--- /dev/null
+ The Installation Guide for DXSpider under Microsoft Windows
+ Iain Philipps, G0RDI (g0rdi@77hz.com)
+ Version 1.1 28 March 2001
+
+ DX Spider under Microsoft Windows (TM)
+ ______________________________________________________________________
+
+ Table of Contents
+
+
+ 1. Introduction
+
+ 1.1 The requirements
+ 1.2 The system
+ 1.3 Perl
+ 1.4 Additional packages
+ 1.5 Getting Spider
+
+ 2. Installing the software
+
+ 2.1 The AGW packet engine
+ 2.2 Setting up the initial user files
+ 2.3 Incoming telnets
+ 2.4 Connecting to other clusters
+
+
+ ______________________________________________________________________
+
+ 1. Introduction
+
+ 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.
+
+ 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
+ cluster "to the internet" via some networking mechanism (BPQEther,
+ etc) or other. I won't be producing instructions for the latter case,
+ because I don't have an AK1A to play with. But someone might ...
+
+ Whatever, this document is intended to get you started with DX Spider
+ in a Microsoft Windows (TM) environment. It's not intended to teach
+ you anything other than how to perform a minimum configuration of a DX
+ Spider installation and have it able to connect across "the internet"
+ to other DX Clusters, while accepting inbound TELNET and radio
+ connections.
+
+
+ 1.1. The requirements
+
+ The very first things you're going to need are (in order of
+ importance):-
+
+
+ o A cup of good, strong tea
+
+ o A supported Windows platform with an internet connection so you can
+ download the necessary software bits and bobs directly to it. There
+ are other ways, but this is preferable.
+
+
+ o Another cup of good, strong tea
+
+ o If all goes according to plan, about an hour to spare
+
+ o Plenty of good, strong tea
+
+
+ 1.2. The system
+
+ The platform I used to generate these instructions was a "vanilla"
+ Microsoft Windows Me 4.90.3000 system, with a 700MHz AMD Athlon
+ processor and 96 Mb memory. I've also personally verified that it runs
+ on my laptop (Pentium 266MHz, 32 Mb memory, Windows 98 SE v4.10.2222
+ A) and a computer that I assembled from a random pile of junk (AMD
+ K6-2 333MHz, 64 Mb memory, Windows 98 v4.10.1998). As a result, I have
+ reason to believe that what I'm about to describe will perform equally
+ on any 32-bit MS Windows environment with 32 Mb of memory.
+
+ Because of the changes that have recently been made to the core
+ "cluster.pl" module and the introduction of a very lightweight
+ "winclient.pl", I have a sneaking suspicion that this will now run on
+ any platform that has reasonably complete support for Perl. Is there
+ someone out there with both an enquiring mind and (say) a Macintosh,
+ for instance?
+
+ Please bear in mind, though, that my instructions relate solely to how
+ to get this going under a Microsoft Windows environment, and I have
+ zero intention of trying to make them say otherwise.
+
+
+ 1.3. Perl
+
+ 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:-
+ 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.
+
+ During installation, please ensure that you do choose the options to
+ "Add Perl to the PATH environment variable" and "Create Perl file
+ extension association"; it will make your life so much easier. Once
+ the installation is finished, be sure to reboot your PC. You probably
+ won't be told anywhere else that this needs to be done now, but it
+ does. Really.
+
+ Once you've rebooted, open a "DOS box" (Start > Run > command might do
+ it, if you can't find it elsewhere) and from wherever it lands, type
+ PERL -v <ENTER> (it's better if that's a lower-case be rewarded with
+ some interesting information about your Perl installation. If you're
+ not, you must go back to the beginning and discover what went wrong
+ and fix it. It's pointless to proceed unless this simple check is
+ passed. Assuming it did work, you may now move on.
+
+
+ 1.4. Additional packages
+
+ Some extensions ("packages") need to be added to the base Perl
+ distribution, and we'll do this next. If you're using the Perl I
+ recommended, and don't know any better for yourself, then just blindly
+ following these instructions will work just fine. If that didn't
+ describe you, then you're on your own.
+
+ Visit the following URL:
+
+ http://www.activestate.com/PPMPackages/zips/6xx-builds-only/
+
+ and download the following files:-
+
+
+
+ Data-Dumper.zip
+ Net-Telnet.zip
+ TimeDate.zip
+ Time-HiRes.zip
+ DB_File.zip
+
+
+
+
+ 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
+ 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>
+
+
+
+
+ I'm not going to bother you with exhaustive details of the rest of
+ them, but suffice it to say you need to:
+
+
+
+ ppm install DB_File.ppd
+ ppm install Net-Telnet.ppd
+ ppm install TimeDate.ppd
+ ppm install Time-HiRes.ppd
+
+
+
+
+ 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
+ awkward to configure via firewalls, and that sometimes the
+ repositories don't always work the way we'd hope. I do it that way
+ because it suits me.
