1 <!doctype linuxdoc system>
5 <!-- Title information -->
7 <title>The DXSpider Installation Manual v1.50</title>
8 <author>Iain Philipps, G0RDI (g0rdi@77hz.com),
9 Ian Maude, G0VGS, (g0vgs@gb7mbc.net) and Charlie
10 Carroll, K1XX, (k1xx@ptcnh.net)</author>
11 <date>February 2003 revision 0.6</date>
14 A reference for SysOps of the DXSpider DXCluster program.
17 <!-- Table of contents -->
20 <!-- Begin the document -->
22 <sect>Linux Installation
27 This section describes the installation of DX Spider v1.50 on a
28 <htmlurl url="http://www.redhat.com" name="RedHat"> Linux Distribution.
29 Wherever possible I will try to include differences for other distributions.
32 I am assuming a general knowledge of Linux and its commands. You should
33 know how to use <em>tar</em> and how to edit files using your favourite editor.
36 The crucial ingredient for all of this is
37 <htmlurl url="http://www.perl.org" name="Perl">. Earlier versions of
38 Spider required perl 5.004, however it is now <it>STRONGLY</it> recommended
39 that you use at least version 5.005_03 as this is the version being used
40 in the development of Spider.
43 In addition to the standard Red Hat distribution you will require the
44 following modules from <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/" name="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/"> , please note however that with later versions of perl, some of these
45 modules may be included with the distribution. Get the modules anyway and try
46 to install as below. If they complain, they are probably already a part of your
51 <item> <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Data/Data-Dumper-2.10.tar.gz" name="Data-Dumper-2.101.tar.gz">
52 <item> <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Date/TimeDate-1.10.tar.gz" name="TimeDate-1.10.tar.gz">
53 <item> <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/IO/IO-1.20.tar.gz" name="IO-1.20.tar.gz (for perl 5.00403 and lower)">
54 <item> <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Net/Net-Telnet-3.03.tar.gz" name="Net-Telnet-3.03.tar.gz">
55 <item> <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Curses/Curses-1.06.tar.gz" name="Curses-1.06.tar.gz">
56 <item> <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Time/Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz" name="Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz">
57 <item> <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Digest/Digest-SHA1-2.01.tar.gz" name="Digest-SHA1-2.01.tar.gz">
61 Copy the CPAN modules listed above to a convenient place on your computer. One good
62 place would be /usr/local/packages, and the instructions which follow will assume that
63 that's where you have put them.
66 Log in as 'root', and make sure you're at '/root' before you continue. Here are exactly the commands you must issue next: -
69 # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Data-Dumper-2.101.tar.gz
70 # cd Data-Dumper-2.101
76 # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/TimeDate-1.10.tar.gz
83 # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/IO-1.20.tar.gz
87 # make install UNINST=1
90 # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Net-Telnet-3.03.tar.gz
97 # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Curses-1.06.tar.gz
104 # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz
105 # cd Time-HiRes-01.20
111 # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Digest-SHA1-2.01.tar.gz
112 # cd Digest-SHA1-2.01
120 Do not fall into the trap of thinking they're all the same, just because they
121 nearly are! Pay particular attention to the instructions of <em>IO</em>, above.
127 I will assume that you have already downloaded the latest tarball of
128 the DXSpider software and are ready to install it. I am assuming version
129 1.50 for this section but of course you would use the latest version.
132 Login as root and create a user to run the cluster under. <bf><it>UNDER
133 NO CIRCUMSTANCES USE ROOT AS THIS USER!</it></bf>. I am going to use
134 the name <em>sysop</em>. You can call it anything you wish. Depending
135 on your security requirements you may wish to use an existing user,
136 however this is your own choice.
143 For SuSE distributions, the command would be ..
150 Now set a password for the user ...
155 # Retype new UNIX password:
156 passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully
159 <sect1>Installing the software
162 Now to unpack the DX Spider distribution, set symbolic links and group
163 permissions. Copy the tarball to /home/sysop and do the following.
167 # tar xvfz spider-1.50.tar.gz
168 # ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider
169 # groupadd -g 251 spider (or another number)
173 If you do not have the command <em>groupadd</em> available to you simply
174 add a line in /etc/group by hand.
177 # vi /etc/group (or your favorite editor)
181 You also need to add some others to the group, including your own callsign
182 (this will be used as an alias) and root. The finished line in /etc/group
183 should look something like this
186 spider:x:251:sysop,g0vgs,root
190 The next step is to set the permissions on the Spider directory tree and files ....
193 # chown -R sysop.spider spider
194 # find . -type d -exec chmod 2775 {} \;
195 # find . -type f -exec chmod 775 {} \;
199 This last step allows various users of the group <em>spider</em> to have
200 write access to all the directories. This is not really needed just yet
201 but will be useful when web interfaces start to appear.
204 Finally, you need to fix the permissions on the ax25_call and netrom_call
205 programs. Check where they are with the <em>locate</em> command and alter
206 the permissions with the <em>chmod</em> command like this ..
209 # chown root ax25_call netrom_call
210 # chmod 4775 ax25_call netrom_call
213 <sect1>Setting callsigns etc
216 Now login to your machine as the user you created earlier. In my case that
217 user is called <em>sysop</em>. Once logged in, issue the following commands ....
223 $ cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm
225 $ vi DXVars.pm (or your favourite editor)
229 Using the distributed DXVars.pm as a a template, set your cluster callsign,
230 sysop callsign and other user info to suit your own environment.
237 This is the call sign of your cluster. If you use an SSID then include it here
245 This is the sysop user callsign, normally your own.
248 <bf>PLEASE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR CALLSIGNS</bf>
251 Note that this a perl file which will be parsed and executed as part of the
252 cluster. If you get it wrong then perl will complain when you start the cluster
253 process. It is important only to alter the text of any section. Some of the
254 lines look a little odd. Take this line for example ....
257 $myemail = "ianmaude\@btinternet.com";
261 There appears to be an extra slash in there. However this has to be there
262 for the file to work so leave it in.
265 DON'T alter any file in /spider/perl, they are overwritten with every
266 release. Any files or commands you place in /spider/local or /spider/local_cmd
267 will automagically be used in preference to the ones in /spider/perl EVEN
268 while the cluster is running!
271 Save the new file and change directory to ../perl ....
278 Now type the following command which creates the basic user file with you as
285 <sect1>The client program
288 In earlier versions of Spider, all the processes were Perl scripts. This
289 was fine but with a lot of users your computer memory would soon be used up.
