The DXSpider Installation Manual v1.50
- Iain Philipps, G0RDI (g0rdi@77hz.com) and Ian Maude, G0VGS,
- (g0vgs@gb7mbc.net)
- July 2002 revision 0.2
+ Iain Philipps, G0RDI (g0rdi@77hz.com), Ian Maude, G0VGS,
+ (g0vgs@gb7mbc.net) and Charlie Carroll, K1XX,
+ (k1xx@ptcnh.net)
+ February 2003 revision 0.5
A reference for SysOps of the DXSpider DXCluster program.
______________________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
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1. Linux Installation
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1.1 Introduction
1.2 Preparation
1.3 Installing the software
1.6 Starting up for the first time
2. Linux quick installation guide
-
3. Setting up the AX25 Utilities
-
3.1 Getting Started
3.2 The kernel
3.3 Installing the RPM's
3.10 Getting it all running
4. Configuration
-
4.1 Allowing ax25 connects from users
4.2 Allowing telnet connects from users
4.3 Setting up telnet connects (from 1.47 onwards)
4.9 Autostarting the cluster
5. Microsoft Windows Installation
-
5.1 Introduction
5.2 The requirements
5.3 The system
5.6 Getting Spider
6. Installing the software
-
6.1 Incoming telnets
6.2 The AGW packet engine
6.3 Setting up the initial user files
6.4 Connecting to other clusters
7. General Information
-
7.1 The crontab file
______________________________________________________________________
+
+
1. Linux Installation
1.1. Introduction
This section describes the installation of DX Spider v1.50 on a RedHat
Linux Distribution. Wherever possible I will try to include
differences for other distributions.
+
+
I am assuming a general knowledge of Linux and its commands. You
should know how to use tar and how to edit files using your favourite
editor.
In addition to the standard Red Hat distribution you will require the
- following modules from http://www.cpan.org/modules/bymodule/ , please
+ following modules from http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/ , please
note however that with later versions of perl, some of these modules
may be included with the distribution. Get the modules anyway and try
to install as below. If they complain, they are probably already a
- o Data-Dumper-2.10.tar.gz
+ o Data-Dumper-2.101.tar.gz
o TimeDate-1.10.tar.gz
o IO-1.20.tar.gz (for perl 5.00403 and lower)
- o Net-Telnet-3.02.tar.gz
+ o Net-Telnet-3.03.tar.gz
o Curses-1.06.tar.gz
-
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- # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Data-Dumper-2.10.tar.gz
- # cd Data-Dumper-2.10
+ # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Data-Dumper-2.101.tar.gz
+ # cd Data-Dumper-2.101
# perl Makefile.PL
# make test
# make install
# make install UNINST=1
# cd ..
#
- # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Net-Telnet-3.02.tar.gz
+ # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Net-Telnet-3.03.tar.gz
# cd Net-Telnet-3.02
# perl Makefile.PL
# make test
-
Do not fall into the trap of thinking they're all the same, just
because they nearly are! Pay particular attention to the instructions
of IO, above.
-
-
- For SUSE distributions, the command would be ..
+ For SuSE distributions, the command would be ..
-
-
Now set a password for the user ...
-
-
1.3. Installing the software
Now to unpack the DX Spider distribution, set symbolic links and group
-
-
If you do not have the command groupadd available to you simply add a
line in /etc/group by hand.
-
-
You also need to add some others to the group, including your own
callsign (this will be used as an alias) and root. The finished line
in /etc/group should look something like this
-
-
This last step allows various users of the group spider to have write
access to all the directories. This is not really needed just yet but
will be useful when web interfaces start to appear.
-
-
1.4. Setting callsigns etc
Now login to your machine as the user you created earlier. In my case
-
-
Using the distributed DXVars.pm as a a template, set your cluster
callsign, sysop callsign and other user info to suit your own
environment.
-
This is the call sign of your cluster. If you use an SSID then
include it here also.
-
-
This is the sysop user callsign, normally your own.
-
-
Now type the following command which creates the basic user file with
you as the sysop.
-
-
1.5. The client program
In earlier versions of Spider, all the processes were Perl scripts.
-
-
If all is well then login on another term or console as sysop and cd
to /spider/src. Now issue the following command ...
-
-
This should log you into the cluster as the sysop under the alias
callsign we set earlier. In this case the callsign is G0VGS. The
cluster callsign is set in the DXVars.pm file in /spider/local. In
-
-
If you do, congratulations! If not, look over the instructions again,
you have probably missed something out. You can shut spider down
again with the command ....
