<title>The DXSpider Installation and Administration Manual
<author>Ian Maude, G0VGS, (ianmaude@btinternet.com)
-<date>Version 1.33 (Revision 1.20) February 2001
+<date>Version 1.34 (Revision 1.0) April 2001
<abstract>
A reference for SysOps of the DXSpider DXCluster program.
</abstract>
<!-- Begin the document -->
-<sect>Installation (Original version by Iain Phillips, G0RDI)
+<sect>Installation (Original version by Iain Philipps, G0RDI)
<sect1>Introduction
<P>
-This section describes the installation of DX Spider v1.35 on a
-<htmlurl url="http://www.redhat.com" name="RedHat"> Linux Distribution.
+This section describes the installation of DX Spider v1.46 on a
+<htmlurl url="http://www.redhat.com" name="RedHat"> Linux Distribution.
+Wherever possible I will try to include differences for other distributions.
I do not intend to try and cover the installation of Linux or the setup
of the AX25 utilities. If you need help on this then read Iains original
-HOWTO on the <htmlurl url="http://www.dxcluster.org" name="DXSpider">
-website.
+installation guide that comes with the Spider distribution.
<P>
I am assuming a general knowledge of Linux and its commands. You should
<P>
The crucial ingredient for all of this is
-<htmlurl url="http://www.perl.org" name="Perl 5.004">. Now I know Perl 5.005
-is out and this will almost certainly work with it, but
-<htmlurl url="http://www.redhat.com" name="RedHat 5.1"> comes with 5.004.
-<em>Be Warned</em>, earlier versions of
-<htmlurl url="http://www.redhat.com" name="RedHat"> <bf>do not</bf> come
-with 5.004 as standard, you need to
-<htmlurl url="ftp://upgrade.redhat.com" name="upgrade">
+<htmlurl url="http://www.perl.org" name="Perl">. Earlier versions of
+Spider required perl 5.004, however it is now <it>STRONGLY</it> recommended
+that you use at least version 5.005_03 as this is the version being used
+in the development of Spider.
<P>In addition to the standard Red Hat distribution you will require the
-following <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html" name="CPAN"> modules: -
+following modules from <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html" name="http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html"> ...
<P>
<itemize>
<item> MD5-1.7.tar.gz
<item> Data-Dumper-2.10.tar.gz
-<item> FreezeThaw-0.3.tar.gz
-<item> MLDBM-2.00.tar.gz
<item> TimeDate-1.08.tar.gz
<item> IO-1.20.tar.gz
<item> Net-Telnet-3.02.tar.gz
<P>
I will assume that you have already downloaded the latest tarball of
the DXSpider software and are ready to install it. I am assuming version
-1.35 for this section but of course you would use the latest version.
+1.46 for this section but of course you would use the latest version.
<P>
Login as root and create a user to run the cluster under. <bf><it>UNDER
<tscreen><verb>
# cd ~sysop
-# tar xvfz spider-1.35.tar.gz
+# tar xvfz spider-1.46.tar.gz
# ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider
# groupadd -g 251 spider (or another number)
</verb></tscreen>
<P><bf>PLEASE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR CALLSIGNS</bf>
<P>
-DON'T alter the DXVars.pm (or any other file) in /spider/perl, they are
-overwritten with every release. Any files or commands you place in /spider/local
-or /spider/local_cmd will automagically be used in preference to the ones in
-/spider/perl EVEN while the cluster is running!
+DON'T alter any file in /spider/perl, they are overwritten with every
+release. Any files or commands you place in /spider/local or /spider/local_cmd
+will automagically be used in preference to the ones in /spider/perl EVEN
+while the cluster is running!
<P>
Save the new file and change directory to ../perl ....
the sysop.
<tscreen><verb>
-$ create_sysop.pl
+$ ./create_sysop.pl
</verb></tscreen>
<sect1>Starting up for the first time
It should look something like this ...
<tscreen><verb>
-$ cluster.pl
-DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.35
+$ ./cluster.pl
+DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.46
Copyright (c) 1998 Dirk Koopman G1TLH
loading prefixes ...
loading band data ...
<P>
If all is well then login on another term or console as <em>sysop</em> and
-cd to /spider/perl. Now issue the following command ...
+cd to /spider/src. Now issue the following command ...
<tscreen><verb>
-$ client.pl
+$ ./client
</verb></tscreen>
<P>
<P>
and both the cluster and the client should return to Linux prompts.
-<sect>The Client program
+<sect1>The Client program
<P>
In earlier versions of Spider, all the processes were Perl scripts. This
should see the output on your screen and hopefully now have a small C program
called <em>client</em>. Leave it in this directory.
+
+<sect>Quick installation guide
+
+<P>
+This section is designed for experienced Spider sysops who want to install
+Spider from scratch. It is simply a check list of things that need to be
+done without any explanations. The name in brackets at the end of each line
+is the user that should be doing that process.
+
+<itemize>
+<item>Login as root
+<item>Get the additional CPAN modules and install them (root)
+<item>Create the "sysop" user and set a password (root)
+<item>Put the Spider tarball in ~sysop and untar it (root)
+<item>ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider (root)
+<item>groupadd -g 251 spider (root)
+<item>Add any more users you need to the group entry in /etc/group (root)
+<item>Set the permissions on the spider tree (root)
+<item>Fix permissions on ax25_call and netrom_call (root)
+<item>Login as the sysop user
+<item>cd to /spider (sysop)
+<item>mkdir local (sysop
+<item>mkdir local_cmd (sysop)
+<item>cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm (sysop)
+<item>cd to /spider/local and edit DXVars to set your details (sysop)
+<item>cd ../perl (sysop)
+<item>./create_sysop.pl (sysop)
+<item>./cluster.pl (sysop)
+</itemize>
+
+Spider should now be running and you should be able to login using the
+client program.