290 To combat this a new client was written in "C". This client only works for
291 <em>incoming</em> connects at the moment. Before you can use it though it
292 has to be "made". CD to /spider/src and type <em>make</em>. You
293 should see the output on your screen and hopefully now have a small C program
294 called <em>client</em>. Leave it in this directory.
297 <sect1>Starting up for the first time
300 We can now bring spider up for the first time and see if all is well or not!
301 It should look something like this ...
305 DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.50
306 Copyright (c) 1998 Dirk Koopman G1TLH
308 loading band data ...
309 loading user file system ...
310 starting listener ...
311 reading existing message headers
313 orft we jolly well go ...
317 If all is well then login on another term or console as <em>sysop</em> and
318 cd to /spider/src. Now issue the following command ...
325 This should log you into the cluster as the sysop under the alias callsign we
326 set earlier. In this case the callsign is G0VGS. The cluster callsign is set
327 in the DXVars.pm file in /spider/local. In this case we will assume that this
328 was set as GB7MBC. You should therefore see this when you login ....
331 G0VGS de GB7MBC 19-Nov-1999 2150Z >
335 If you do, congratulations! If not, look over the instructions again, you
336 have probably missed something out. You can shut spider down again with the
344 and both the cluster and the client should return to Linux prompts.
347 <sect>Linux quick installation guide
350 This section is designed for experienced Spider sysops who want to install
351 Spider from scratch. It is simply a check list of things that need to be
352 done without any explanations. The name in brackets at the end of each line
353 is the user that should be doing that process.
357 <item>Get the additional CPAN modules and install them (root)
358 <item>Create the "sysop" user and set a password (root)
359 <item>Put the Spider tarball in ~sysop and untar it (root)
360 <item>ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider (root)
361 <item>groupadd -g 251 spider (root)
362 <item>Add any more users you need to the group entry in /etc/group (root)
363 <item>Set the permissions on the spider tree (root)
364 <item>Fix permissions on ax25_call and netrom_call (root)
365 <item>Login as the sysop user
366 <item>cd to /spider (sysop)
367 <item>mkdir local (sysop)
368 <item>mkdir local_cmd (sysop)
369 <item>cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm (sysop)
370 <item>cd to /spider/local and edit DXVars to set your details (sysop)
371 <item>cd ../perl (sysop)
372 <item>./create_sysop.pl (sysop)
373 <item>./cluster.pl (sysop)
377 Spider should now be running and you should be able to login using the
382 <item>Enter the correct line in ax25d.conf (root)
383 <item>Enter the correct line in /etc/services (root)
384 <item>Enter the correct line in /etc/inetd.conf (root)
385 <item>killall -HUP inetd (root)
389 Spider should now be able to accept logins via telnet, netrom and ax25.
393 <item>Start the cluster (sysop)
394 <item>set/node and type for links (sysop)
395 <item>Write any connect scripts (sysop)
396 <item>Edit /spider/crontab as required (sysop)
397 <item>Edit any other files as necessary (sysop)
398 <item>Set filters, hops and forwarding files (sysop)
400 <item>Enter the correct line in /etc/inittab (root)
403 <sect>Setting up the AX25 Utilities
406 The aim of this section is not to fully cover the installation
407 and configuration of all the possible ax25 modules. I will
408 attempt to cover a simple installation and configure 2 serial
409 ports as if they had TNC's on them. I will also show what
410 additional configuration the DXSpider program requires.
413 Please bear in mind that I am basing this section on a RedHat
414 7.1 distribution, if you are using SuSe or any other distibution
415 then your mileage may vary. I will be happy to make any changes
416 and additions if you email me any errors or distribution specific
420 You would probably benefit from reading the <htmlurl url="http://www.fokus.gmd.de/linux/HOWTO/html_single/AX25-HOWTO.html#AEN151" name="AX25-HOWTO"> which is much more
421 comprehensive and an interesting configuration program is also available
422 called <htmlurl url="http://1409.org/projects/index.html" name="ax25-config"> which
423 may help you to configure things.
426 The following files are extracts from the working files at GB7MBC and
427 are in daily use. However, there are many ways that you can configure the
428 ax25 utils, this is just the one I use, it does not mean it is necessarily
429 the best or for that matter, the right way!
431 <sect1>Getting Started
434 There are 2 things you need to do initially. You need to get the
435 3 files required for the ax25 installation and you need to make
436 some changes to the kernel configuration.
439 The first thing is to get the versions of the ax25 utils that match
440 your kernel. You may also wish to get a node package of some kind.
441 There are 2 main node packages in use of which I shall keep to the
442 original by Tomi Manninen, OH2BNS as this is included in the ax25
443 rpms as standard. The other is <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/ham/packet/linux/awznode/" name="AWZNode"> by IZ5AWZ.
446 NB: The AX25 stuff in 2.4 kernels appears to have been broken until 2.4.18. I
447 strongly suggest you get at least this kernel.
450 For 2.4 kernels you need these files...
454 <item> <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/7.1/en/powertools/i386/RedHat/RPMS/libax25-0.0.7-7.i386.rpm" name="libax25-0.0.7-7.i386.rpm">
455 <item> <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/7.1/en/powertools/i386/RedHat/RPMS/ax25-tools-0.0.6-13.i386.rpm" name="ax25-tools-0.0.6-13.i386.rpm">
456 <item> <htmlurl url="ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/7.1/en/powertools/i386/RedHat/RPMS/ax25-apps-0.0.4-9.i386.rpm" name="ax25-apps-0.0.4-9.i386.rpm">
462 First you need to add Amateur Radio Support to your kernel. This is
463 a main menu item and should be easily found. Within this header you
464 will find lots of options. For our purposes you need to enable
465 Amateur Radio AX.25 Level 2 Protocol, NET/ROM and the Serial Port
466 KISS Driver. For the purposes of this document I will work under the
467 assumption that you include them in the kernel fully, ie not as modules.
468 If you need to look at compiling your kernel for ax25 more fully, I would
469 refer to the excellent
470 <htmlurl url="http://www.fokus.gmd.de/linux/HOWTO/html_single/AX25-HOWTO.html#AEN151" name="AX25-HOWTO">
473 I should say at this stage that NET/ROM is not mandatory. If you do not use it
474 simply ignore any instruction concerning it.