-
-
and both the cluster and the client should return to Linux prompts.
-
-
-
2. Linux quick installation guide
This section is designed for experienced Spider sysops who want to
-
o libax25-0.0.7-7.i386.rpm
o ax25-tools-0.0.6-13.i386.rpm
-
-
3.4. Configuration
You will find the configuration files in /etc/ax25. These consist of
-
-
Note that the portnames have to be unique.
-
3.6. nrports
This file sets up the netrom ports you want to use. An example is
-
-
Note that the portnames have to be unique.
-
-
-
-
3.7. nrbroadcast
This file sets up the netrom broadcast qualities. An example is below
-
-
The file headings are as follows ...
-
3.8. ax25d.conf
This file controls any incoming ax25 and NET/ROM connections and
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[gb7mbc-0 via 2m]
parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0
NOCALL * * * * * * L
-
-
There are a few things to take note of here. Firstly, all ax25
sections are wrapped in [ ] and all NET/ROM sections are wrapped in <
>. Secondly you should be able to see that anyone who forgets to set
-
-
however, if you wish your users to be able to use SSID's on their
callsigns ..
-
-
-
For most purposes this is not desirable. The only time you probably
will need this is when you need to allow other cluster nodes that are
using SSID's in. In this case it would probably be better to use the
-
-
3.9. node.conf
For those of you that wish to run the node, you need to set up the
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# /etc/ax25/node.conf - LinuxNode configuration file
#
# see node.conf(5)
-
-
This should be fairly obvious I hope.
-
-
Assuming that 44.131.96.199 is your IP address. The devices ttyS0 and
ttyS1 are com1 and com2 respectively. Now we can set some parameters
...
-
-
The command 'man kissparms' will give you the explanation of the
switches.
-
-
All should now be running. All that remains is to get the node
working for telnet connections. If nothing else, this will allow you
to connect to the node yourself to check on connection status etc.
-
-
Assuming you want it to run on port 3000
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/node
log_on_failure += USERID
- disable = yes
+ disable = no
}
-
-
You now need to restart the xinetd daemon. First find out what the
PID is like so ..
-
You will get a reply something like this ...
-
-
The PID or Process ID is 592 in this case so now we can issue the
command ...
-
-
All should now be operational and you should be able to log into the
node by using a telnet session to the relevant port, like so ...
-
-
If that works, you are just about there. you should (assuming you
have radios connected to the TNC's) be able to connect out to other
stations and receive incoming ax25 and netrom connections.
4.2. Allowing telnet connects from users
- From version 1.47 there is a new (more efficient) way of doing this
+ >From version 1.47 there is a new (more efficient) way of doing this
(see next section) but, if you prefer, the method of doing it
described here will continue to work just fine.
-
-
Then add a line in /etc/inetd.conf like this ....
spdlogin stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /spider/src/client login telnet
-
-
Once this is done, you need to restart inetd like this ....
-
-
Now login as sysop and cd spider/src. You can test that spider is
accepting telnet logins by issuing the following command ....
-
-
You should get a login prompt and on issuing a callsign, you will be
given access to the cluster. Note, you will not get a password login.
There seems no good reason for a password prompt to be given so it is
-
-
You should now get the login prompt and be able to login as before.
4.3. Setting up telnet connects (from 1.47 onwards)
- From version 1.47 you can choose to allow the perl cluster.pl program
+ >From version 1.47 you can choose to allow the perl cluster.pl program
to allow connections directly (i.e. not via the /spider/src/client
interface program). If you are using Windows then this is the only
method available of allowing incoming telnet connections.
-
-
-
to make the change happen...
-
-
As standard, the listener will listen on all interfaces
simultaneously. If you require more control than this, you can
specify each interface individually:-
-
-
This will only be successful if the IP addresses on each interface are
static. If you are using some kind of dynamic IP addressing then the
'default' method is the only one that will work.
-
4.5. Setting up node connects
In order to allow cluster node connections, spider needs to know that
-
-
For now, we will assume that the cluster we are going to connect to is
an AK1A type node.
-
-
The case does not matter as long as you have a version of DXSpider
later than 1.33. Earlier versions required the callsign to be in
upper case.
-
You should get an initialisation string from DXSpider like this ...
