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16 <H2><A NAME="s1">1. Linux Installation </A></H2>
18 <H2><A NAME="ss1.1">1.1 Introduction</A>
21 <P>This section describes the installation of DX Spider v1.47 on a
22 <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com">RedHat</A> Linux Distribution.
23 Wherever possible I will try to include differences for other distributions.
24 I do not intend to try and cover the installation of Linux or the setup
25 of the AX25 utilities. If you need help on this then read Iains original
26 installation guide that comes with the Spider distribution.
28 <P>I am assuming a general knowledge of Linux and its commands. You should
29 know how to use <EM>tar</EM> and how to edit files using your favourite editor.
31 <P>The crucial ingredient for all of this is
32 <A HREF="http://www.perl.org">Perl</A>. Earlier versions of
33 Spider required perl 5.004, however it is now <I>STRONGLY</I> recommended
34 that you use at least version 5.005_03 as this is the version being used
35 in the development of Spider.
37 <P>In addition to the standard Red Hat distribution you will require the
38 following modules from
39 <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html">http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html</A> ...
44 <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Data/Data-Dumper-2.10.tar.gz">Data-Dumper-2.10.tar.gz</A></LI>
46 <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Date/TimeDate-1.10.tar.gz">TimeDate-1.10.tar.gz</A></LI>
48 <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/IO/IO-1.20.tar.gz">IO-1.20.tar.gz (for perl 5.00403 and lower)</A></LI>
50 <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Net/Net-Telnet-3.02.tar.gz">Net-Telnet-3.02.tar.gz</A></LI>
52 <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Curses/Curses-1.05.tar.gz">Curses-1.05.tar.gz</A></LI>
54 <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Time/Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz">Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz</A></LI>
57 <P><EM>Do</EM> get the latest versions of these packages and install them
58 but use the above list as the earliest versions usable.
60 <H2><A NAME="ss1.2">1.2 Preparation</A>
63 <P>I will assume that you have already downloaded the latest tarball of
64 the DXSpider software and are ready to install it. I am assuming version
65 1.47 for this section but of course you would use the latest version.
67 <P>Login as root and create a user to run the cluster under. <B><I>UNDER
68 NO CIRCUMSTANCES USE ROOT AS THIS USER!</I></B>. I am going to use
69 the name <EM>sysop</EM>. You can call it anything you wish. Depending
70 on your security requirements you may wish to use an existing user,
71 however this is your own choice.
80 <P>Now set a password for the user ...
86 # Retype new UNIX password:
87 passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully
91 <H2><A NAME="ss1.3">1.3 Installing the software</A>
94 <P>Now to unpack the DX Spider distribution, set symbolic links and group
95 permissions. Copy the tarball to /home/sysop and do the following.
100 # tar xvfz spider-1.47.tar.gz
101 # ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider
102 # groupadd -g 251 spider (or another number)
105 <P>If you do not have the command <EM>groupadd</EM> available to you simply
106 add a line in /etc/group by hand.
110 # vi /etc/group (or your favorite editor)
113 <P>You also need to add some others to the group, including your own callsign
114 (this will be used as an alias) and root. The finished line in /etc/group
115 should look something like this
116 <P><CODE>spider:x:251:sysop,g0vgs,root</CODE>
118 <P>The next step is to set the permissions on the Spider directory tree and files ....
122 # chown -R sysop.spider spider
123 # find . -type d -exec chmod 2775 {} \;
124 # find . -type f -exec chmod 775 {} \;
128 <P>This last step allows various users of the group <EM>spider</EM> to have
129 write access to all the directories. This is not really needed just yet
130 but will be useful when web interfaces start to appear.
132 <P>Finally, you need to fix the permissions on the ax25_call and netrom_call
133 programs. Check where they are with the <EM>locate</EM> command and alter
134 the permissions with the <EM>chmod</EM> command like this ..
138 # chown root ax25_call netrom_call
139 # chmod 4775 ax25_call netrom_call
143 <H2><A NAME="ss1.4">1.4 Setting callsigns etc</A>
146 <P>Now login to your machine as the user you created earlier. In my case that
147 user is called <EM>sysop</EM>. Once logged in, issue the following commands ....
154 $ cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm
156 $ vi DXVars.pm (or your favourite editor)
160 <P>Using the distributed DXVars.pm as a a template, set your cluster callsign,
161 sysop callsign and other user info to suit your own environment. Note that
162 this a perl file which will be parsed and executed as part of the cluster. If
163 you get it wrong then perl will complain when you start the cluster process.
164 It is important only to alter the text of any section. Some of the lines look
165 a little odd. Take this line for example ....
166 <P><CODE>$myemail = "ianmaude\@btinternet.com";</CODE>
168 <P>There appears to be an extra slash in there. However this has to be there
169 for the file to work so leave it in.
171 <P><B>PLEASE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR CALLSIGNS</B>
173 <P>DON'T alter any file in /spider/perl, they are overwritten with every
174 release. Any files or commands you place in /spider/local or /spider/local_cmd
175 will automagically be used in preference to the ones in /spider/perl EVEN
176 while the cluster is running!
178 <P>Save the new file and change directory to ../perl ....
186 <P>Now type the following command which creates the basic user file with you as
195 <H2><A NAME="ss1.5">1.5 Starting up for the first time</A>
198 <P>We can now bring spider up for the first time and see if all is well or not!
199 It should look something like this ...
204 DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.47
205 Copyright (c) 1998 Dirk Koopman G1TLH
207 loading band data ...
208 loading user file system ...
209 starting listener ...
210 reading existing message headers
212 orft we jolly well go ...
216 <P>If all is well then login on another term or console as <EM>sysop</EM> and
217 cd to /spider/src. Now issue the following command ...
225 <P>This should log you into the cluster as the sysop under the alias callsign we
226 set earlier. In this case the callsign is G0VGS. The cluster callsign is set
227 in the DXVars.pm file in /spider/local. In this case we will assume that this
228 was set as GB7MBC. You should therefore see this when you login ....
232 G0VGS de GB7MBC 19-Nov-1999 2150Z >
235 <P>If you do, congratulations! If not, look over the instructions again, you
236 have probably missed something out. You can shut spider down again with the
245 <P>and both the cluster and the client should return to Linux prompts.
247 <H2><A NAME="ss1.6">1.6 The Client program</A>
250 <P>In earlier versions of Spider, all the processes were Perl scripts. This
251 was fine but with a lot of users your computer memory would soon be used up.
252 To combat this a new client was written in "C". This client only works for
253 <EM>incoming</EM> connects at the moment. Before you can use it though it
254 has to be "made". CD to /spider/src and type <EM>make</EM>. You
255 should see the output on your screen and hopefully now have a small C program
256 called <EM>client</EM>. Leave it in this directory.
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