477 Now recompile your kernel in the normal way and reboot your system.
479 <sect1>Installing the RPM's
482 Now install the RPM's you downloaded, libax25 first, then ax25-tools,
486 rpm -ivh libax25-0.0.7-7.i386.rpm
487 rpm -ivh ax25-tool-0.0.6-13.i386.rpm
488 rpm -ivh ax25-apps-0.0.4-9.i386.rpm
494 You will find the configuration files in /etc/ax25. These consist of
506 These are the main files. You will find other files but they do not
507 have any use unless you are wanting to use that particular protocol,
508 Rose or axip for example.
511 NOTE:- before we start it is important to realise that every interface
512 requires a different SSID. You should be able to follow this in the
518 This file sets up the ax25 ports you want to use. An example is below
519 for a standard TNC2 ...
522 #portname callsign baudrate paclen window description
523 2m gb7mbc-2 19200 256 2 2m port on 144.900MHz
524 4m gb7mbc-4 19200 256 2 4m port on 70.325MHz
528 Note that the portnames have to be unique.
531 The file headings are as follows ...
534 portname - The name you will refer to the port by
535 callsign - The ax25 callsign you want to assign to the port
536 baudrate - The speed you communicate between TNC and computer
537 paclen - The maximum packet length for ax25 connections
538 window - The ax25 window parameter. This is like 'maxframe'
539 description - A textual description of the port
545 This file sets up the netrom ports you want to use. An example is below
546 and includes a port for both cluster and node. You will see why we need
550 #portname callsign alias paclen description
551 netrom gb7mbc-8 BARE 236 Node Netrom Port
552 netrom2 gb7mbc-9 MBCDX 236 Cluster Netrom Port
556 Note that the portnames have to be unique.
559 The file headings are as follows ...
562 portname - The name you will refer to the port by
563 callsign - This is the callsign that NET/ROM traffic from this
565 alias - The NET/ROM alias this port will be assigned
566 paclen - The maximum size of NET/ROM frames transmitted
567 description - A textual description of the port
573 This file sets up the netrom broadcast qualities. An example is below ...
576 #axport min_obs def_qual worst_qual verbose
581 The file headings are as follows ...
584 axport - The port name in axports that you wish to broadcast
586 min_obs - The minimum obsolescence value for the port
587 def_qual - The default quality for the port
588 worst_qual - The worst quality for the port. Any routes under
589 this quality will be ignored
590 verbose - This flag determines whether you will only broadcast
591 your own node (0) or all known nodes (1)
597 This file controls any incoming ax25 and NET/ROM connections and steers
598 them to the relevant program. There are lots of configuration options
599 you can set here, however they are well covered in the AX25-HOWTO. For
600 our purposes I will show a typical set of parameters. An example is
605 parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0
607 default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
610 parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0
612 default * * * * * * 0 root /usr/sbin/node node
615 parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0
617 default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
620 parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0
622 default * * * * * * 0 root /usr/sbin/node node
625 parameters 1 10 * * * 3 *
627 default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
630 parameters 1 10 * * * 3 *
632 default * * * * * * 0 root /usr/sbin/node node
636 There are a few things to take note of here. Firstly, all ax25
637 sections are wrapped in [ ] and all NET/ROM sections are wrapped in
638 < >. Secondly you should be able to see that anyone who forgets to
639 set their callsign in a TNC and tries to connect with the standard
640 NOCALL set into their TNC will not connect, the 'L' means 'lockout'.
641 Lastly and importantly, notice the order of the sections. They are
642 all done in interface order.
645 You should be able to see that the normal line for access to the
646 cluster is like this ..
649 default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
653 however, if you wish your users to be able to use SSID's on their callsigns ..
656 default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %s ax25
660 For most purposes this is not desirable. The only time you probably will
661 need this is when you need to allow other cluster nodes that are using SSID's
662 in. In this case it would probably be better to use the first example and
663 then add a specific line for that node like this:
666 GB7DJK-2 * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client gb7djk-2 ax25
667 default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
673 For those of you that wish to run the node, you need to set up the
674 node.conf file. There are a couple of additional files, node.perms is
675 very similar to the way ftp permissions are set up in NOS systems and
676 node.motd is the message anyone logging into the node will get.
677 The node.conf file sets all the parameters of the node as you would
678 expect. An example is below ...
681 # /etc/ax25/node.conf - LinuxNode configuration file
685 # Idle timeout (seconds).
689 # Timeout when gatewaying (seconds).
693 # Visible hostname. Will be shown at telnet login.
695 HostName gb7mbc.ampr.org
703 #LocalNet 44.139.8.48/32
705 # Command aliases. See node.conf(5) for the meaning of the uppercase
706 # letters in the name of the alias.
708 ##Alias CAllbook 'telnet %{2:44.17.0.53} 1235 %1 s'
709 #Alias CONVers 'telnet %{2:oh2ti} 3600 "/n %u %{1:139}\n/w *"'
710 #Alias CLuster 'c hkiclh'
711 Alias CONV "telnet lurpac 3600"
712 Alias BBS "c 70cm gb7crv"
713 Alias DXC "telnet localhost 9000"
714 Alias MUD "telnet homer 4000"
715 ##Alias TEMP "finger temp@mary.g6phf"
716 ##Alias TNOS "c ip1 gb7mbc-5"
717 ##Alias TUtor "telnet gb7mbc 3599"
723 # External commands. See node.conf(5) for the meaning of the uppercase
724 # letters in the name of the extcmd.
726 # Flags: 1 Run command through pipe
729 #ExtCmd TPM 3 nobody /usr/bin/finger finger tpm
730 #ExtCmd ECho 1 nobody /bin/echo echo \%U \%u \%S \%s \%P \%p \%R \%r \%T \%t \%\% \%0 \%{1:foobar} \%{2} \%3 \%4 \%5
734 NodeId "\nBARE:GB7MBC-1"
735 #NodeId \033[01;31m***\033[0m
737 # Netrom port name. This port is used for outgoing netrom connects.
745 # The escape character (CTRL-T)
749 # Resolve ip numbers to addresses?
756 #NodePrompt "%s@%h \%i> "
757 NodePrompt "\nBARE:GB7MBC-1 \%i > "
758 #NodePrompt "\a\033[36m%U\033[0m de \033[01;32m#LNODE\033[0m:\033[01;33mOH2BNS-10\033[0m> "
762 This should be fairly obvious I hope.
764 <sect1>Getting it all running
767 Ok, now we have all the relevant files configured, the next step is to get
771 The first thing to do is attach the TNC's. Your TNC's should be in KISS mode
772 and connected to the serial ports involved.
