default etherdump looks in the current directory. Make a copy of padinfo.sample.json to start one. Make sure to check that the URL and port settings are correct, and to paste the correct apikey here!