-
If the callsign you just set up as a cluster node is for an incoming
connect, this is all that needs to be done. If the connection is to
be outgoing then a connection script needs to be written.
-
-
4.6. Connection scripts
Because DXSpider operates under Linux, connections can be made using
-
-
-
-
-
timeout 60
abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
# this does exactly the same as the previous example
-
-
-
-
-
timeout 15
connect telnet dirkl.tobit.co.uk
# tell GB7DJK-1 that it is connected to GB7DJK
-
-
This will start a connection using the script called gb7djk-1. You
can follow the connection by watching the term or console from where
you started cluster.pl. From version 1.47 onwards, you will need to
-
-
With later versions of Spider there is a set/login command for users.
This tells them when a user or node logs in or out. If you do not add
a line to your scripts after the final line (or before the client line
-
-
4.8. Telnet echo
Cluster links in particular suffer greatly from the presence of telnet
-
-
So, the first connection is made by Spider. This is fine as Spider
uses the Net_Telnet script from within perl. This actually uses TCP
rather than TELNET so no negotiation will be done on the first
-
-
This line works fine for RedHat distributions. It is also fine for
- SuSE up to 7.0. From Suse 7.1 you need to add runlevels 2 and 5 like
+ SuSE up to 7.0. From SuSE 7.1 you need to add runlevels 2 and 5 like
this ...
-
-
The line required for Slackware distributions is slightly different.
My thanks to Aurelio, PA3EZL for this information.
-
-
This will automatically start DXSpider on tty7 (ALT-F7) on bootup and
restart it should it crash for any reason.
+ NB: It should be noted that /dev/tty7 is only an example. Some SuSE
+ systems will only accept upto tty6. It really does not matter which
+ tty you run it on.
+
+
As root type the command telinit q. DXSpider should start up
immediately. You will see the output on tty7 and if you login as
sysop you should find everything running nicely.
IMPORTANT:
What you'll be left with once you've followed these instructions is
- (hopefully) a working DX Spider v1.47 system that is capable of
- accepting or originating "internet" connections, plus inbound AX.25
- and TCP/IP radio connections. If the absence of outbound radio
- connections is a serious limitation for you, it would be better for
- you to wait a couple more weeks until this support has been added.
+ (hopefully) a working DX Spider v1.50 system that is capable of
+ accepting or originating "internet" connections, plus inbound and
+ outbound AX.25 and TCP/IP radio connections.
On the other hand, you may have an enquiring mind, or better yet, may
be looking for a useful way of connecting your current (perhaps) AK1A
Install your chosen Perl environment. Unless you have a very good
reason for not doing so, I strongly suggest that you use ActivePerl
- v5.6. For my testing & development, I used build 623. You can get
- this from:-
+ v5.6. For my testing & development, I used build 623. (A recent
+ installation used the newer ActivePerl v5.6.1, build 633 without any
+ noticable difficulty.) You can get this from:
http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/Download.html
- You will need to choose either the MSI or the AS package. My
- recommendation is that you choose the MSI package and deal with the
- consequences if your system isn't equipped with support for the latest
- MS Installer; you'll be better off in the long run. The build 623
- download is 7,460 KB, so now is a really good time to have some tea if
- you're on a slow dial-up connection.
+
+ The link takes you to an initial page of System Requirements and
+ Software Prerequisites. If you do not have it already installed, you
+ can download and install the Windows Installer 2.0 for a Win98
+ installation. Be forewarned, you will have to reboot your PC at the
+ completion of the installer's installation.
+
+ If you already have the installer on your PC, simply click on the Next
+ arrow at the bottom of the page. Two clicks will finally get you to
+ the actual download page. The MSI version of Build 633 is now 8.6MB
+ in size, so make that a big cup of tea or coffee if you're on a slow
+ dial-up connection.