775 You now use the 'kissattach' command to connect the TNC's to the system like this ...
778 kissattach /dev/ttyS0 2m 44.131.96.199
779 kissattach /dev/ttyS1 4m 44.131.96.199
783 Assuming that 44.131.96.199 is your IP address. The devices ttyS0 and ttyS1 are com1 and
784 com2 respectively. Now we can set some parameters ...
787 kissparms -p 2m -t 150 -l 150 -s 50 -r 50
788 kissparms -p 4m -t 150 -l 150 -s 50 -r 50
792 The command 'man kissparms' will give you the explanation of the switches.
795 Now we need to attach the NET/ROM ports in the same way ...
803 All of the above can be put in a file and called from /etc/rc.d/rc.local. Put all
804 the above commands in a file called rc.ax25 and put a line in rc.local to call it.
807 Now you can start the daemons that set everything in motion ...
815 All should now be running. All that remains is to get the node working for telnet
816 connections. If nothing else, this will allow you to connect to the node yourself
817 to check on connection status etc. There are 2 files that need to be edited.
820 First edit /etc/services and add
823 node 3000/tcp #OH2BNS's Node Software
827 Assuming you want it to run on port 3000
830 Now cd /etc/xinetd.d and edit a new file called node. It should look like this ...
834 # unencrypted username/password pairs for authentication.
840 server = /usr/sbin/node
841 log_on_failure += USERID
847 You now need to restart the xinetd daemon. First find out what the PID is
855 You will get a reply something like this ...
858 root 592 0.0 0.1 2256 620 ? S Feb07 0:00 xinetd -stayalive -reuse -pidfile /var/run/xinetd.pid
862 The PID or Process ID is 592 in this case so now we can issue the command ...
869 All should now be operational and you should be able to log into the node by
870 using a telnet session to the relevant port, like so ...
873 telnet localhost 3000
877 If that works, you are just about there. you should (assuming you have radios connected
878 to the TNC's) be able to connect out to other stations and receive incoming ax25 and
883 <sect1>Allowing ax25 connects from users
886 This is dealt with in the previous section
888 <sect1>Allowing telnet connects from users
891 >From version 1.47 there is a new (more efficient) way of doing this
892 (see next section) but, if you prefer, the method of doing it described
893 here will continue to work just fine.
896 Allowing telnet connections is quite simple. Firstly you need to add a line
897 in /etc/services to allow connections to a port number, like this ....
900 spdlogin 8000/tcp # spider anonymous login port
904 Then add a line in /etc/inetd.conf like this ....
907 spdlogin stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /spider/src/client login telnet
911 Once this is done, you need to restart inetd like this ....
918 Now login as <em>sysop</em> and cd spider/src. You can test that spider
919 is accepting telnet logins by issuing the following command ....
922 ./client login telnet
926 You should get a login prompt and on issuing a callsign, you will be given
927 access to the cluster. Note, you will not get a password login. There seems
928 no good reason for a password prompt to be given so it is not asked for.
931 Assuming all is well, then try a telnet from your linux console ....
934 telnet localhost 8000
938 You should now get the login prompt and be able to login as before.
940 <sect1>Setting up telnet connects (from 1.47 onwards)
943 >From version 1.47 you can choose to allow the perl cluster.pl program to
944 allow connections directly (i.e. not via the <tt>/spider/src/client</tt>
945 interface program). If you are using Windows then this is the only method
946 available of allowing incoming telnet connections.
949 To do this you need first to remove any line that you may previously have set
950 up in /etc/inetd.conf. Remember to:-
957 to make the change happen...
960 Having done that, you need to copy the file
961 <em>/spider/perl/Listeners.pm</em> to <em>/spider/local</em> and
962 then edit it. You will need to uncomment the line containing &dquot;0.0.0.0&dquot;
963 and select the correct port to listen on. So that it looks like this:-
972 As standard, the listener will listen on all interfaces simultaneously.
973 If you require more control than this, you can specify each interface
978 ["gb7baa.dxcluster.net", 8000],
979 ["44.131.16.2", 6300],
984 This will only be successful if the IP addresses on each interface are static.
985 If you are using some kind of dynamic IP addressing then the 'default' method
986 is the only one that will work.
989 Restart the cluster.pl program to enable the listener.
992 One important difference with the internal listener is that no echoing
993 is done by the cluster program. Users will need to set 'local-echo' on in
994 their telnet clients if it isn't set automatically (as per the standards).
995 Needless to say this will probably only apply to Windows users.
997 <sect1>Setting up for AGW Engine (1.47 onwards)
1000 AGW Engine is a Windows based ax25 stack. You can connect to an AGW engine
1001 from Linux as well as Windows based machines.
1004 In order to enable access to an AGW Engine you need to copy
1005 <em>/spider/perl/AGWConnect.pm</em> to <em>/spider/local</em> and edit it.
1006 Specifically you must:-
1009 <item> set <tt>$enable</tt> to 1.
1010 <item> set <tt>$login</tt> and <tt>$passwd</tt> to the values set up in your AGW installation.
1011 If you haven't set any there, then you should not touch these values.
1012 <item> You can connect to a remote AGW engine (ie on some other machine) by changing <tt>$addr</tt>
1013 and <tt>$port</tt> appropriately.
1014 <item> Restart the cluster.pl program
1018 <sect1>Setting up node connects
1021 In order to allow cluster node connections, spider needs to know that the
1022 connecting callsign is a cluster node. This is the case whether the connect
1023 is incoming or outgoing. In spider this is a simple task and can be done in
1027 Later versions of Spider can distinguish different software and treat them
1028 differently. For example, the WCY beacon cannot be handles by AK1A type
1029 nodes as AK1A does not know what to do with PC73. There are 4 different
1030 types of node at present and although they may not have any major
1031 differences at the moment, it allows for compatibility. The 4 types are ...
1034 set/node (AK1A type)
1041 For now, we will assume that the cluster we are going to connect to is an
1045 Start up the cluster as you did before and login as the sysop with client.
1046 The cluster node I am wanting to make a connection to is GB7BAA but you would
1047 obviously use whatever callsign you required. At the prompt type ...
1054 The case does not matter as long as you have a version of DXSpider later than
1055 1.33. Earlier versions required the callsign to be in upper case.
1058 That is now set, it is as simple as that. To prove it, login on yet another
1059 console as sysop, cd to spider/src and issue the command ...
1062 ./client gb7baa (using the callsign you set as a node)
1066 You should get an initialisation string from DXSpider like this ...
1073 If the callsign you just set up as a cluster node is for an incoming connect,
1074 this is all that needs to be done. If the connection is to be outgoing then
1075 a connection script needs to be written.