+
+<itemize>
+<item>Login as root
+<item>Enter the correct line in ax25d.conf (root)
+<item>Enter the correct line in /etc/services (root)
+<item>Enter the correct line in /etc/inetd.conf (root)
+<item>killall -HUP inetd (root)
+</itemize>
+
+Spider should now be able to accept logins via telnet, netrom and ax25.
+
+<itemize>
+<item>Login as sysop
+<item>Start the cluster (sysop)
+<item>set/node and type for links (sysop)
+<item>Write any connect scripts (sysop)
+<item>Edit /spider/crontab as required (sysop)
+<item>Edit any other files as necessary (sysop)
+<item>Set filters, hops and forwarding files (sysop)
+<item>Login as root
+<item>Enter the correct line in /etc/inittab (root)
+</itemize>
+
<sect>Configuration
<sect1>Allowing ax25 connects from users
default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
</verb></tscreen>
+or, if you wish your users to be able to use SSID's on their callsigns ..
+
+<tscreen><verb>
+default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %s ax25
+</verb></tscreen>
+
<sect1>Allowing telnet connects from users
<P>
</verb></tscreen>
-<P>Now login as <em>sysop</em> and cd spider/perl. You can test that spider
+<P>Now login as <em>sysop</em> and cd spider/src. You can test that spider
is accepting telnet logins by issuing the following command ....
<tscreen><verb>
-client.pl login telnet
+./client login telnet
</verb></tscreen>
You should get a login prompt and on issuing a callsign, you will be given
AK1A type node.
<P>
-Start up the cluster as you did before and login as the sysop with client.pl.
+Start up the cluster as you did before and login as the sysop with client.
The cluster node I am wanting to make a connection to is GB7BAA but you would
obviously use whatever callsign you required. At the prompt type ...
<P>
That is now set, it is as simple as that. To prove it, login on yet another
-console as sysop and issue the command ...
+console as sysop, cd to spider/src and issue the command ...
<tscreen><verb>
-client.pl gb7baa (using the callsign you set as a node)
+./client gb7baa (using the callsign you set as a node)
</verb></tscreen>
<P>
You should get an initialisation string from DXSpider like this ...
<tscreen><verb>
-client.pl gb7baa
+./client gb7baa
PC38^GB7MBC^~
</verb></tscreen>
</verb></tscreen>
<P>
-This line works fine for RedHat and SuSE distributions. The line required for
-Slackware distributions is slightly different. My thanks to Aurelio, PA3EZL for
-this information.
+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 this ...
+
+<tscreen><verb>
+DX:235:respawn:/bin/su -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" sysop >/dev/tty7
+</verb></tscreen>
+
+
+The line required for Slackware distributions is slightly different. My thanks to
+Aurelio, PA3EZL for this information.
<tscreen><verb>
DX:23:respawn:/bin/su - sysop -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" >/dev/tty7
nested under directories. One use for this would be to store DX bulletins
such as the OPDX bulletins. These can be listed and read by the user.
To keep things tidy, make a directory under /spider/packclus called
-<em>bulletins</em>. Now copy any OPDX or similar bulletins into it. These
+<em>bulletin</em>. Now copy any OPDX or similar bulletins into it. These
can be listed by the user in the same way as above using the <em>show/files</em>
-command with an extension for the bulletins directory you have just created,
+command with an extension for the bulletin directory you have just created,
like this ....
<tscreen><verb>
-show/files bulletins
+show/files bulletin
</verb></tscreen>
<P>
<tscreen><verb>
sh/files
-bulletins DIR 20-Dec-1999 1715Z news 1602 14-Dec-1999 1330Z
+bulletin DIR 20-Dec-1999 1715Z news 1602 14-Dec-1999 1330Z
</verb></tscreen>
You can see that in the files area (basically the packclus directory) there is a
-file called <em>news</em> and a directory called <em>bulletins</em>. You can
+file called <em>news</em> and a directory called <em>bulletin</em>. You can
also see that dates they were created. In the case of the file <em>news</em>,
you can also see the time it was last modified, a good clue as to whether the
file has been updated since you last read it. To read the file called
type news
</verb></tscreen>
-To look what is in the bulletins directory you issue the command ....
+To look what is in the bulletin directory you issue the command ....
<tscreen><verb>
-show/files bulletins
+show/files bulletin
opdx390 21381 29-Nov-1999 1621Z opdx390.1 1670 29-Nov-1999 1621Z
opdx390.2 2193 29-Nov-1999 1621Z opdx391 25045 29-Nov-1999 1621Z
opdx392 35969 29-Nov-1999 1621Z opdx393 15023 29-Nov-1999 1621Z
You can now read any file in this directory using the type command, like this ....
<tscreen><verb>
-type bulletins/opdx391
+type bulletin/opdx391
Ohio/Penn DX Bulletin No. 391
The Ohio/Penn Dx PacketCluster
DX Bulletin No. 391
<P>
In later versions of Spider a simple console program is provided for the sysop.
This has a type ahead buffer with line editing facilities and colour for spots,
-announces etc. To use this program, simply use console.pl instead of client.pl.
+announces etc. To use this program, simply use console.pl instead of client.
<P>
To edit the colours, copy /spider/perl/Console.pl to /spider/local and edit the
projects / spider.git / blobdiff