During installation, please ensure that you do choose the options to
"Add Perl to the PATH environment variable" and "Create Perl file
-
- Make yourself a convenient directory to unpack all of these zip files
- into (I put mine in "D:\ppm>") and do the following (the bits you type
- in are blue ). Note that where these files land will be directly
+ If this is a new installation, now would also be a good time to
+ install a copy of WinZip on your PC. Make yourself a convenient
+ directory to unpack all of these zip files into (I put mine in
+ "D:\ppm>" but "C:\ppm" works just as well.) and do the following (the
+ bits you type in are blue ). You can upzip all of the files into the
+ same directory. When prompted, simply overwrite the Readme file from
+ each zip package. Note that where these files land will be directly
related to where you chose to install your ActivePerl (mine, as you
can probably guess from what follows, went into "D:\Perl"):-
- D:\ppm>ppm install Data-Dumper.ppd
- Installing package 'Data-Dumper.ppd'
- Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.bs
- Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.dll
- Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.exp
- Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.lib
- Installing D:\Perl\html\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.html
- Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\Data\Dumper\Dumper.pm
- Writing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.packlist
- D:\ppm>
-
-
+ D:\ppm>ppm install Data-Dumper.ppd
+ Installing package 'Data-Dumper.ppd'
+ Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.bs
+ Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.dll
+ Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.exp
+ Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.lib
+ Installing D:\Perl\html\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.html
+ Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\Data\Dumper\Dumper.pm
+ Writing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.packlist
+ D:\ppm>
-
If all that seemed to work OK, time to move along. Before anyone who
is familiar with PPM tells me that we didn't need to download and keep
those files locally, I knew that. I also knew that PPM is sometimes
5.6. Getting Spider
Get the current version of the DX Spider distribution. This needs to
- be v1.47 or later. You've got two ways (currently) of getting this;
+ be v1.50 or later. You've got two ways (currently) of getting this;
either get a CVS update from sourceforge (if you don't know what this
- is, then it isn't for you) or get the latest "official" release from:-
+ is, then it isn't for you) or get the latest "official" release from:
http://www.dxcluster.org/download/index.html
The only difference between "CVSlatest.tgz" and the latest "official"
- release version is that it is more up to date. Don't confuse this TGZ
- file with "Downloading from Sourceforge with CVS" - they are two quite
- different things.
-
-
- If you went down the CVS route (ie installed wincvs and downloaded
- from sourceforge), then everything will be nicely set out on your
- local disk. If you got the TGZ file, unpack it to somewhere
- convenient. The following examples assume that you put it on drive
+ release version is that it is more up to date. Do not confuse the
+ "CVSlatest.tgz" file with "Downloading from Sourceforge with CVS" -
+ they are two quite different things. "Downloading from Sourceforge
+ with CVS" is explained in a section within the Admin manual.
+
+
+ If you go down the CVS route (ie installing WinCVS as explained in the
+ Admin manual and downloaded from sourceforge), then everything will be
+ nicely installed on your local disk. If you got the CVSlatest.tgz
+ file, unzip (winzip) it to "C:\". This is an important point since
+ paths are included within the .tgz file. Make sure you unzip to the
+ root directory of whichever drive you use... "C:\" or "D:\" or ..,
+ not "C:\spider." If you double click on CVSlatest.tgz, WinZip should
+ open with a dialogue box that says the Archive contains a single file
+ (CVSlatest.tar) and asks whether WinZip should decompress it to a
+ temporary fold and then open it. Say "Yes" and then you will get the
+ typical Classical WinZip listing of files ready for extraction.
+ Remember, extract them to your desired root directory ("C:\" or "D:\"
+ or ...). The following examples assume that you put it on drive
"C:\", for convenience.
- You will need winzip to manipulate the TGZ files (they are bit like
- ZIP files) if you are not using CVS.
-
-
6. Installing the software
- Ensure that your CVS session or your WINunZIPped file have left you
- with a directory "C:\spider\local" and C:\spider\local_cmd"; if not,
- go to "C:\spider\" and create them. If "C:\spider" is missing, go back
- and figure out why, because it shouldn't be.
-
+ At this point you will need to create 2 additional directories under
+ "C:\Spider." Make directories "C:\spider\local" and
+ "C:\spider\local_cmd". If "C:\spider" is missing, go back and figure
+ out why, because it shouldn't be.
Now create your own local copy of the DXVars.pm file by:-
-
- Now you'll need to edit this file using a text editor. If nothing
- else, you can simply
+ Now you'll need to edit this file using a text editor like Notepad. If
+ nothing else, you can simply
-
and then
-
to bring up an editor window containing the file. As an absolute
minimum you must adjust the following items in DXVars.pm:-
o $mylongitude - The station longitude in degrees and decimal
fractions
+
o $mylocator - The Maidenhead (or QRA) locator of the station
You really also ought to update the $myqth and $myemail variables. And
you must write them as "\@" or "\$".