1078 Sometimes you make a mistake... Honest, it does happen. If you want to make a node
1079 back to being a normal user, regardless
1080 of what type it is, do:
1086 <sect1>Connection scripts
1089 Because DXSpider operates under Linux, connections can be made using just about
1090 any protocol; AX25, NETRom, tcp/ip, ROSE etc are all possible examples.
1091 Connect scripts live in the /spider/connect directory and are simple ascii files.
1092 Writing a script for connections is therefore relatively simple.
1095 The connect scripts consist of lines which start with the following keywords
1100 <tag/#/All lines starting with a <tt>#</tt> are ignored, as are completely
1103 <tag/timeout/<tt>timeout</tt> followed by a number is the number of seconds to wait for a
1104 command to complete. If there is no timeout specified in the script
1105 then the default is 60 seconds.
1107 <tag/abort/ <tt>abort</tt> is a regular expression containing one or more strings to look
1108 for to abort a connection. This is a perl regular expression and is
1109 executed ignoring case.
1111 <tag/connect/<tt>connect</tt> followed by ax25, agw (for Windows users) or telnet and some type dependent
1112 information. In the case of a telnet connection, there can be up to
1114 The first is the ip address or hostname of the computer you wish to
1115 connect to and the second is the port number you want to use (this
1116 can be left out if it is a normal telnet session).
1117 In the case of an ax25 session then this would normally be a call to
1118 ax25_call or netrom_call as in the example above. It is your
1119 responsibility to get your node and other ax25 parameters to work
1120 before going down this route!
1122 <tag/'/<tt>'</tt> is the delimiting character for a word or phrase of an expect/send
1123 line in a chat type script. The words/phrases normally come in pairs,
1124 either can be empty. Each line reads input from the connection until
1125 it sees the string (or perl regular expression) contained in the
1126 left hand string. If the left hand string is empty then it doesn't
1127 read or wait for anything. The comparison is done ignoring case.
1128 When the left hand string has found what it is looking for (if it is)
1129 then the right hand string is sent to the connection.
1130 This process is repeated for every line of chat script.
1132 <tag/client/<tt>client</tt> starts the connection, put the arguments you would want here
1133 if you were starting the client program manually. You only need this
1134 if the script has a different name to the callsign you are trying to
1135 connect to (i.e. you have a script called other which actually
1136 connects to GB7DJK-1 [instead of a script called gb7djk-1]).
1140 There are many possible ways to configure the script but here are three examples,
1141 one for a NETRom/AX25 connect, one for AGW engines and one for tcp/ip.
1145 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
1146 # don't forget to chmod 4775 netrom_call!
1147 connect ax25 /usr/sbin/netrom_call bbs gb7djk g1tlh
1150 'Connect' 'c gb7dxm'
1151 # you can leave this out if you call the script 'gb7dxm'
1159 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
1160 # this does exactly the same as the previous example
1161 # the '1' is the AGW port number to connect thru for g1tlh
1165 'Connect' 'c gb7dxm'
1166 # you can leave this out if you call the script 'gb7dxm'
1174 connect telnet dirkl.tobit.co.uk
1177 # tell GB7DJK-1 that it is connected to GB7DJK
1178 # you can leave this out if you call this script 'gb7djk'
1179 client gb7djk telnet
1183 Both these examples assume that everything is set up properly at the other end.
1184 You will find other examples in the /spider/examples directory.
1186 <sect1>Starting the connection
1189 You start the connection, from within a sysop enabled cluster login, by typing
1190 in the word <em>connect</em> followed by a script name like this ....
1193 G0VGS de GB7MBC 13-Dec-1998 2041Z >connect gb7djk-1
1194 connection to GB7DJK-1 started
1195 G0VGS de GB7MBC 13-Dec-1998 2043Z >
1199 This will start a connection using the script called <em>gb7djk-1</em>. You can
1200 follow the connection by watching the term or console from where you started
1201 <em>cluster.pl</em>. From version 1.47 onwards, you will need to <tt>set/debug connect</tt> first.
1202 You should see something like this ...
1205 <- D G1TLH connect gb7djk-1
1206 -> D G1TLH connection to GB7DJK-1 started
1207 -> D G1TLH G1TLH de GB7DJK 13-Dec-1998 2046Z >
1209 CONNECT sort: telnet command: dirkl.tobit.co.uk
1210 CHAT "login" -> "gb7djk"
1212 Red Hat Linux release 5.1 (Manhattan)
1213 Kernel 2.0.35 on an i586
1217 CHAT "word" -> "gb7djk"
1219 received "Password: "
1221 Connected to GB7DJK-1, starting normal protocol
1222 <- O GB7DJK-1 telnet
1224 GB7DJK-1 channel func state 0 -> init
1226 <- D GB7DJK-1 Last login: Sun Dec 13 17:59:56 from dirk1
1227 <- D GB7DJK-1 PC38^GB7DJK-1^~
1228 <- D GB7DJK-1 PC18^ 1 nodes, 0 local / 1 total users Max users 0 Uptime
1235 With later versions of Spider there is a set/login command for users. This
1236 tells them when a user or node logs in or out. If you do not add a line to
1237 your scripts after the final line (or before the client line which should always
1238 be last if needed) then the login/logout information will be sent to users
1239 <it>before</it> the login actually completes. This means if a node is
1240 unreachable, it will continue sending logins and logouts to users even though it
1241 is not actually connecting. To avoid this use the following line ...
1248 In a script, this might look like ...
1252 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
1253 connect telnet mary 3000
1255 '>' 'telnet 44.131.93.96 7305'
1262 Cluster links in particular suffer greatly from the presence of telnet echo.
1263 This is caused by the telnet negotiation itself and can create at worst severe
1264 loops. At best it creates unnecessary bandwidth and large logfiles! There are
1265 things that can be done to limit this problem but will not always work dependent
1266 on the route taken to connect.
1269 Telnet echo itself should only be a problem if the connection is being made to
1270 the telnet port (23). This port uses special rules that include echo negotiation.
1271 If the connection is to a different port, such as 7300, this negotiation does
1272 not happen and therefore no echo should be present.
1275 Sometimes it is not possible to make a direct connection to another node and this
1276 can cause problems. There is a way of trying to suppress the telnet echo but
1277 this will not always work, unfortunately it is difficult to be more specific.
1278 Here is an example of what I mean ...
1282 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
1283 connect telnet mary.lancs.ac.uk
1286 '\$' 'stty -echo raw'
1287 '\$' 'telnet 44.131.93.96'
1292 So, the first connection is made by Spider. This is fine as Spider uses the
1293 Net_Telnet script from within perl. This actually uses TCP rather than TELNET
1294 so no negotiation will be done on the first connection. Once connected to
1295 mary.lancs.ac.uk, the command is sent to suppress echo. Now a telnet is made
1296 to a cluster node that is accepting connections on port 23. The problem with
1297 this link is that the negotiation is made by the remote machine, therefore you
1298 have no control over it. The chances are that this link will create echo and
1299 there will be no way you can stop it.
1302 <sect1>Autostarting the cluster
1305 Ok, you should now have DXSpider running nicely and allowing connects by cluster
1306 nodes or users. However, it has to be shutdown and restarted manually. It
1307 would be much easier to have it start automatically.
1310 This is not only a way to start the cluster automatically, it also works as a
1311 watchdog, checking the sanity of DXSpider and respawning it should it crash for
1312 any reason. Before doing the following, shutdown the cluster as you did earlier.
1315 Login as root and bring up the /etc/inittab file in your favourite editor. Add
1316 the following lines to the file near the end ...
1319 ##Start DXSpider on bootup and respawn it should it crash
1320 DX:3:respawn:/bin/su -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" sysop >/dev/tty7
1324 This line works fine for RedHat distributions. It is also fine for SuSE up to
1325 7.0. From SuSE 7.1 you need to add runlevels 2 and 5 like this ...
1328 DX:235:respawn:/bin/su -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" sysop >/dev/tty7
1332 The line required for Slackware distributions is slightly different. My thanks to
1333 Aurelio, PA3EZL for this information.
1336 DX:23:respawn:/bin/su - sysop -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" >/dev/tty7
1340 This will automatically start DXSpider on tty7 (ALT-F7) on bootup and restart
1341 it should it crash for any reason.
1344 NB: It should be noted that /dev/tty7 is only an example. Some SuSE systems will
1345 only accept upto tty6. It really does not matter which tty you run it on.
1348 As root type the command <em>telinit q</em>. DXSpider should start up
1349 immediately. You will see the output on tty7 and if you login as <em>sysop</em>
1350 you should find everything running nicely.
1352 <sect>Microsoft Windows Installation
1359 What you'll be left with once you've followed these instructions
1360 is (hopefully) a working DX Spider v1.50 system that is capable
1361 of accepting or originating "internet" connections, plus inbound
1362 and outbound AX.25 and TCP/IP radio connections.
1364 On the other hand, you may have an enquiring mind, or better yet,
1365 may be looking for a useful way of connecting your current
1366 (perhaps) AK1A cluster "to the internet" via some networking
1367 mechanism (BPQEther, etc) or other. I won't be producing
1368 instructions for the latter case, because I don't have an AK1A to
1369 play with. But someone might ...
1371 Whatever, this document is intended to get you started with DX
1372 Spider in a Microsoft Windows ™ environment. It's not
1373 intended to teach you anything other than how to perform a
1374 minimum configuration of a DX Spider installation and have it
1375 able to connect across "the internet" to other DX Clusters, while
1376 accepting inbound TELNET and radio connections.
1378 <sect1>The requirements
1381 The very first things you're going to need are (in order of
1385 <item>A cup of good, strong tea
1386 <item>A supported Windows platform with an internet connection so you can
1387 download the necessary software bits and bobs directly to it. There are other ways, but this is preferable.
1388 <item>Another cup of good, strong tea
1389 <item>If all goes according to plan, about an hour to spare
1390 <item>Plenty of good, strong tea
1396 The platform I used to generate these instructions was a
1397 "vanilla" Microsoft Windows Me 4.90.3000 system, with a 700MHz
1398 AMD Athlon processor and 96 Mb memory. I've also personally
1399 verified that it runs on my laptop (Pentium 266MHz, 32 Mb memory,
1400 Windows 98 SE v4.10.2222 A) and a computer that I assembled from
1401 a random pile of junk (AMD K6-2 333MHz, 64 Mb memory, Windows 98
1402 v4.10.1998). As a result, I have reason to believe that what I'm
1403 about to describe will perform equally on any 32-bit MS Windows
1404 environment with 32 Mb of memory.
1406 Because of the changes that have recently been made to the core
1407 "cluster.pl" module and the introduction of a very lightweight
1408 "winclient.pl", I have a sneaking suspicion that this will now
1409 run on any platform that has reasonably complete support for
1410 Perl. Is there someone out there with both an enquiring mind and
1411 (say) a Macintosh, for instance?
1413 Please bear in mind, though, that my instructions relate solely
1414 to how to get this going under a Microsoft Windows environment,
1415 and I have zero intention of trying to make them say otherwise.
1420 Install your chosen Perl environment. Unless you have a very good
1421 reason for not doing so, I strongly suggest that you use
1422 ActivePerl v5.6. For my testing & development, I used build 623.
1423 (A recent installation used the newer ActivePerl v5.6.1, build
1424 633 without any noticable difficulty.) You can get this from:
1425 <htmlurl url="http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/Download.html"
1426 name="http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/Download.html">
1428 The link takes you to an initial page of System Requirements and
1429 Software Prerequisites. If you do not have it already installed,
1430 you can download and install the Windows Installer 2.0 for a Win98
1431 installation. Be forewarned, you will have to reboot your PC at the
1432 completion of the installer's installation.
1434 If you already have the installer on your PC, simply click on the
1435 Next arrow at the bottom of the page. Two clicks will finally get
1436 you to the actual download page. The MSI version of Build 633 is
1437 now 8.6MB in size, so make that a big cup of tea or coffee if you're
1438 on a slow dial-up connection.
1440 During installation, please ensure that you do choose the options
1441 to "Add Perl to the PATH environment variable" and "Create Perl
1442 file extension association"; it will make your life so much
1443 easier. Once the installation is finished, be sure to reboot your
1444 PC. You probably won't be told anywhere else that this needs to
1445 be done now, but it does. Really.
1447 Once you've rebooted, open a "DOS box" (Start > Run > command
1448 might do it, if you can't find it elsewhere) and from wherever it
1449 lands, type PERL -v <ENTER> (it's better if that's a lower-case
1450 'v', because an upper-case 'V' means something else. You should
1451 be rewarded with some interesting information about your Perl
1452 installation. If you're not, you must go back to the beginning
1453 and discover what went wrong and fix it. It's pointless to
1454 proceed unless this simple check is passed. Assuming it did work,
1455 you may now move on.