-
6.1. Incoming telnets
If you want to enable inbound "TELNET" connections (or you are running
- Windows NT, 2000 or XP), you've got a little more work to do. From a
- handy "DOS box" that's not doing anything else, do the following:-
-
-
+ Windows 98, NT, 2000 or XP), you've got a little more work to do. From
+ a handy "DOS box" that's not doing anything else, do the following:-
- copy \spider\perl\Listeners.pm \spider\local
- cd \spider\local
- notepad listeners.pm
-
-
+ copy \spider\perl\Listeners.pm \spider\local
+ cd \spider\local
+ notepad listeners.pm
- The following lines need attention:-
+ The following line need attention:-
- ["0.0.0.0", 7300],
+ # ["0.0.0.0", 7300],
On my machine, I've simply uncommented the "0.0.0.0" entry by removing
the '#' from the front of the line.
- You MUST carry out this step if you are running on a Windows NT, 2000
- or XP based system
+ You MUST carry out this step if you are running on a Windows 98, NT,
+ 2000 or XP based system
If you don't have a static hostname for your machine, and you intend
to allow folk to connect to your machine across the internet, then I'd
suggest you pay a visit to www.dyndns.org and create one for yourself.
- While it's free, it will take a modest an amount of effort on your
- part to read, understand and implement what needs to be done to set
- this up.
+ While it's free, it will take a modest amount of effort on your part
+ to read, understand and implement what needs to be done to set this
+ up.
If your machine is connected to the internet and you don't want to
6.2. The AGW packet engine
On the assumption that you'll be using the SV2AGW Packet Engine to
- interface your radios to the cluster, you should now create your own
- local copy of AGWConnect.pm by:-
+ interface your radios to the cluster, it would be a good idea to
+ download the Packet Engine software! You can get this software from:
+
+ http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwpe.zip
+
+ Depending upon your TNCs, you may also need to get:
+
+ http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/drivers.zip
+
+ A couple of the tools:
+
+ http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwterm.zip
+
+ http://www.raag.org/sv2agw/agwmonitor.zip
+
+ will also help with troubleshooting of the RF links themselves.
+
+ Install and configure AGWPE. You should now create your own local
+ copy of AGWConnect.pm by:-
-
and then
-
to bring up an editor window containing the file. You must consider
adjusting the following items in AGWConnect.pm:-
o $passwd - password that matches $login
+ The login ID and passwd only need to be set if you are accessing AGW
+ separately via its web interface. This interface is normally not
+ needed for use with DXSpider.
+
6.3. Setting up the initial user files
-
If all goes according to plan, you will see no output from this
program, and after a brief wait, your DOS prompt will be returned.
following:-
-
perl cluster.pl
-
If you did everything you were told, your DOS window will now hold a
display which looks something like:-
- DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.47
- Copyright (c) 1998-2001 Dirk Koopman G1TLH
+ DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.50
+ Copyright (c) 1998-2002 Dirk Koopman G1TLH
loading prefixes ...
loading band data ...
loading user file system ...
-
-
Now, if that's what you've got, you are very nearly home and dry (in
as far as these particular experiments are concerned, anyhow)
-
If you are running Windows NT, 2000 or XP then winclient.pl does not
work. We don't know why other than this seems to be some kind of
incomaptibility in perl. You can achieve the same thing by telnetting
-
On getting the login: prompt, enter your sysop callsign (the one you
put in DXVars.pm as $myalias).
-
-
I would recommend strongly that you obtain a better telnet client than
that which comes with windows (I use PuTTY).
- Hello Iain, this is GB7SJP in Amersham, Bucks running DXSpider V1.47
+ Hello Iain, this is GB7SJP in Amersham, Bucks running DXSpider V1.50
Cluster: 1 nodes, 1 local / 1 total users Max users 2 Uptime 0 00:00
M0ADI de GB7SJP 4-Mar-2001 1511Z >
-
You've arrived. Try some commands, and see how they feel. (In case you
were wondering, "Iain", "M0ADI" and "GB7SJP" all came from the version
of DXVars.pm that was on the machine when I started the winclient.pl)
-
-
The callsign involved will be the callsign of the cluster node you are
going to connect to. This will now check every 10 minutes to see if
gb7xxx is connected, if it is then nothing will be done. If it is
not, then a connect attempt will be started.
-
-
There are probably lots of other things you could use this crontab
file for. If you want to know more about it, look at the DXSpider
website at the cron page where it is explained more fully.
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projects / spider.git / blobdiff