1457 <sect1>Additional packages
1460 Some extensions ("packages") need to be added to the base Perl
1461 distribution, and we'll do this next. If you're using the Perl I
1462 recommended, and don't know any better for yourself, then just
1463 blindly following these instructions will work just fine. If that
1464 didn't describe you, then you're on your own.
1466 Visit the following URL:
1468 <htmlurl url="http://www.activestate.com/PPMPackages/zips/6xx-builds-only/"
1469 name="http://www.activestate.com/PPMPackages/zips/6xx-builds-only/">
1471 and download the following files:-
1481 If this is a new installation, now would also be a good time to
1482 install a copy of WinZip on your PC. Make yourself a convenient
1483 directory to unpack all of these zip files into (I put mine in
1484 "D:\ppm>" but "C:\ppm" works just as well.) and do the following
1485 (the bits you type in are blue ). You can upzip all of the files into
1486 the same directory. When prompted, simply overwrite the Readme file
1487 from each zip package. Note that where these files land will be
1488 directly related to where you chose to install your ActivePerl
1489 (mine, as you can probably guess from what follows, went into "D:\Perl"):-
1492 D:\ppm>ppm install Data-Dumper.ppd
1493 Installing package 'Data-Dumper.ppd'
1494 Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.bs
1495 Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.dll
1496 Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.exp
1497 Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.lib
1498 Installing D:\Perl\html\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.html
1499 Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\Data\Dumper\Dumper.pm
1500 Writing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.packlist
1504 I'm not going to bother you with exhaustive details of the rest
1505 of them, but suffice it to say you need to:
1508 ppm install DB_File.ppd
1509 ppm install Net-Telnet.ppd
1510 ppm install TimeDate.ppd
1511 ppm install Time-HiRes.ppd
1514 If all that seemed to work OK, time to move along. Before anyone
1515 who is familiar with PPM tells me that we didn't need to download
1516 and keep those files locally, I knew that. I also knew that PPM
1517 is sometimes awkward to configure via firewalls, and that
1518 sometimes the repositories don't always work the way we'd hope. I
1519 do it that way because it suits me.
1521 <sect1>Getting Spider
1524 Get the current version of the DX Spider distribution. This needs
1525 to be v1.50 or later. You've got two ways (currently) of getting
1526 this; either get a CVS update from sourceforge (if you don't know
1527 what this is, then it isn't for you) or get the latest "official"
1530 <htmlurl url="http://www.dxcluster.org/download/index.html" name="http://www.dxcluster.org/download/index.html">
1532 or if you want the lastest snapshot of CVS version (which is produced
1535 <htmlurl url="http://www.dxcluster.org/download/CVSlatest.tgz" name="http://www.dxcluster.org/download/CVSlatest.tgz">
1537 This is generally the best one to go for as it is completely up to
1538 date. However, there is always the very slight chance that it might
1539 unstable. Generally, there will be a note on the website if this is
1543 The only difference between "CVSlatest.tgz" and the latest
1544 "official" release version is that it is more up to date. <bf>Do not confuse
1545 the "CVSlatest.tgz" file with "Downloading from Sourceforge with CVS" - they
1546 are two quite different things.</bf> "Downloading from Sourceforge with CVS" is
1547 explained in a section within the Admin manual.
1550 If you go down the CVS route (ie installing WinCVS as explained in the Admin
1551 manual and downloaded from sourceforge), then everything will be nicely
1552 installed on your local disk. If you got the CVSlatest.tgz file, unzip
1553 (<htmlurl url="http://www.winzip.com" name="winzip">) it to "C:\".
1554 This is an important point since paths are included within the .tgz
1555 file. Make sure you unzip to the root directory of whichever drive you use...
1556 "C:\" or "D:\" or .., not "C:\spider." If you double click on CVSlatest.tgz,
1557 WinZip should open with a dialogue box that says the Archive contains a single
1558 file (CVSlatest.tar) and asks whether WinZip should decompress it to a
1559 temporary fold and then open it. Say "Yes" and then you will get the typical
1560 Classical WinZip listing of files ready for extraction. Remember, extract
1561 them to your desired root directory ("C:\" or "D:\" or ...). The following
1562 examples assume that you put it on drive "C:\", for convenience.
1564 <sect>Installing the software
1567 At this point you will need to create 2 additional directories under
1568 "C:\Spider." Make directories "C:\spider\local" and "C:\spider\local_cmd".
1569 If "C:\spider" is missing, go back and figure out why, because it shouldn't be.
1571 Now create your own local copy of the DXVars.pm file by:-
1574 copy c:\spider\perl\DXVars.pm.issue
1575 c:\spider\local\DXVars.pm
1578 Now you'll need to edit this file using a text editor like Notepad. If nothing
1579 else, you can simply
1591 to bring up an editor window containing the file. As an absolute
1592 minimum you must adjust the following items in DXVars.pm:-
1595 <item> $mycall - Should hold the callsign of your DX Cluster
1596 <item> $myname - The SysOp's first name
1597 <item> $myalias - the SysOp's callsign. Cannot be the same as $mycall!
1598 <item> $myqth - The station's geographical location (QTH).
1599 <item> $mylatitude - The station latitude in degrees and decimal fractions
1600 <item> $mylongitude - The station longitude in degrees and decimal fractions
1601 <item> $mylocator - The Maidenhead (or QRA) locator of the station
1604 You really also ought to update the $myqth and $myemail variables. And
1605 unless you are absolutely certain you know what you're doing, you
1606 should change nothing else in this file. Note that if you use an "@" or
1607 a "$" character in one of the above strings (typically in $myemail) you must
1608 write them as "\@" or "\$".
1610 <sect1>Incoming telnets
1613 If you want to enable inbound "TELNET" connections (or you are running
1614 Windows 98, NT, 2000 or XP), you've got a little more work to do. From a
1615 handy "DOS box" that's not doing anything else, do the following:-
1618 copy \spider\perl\Listeners.pm \spider\local
1620 notepad listeners.pm
1623 The following line need attention:-
1626 # ["0.0.0.0", 7300],
1629 On my machine, I've simply uncommented the "0.0.0.0" entry by
1630 removing the '#' from the front of the line.
1632 <bf>You MUST carry out this step if you are
1633 running on a Windows 98, NT, 2000 or XP based system</bf>
1635 If you don't have a static hostname for your machine, and you
1636 intend to allow folk to connect to your machine across the
1637 internet, then I'd suggest you pay a visit to www.dyndns.org and
1638 create one for yourself. While it's free, it will take a modest
1639 amount of effort on your part to read, understand and
1640 implement what needs to be done to set this up.
1642 <p>If your machine is connected to the internet <bf>and</bf> you don't
1643 want to allow your machine to be visible to the outside world you
1644 should change the "0.0.0.0" to "127.0.0.1" [which is
1645 "localhost"]. This will then only allow connections from inside your
1646 machine. As was said earlier: if you aren't running Win9x (or you want
1647 to use DXTelnet or somesuch), then you need to have the machine
1648 listening at least to "127.0.0.1" ("0.0.0.0" means <bf>all</bf> IP
1651 <sect1>The AGW packet engine
1654 On the assumption that you'll be using the SV2AGW Packet Engine
1655 to interface your radios to the cluster, it would be a good idea to
1656 download the Packet Engine software! You can get this software from:
1658 <htmlurl url="http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwpe.zip" name="http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwpe.zip">
1660 Depending upon your TNCs, you may also need to get:
1662 <htmlurl url="http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/drivers.zip" name="http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/drivers.zip">
1664 A couple of the tools:
1666 <htmlurl url="http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwterm.zip" name="http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwterm.zip">
1668 <htmlurl url="http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwmonitor.zip" name="http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwmonitor.zip">
1670 will also help with troubleshooting of the RF links themselves.
1672 Install and configure AGWPE. You should now create your own local copy of
1676 copy c:\spider\perl\AGWConnect.pm
1677 c:\spider\local\AGWConnect.pm
1683 notepad AGWConnect.pm
1686 to bring up an editor window containing the file. You must
1687 consider adjusting the following items in AGWConnect.pm:-
1690 <item>$enable - set to '1' to enable AGWPE interface
1691 <item>$login - the login ID you chose when you set up the SV2AGW security :-)
1692 <item>$passwd - password that matches $login
1695 The login ID and passwd only need to be set if you are accessing AGW separately
1696 via its web interface. This interface is normally not needed for use with DXSpider.
1698 <sect1>Setting up the initial user files
1701 Next you need to create the initial user files, etc. A tool is
1702 supplied which will do this for you. To run the tool:-
1706 perl create_sysop.pl
1709 If all goes according to plan, you will see no output from this
1710 program, and after a brief wait, your DOS prompt will be
1713 Depending on how brave you are, you might now care to try the
1720 If you did everything you were told, your DOS window will now
1721 hold a display which looks something like:-
1724 DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.50
1725 Copyright (c) 1998-2002 Dirk Koopman G1TLH
1726 loading prefixes ...
1727 loading band data ...
1728 loading user file system ...
1729 starting listeners ...
1730 Internal port: localhost 27754
1732 reading in duplicate spot and WWV info ...
1733 reading existing message headers ...
1737 @msg = 0 before delete
1738 @msg = 0 after delete
1739 reading cron jobs ...v cron: reading /spider/cmd/crontab
1740 cron: adding 1 0 * * 0
1741 DXUser::export("$main::data/user_asc")
1742 reading database descriptors ...
1743 doing local initialisation ...
1744 orft we jolly well go ...
1748 Now, if that's what you've got, you are very nearly home and dry
1749 (in as far as these particular experiments are concerned, anyhow)
1751 If you are running Windows 9x you can access your new cluster (from
1752 the local machine) by finding yourself another "DOS box" and doing the
1760 If you are running Windows NT, 2000 or XP then winclient.pl does not
1761 work. We don't know why other than this seems to be some kind of
1762 incomaptibility in perl. You can achieve the same thing by telnetting
1763 to the port you defined in Listeners.pm (7300 as default), thus:-
1767 telnet localhost 7300
1770 On getting the <bf>login:</bf> prompt, enter your sysop callsign (the one you
1771 put in DXVars.pm as $myalias).
1773 <p>I would recommend <bf>strongly</bf> that you obtain a better telnet
1774 client than that which comes with windows (I use <htmlurl
1775 url="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html"
1778 <p>Anyway, if you are rewarded with a display which looks something like:-
1781 Hello Iain, this is GB7SJP in Amersham, Bucks running DXSpider V1.50
1782 Cluster: 1 nodes, 1 local / 1 total users Max users 2 Uptime 0 00:00
1783 M0ADI de GB7SJP 4-Mar-2001 1511Z >
1786 You've arrived. Try some commands, and see how they feel. (In
1787 case you were wondering, "Iain", "M0ADI" and "GB7SJP" all came
1788 from the version of DXVars.pm that was on the machine when I
1789 started the winclient.pl)
1791 <p>The interface is very basic. It is a simple command line. There are
1792 better looking interfaces. Most of the "standard" logging and DX
1793 Cluster access programs that are capable of connecting via a TCP or
1794 telnet connection will work as a "Sysop Console" client. You connect
1795 to "localhost" on the port that you defined in Listeners.pm (usually
1796 7300). I recommend packages like <htmlurl
1797 url="http://www.qsl.net/wd4ngb/telnet.htm" name="DXTelnet">.
1799 <sect1>Connecting to other clusters
1802 If you want to connect this to another cluster, then you'll want to
1803 negotiate a link with someone. For experimental purposes, I'm happy to
1804 allow folk to connect to GB7DXA (spud.ath.cx), on the understanding
1805 that the system may or may not be there and may or may not be
1806 connected to anything particularly useful at any given moment. Contact
1807 me by <htmlurl url="mailto:g0rdi@blacksheep.org" name="Email"> if you
1808 want me to set up a connection for you.
1810 <sect>General Information
1813 The following relates to all versions of DXSpider and is not platform related.
1815 <sect1>The crontab file
1818 Login as <em>sysop</em> and create a file in /spider/local_cmd called crontab.
1819 Edit it with your favourite editor and add a line like this (I have included
1823 # check every 10 minutes to see if gb7xxx is connected and if not
1824 # start a connect job going
1826 0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * start_connect('gb7xxx') unless connected('gb7xxx')
1830 The callsign involved will be the callsign of the cluster node you are
1831 going to connect to. This will now check every 10 minutes to see if
1832 gb7xxx is connected, if it is then nothing will be done. If it is not,
1833 then a connect attempt will be started.
1836 There are probably lots of other things you could use this crontab file for.
1837 If you want to know more about it, look at the
1838 <htmlurl url="http://www.dxcluster.org/cron.html" name="DXSpider"> website
1839 at the cron page where it is explained more fully.