+
+
+
+
+
+ 1.5. 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;
+ either get a CVS update from sourceforge (if you don't know what this
+ is, then it isn't for you) or get my package from:-
+
+ http://www.dcc.rsgb.org/WinSpider.zip
+
+ If you went down the CVS route, then everything will be nicely set out
+ on your local disk. If you got the ZIP file, unpack it to somewhere
+ convenient. The following examples assume that you put it on drive
+ "C:\", for convenience.
+
+ NOTE: This distribution method will go away as soon as the first v1.47
+ tarball is released. You can use WinZip to unpack that, and my life
+ will be made easier by not needing to keep this .ZIP file updated.
+
+
+ 2. Installing the software
+
+ Ensure that your CVS session or your unZIPped file have left you with
+ a directory "C:\spider\local"; if not, go to "C:\spider\" and create
+ one. 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:-
+
+
+
+ copy c:\spider\perl\DXVars.pm.issue
+ c:\spider\local\DXVars.pm
+
+
+
+
+ Now you'll need to edit this file using a text editor. If nothing
+ else, you can simply
+
+
+
+ cd \spider\local
+
+
+
+
+ and then
+
+
+
+ notepad DXVars.pm
+
+
+
+
+ to bring up an editor window containing the file. As an absolute
+ minimum you must adjust the following items in DXVars.pm:-
+
+
+ o $mycall - Should hold the callsign of your DX Cluster
+
+ o $myname - The SysOp's first name
+
+ o $myalias - the SysOp's callsign. Cannot be the same as $mycall!
+
+
+ You really also ought to update the $mylatitude, $mylongitude, $myqth
+ and $myemail variables. And unless you are absolutely certain you know
+ what you're doing, you should change nothing else in this file.
+
+
+ 2.1. 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:-
+
+
+
+ copy c:\spider\perl\AGWConnect.pm
+ c:\spider\local\AGWConnect.pm
+
+
+
+
+ and then
+
+
+
+ notepad AGWConnect.pm
+
+
+
+
+ to bring up an editor window containing the file. You must consider
+ adjusting the following items in AGWConnect.pm:-
+
+
+ o $enable - set to '1' to enable AGWPE interface
+
+ o $login - the login ID you chose when you set up the SV2AGW
+ security :-)
+
+ o $passwd - password that matches $login
+
+
+ 2.2. Setting up the initial user files
+
+ Next you need to create the initial user files, etc. A tool is
+ supplied which will do this for you. To run the tool:-
+
+
+
+ cd \spider\perl
+ perl create_sysop.pl
+
+
+
+
+ If all goes according to plan, you will see no output from this
+ program, and after a brief wait, your DOS prompt will be returned.
+
+ Depending on how brave you are, you might now care to try the
+ following:-
+
+
+
+ perl cluster.pl
+
+
+
+
+ If you did everything you were told, your DOS window will now hold a
+ display which looks something like:-
+
+
+
+ DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.47
+ Copyright (c) 1998-2001 Dirk Koopman G1TLH
+ loading prefixes ...
+ loading band data ...
+ loading user file system ...
+ starting listeners ...
+ Internal port: localhost 27754
+ load badwords: Ok
+ reading in duplicate spot and WWV info ...
+ reading existing message headers ...
+ load badmsg: Ok
+ load forward: Ok
+ load swop: Ok
+ @msg = 0 before delete
+ @msg = 0 after delete
+ reading cron jobs ...v cron: reading /spider/cmd/crontab
+ cron: adding 1 0 * * 0
+ DXUser::export("$main::data/user_asc")
+ reading database descriptors ...
+ doing local initialisation ...
+ orft we jolly well go ...
+ queue msg (0)
+
+
+
+
+ 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)
+
+ To access your new cluster (from the local machine) find yourself
+ another "DOS box" and do the following:-
+
+
+
+ cd \spider\perl
+ perl winclient.pl
+
+
+
+
+ If you are rewarded with a display which looks something like:-
+
+
+
+ Hello Iain, this is GB7SJP in Amersham, Bucks running DXSpider V1.47
+ 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)
+
+
+ 2.3. Incoming telnets
+
+ If you want to enable inbound "TELNET" connections, 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
+
+
+
+
+ The following lines need attention:-
+
+
+
+ ["localhost", 7300],
+ ["foo.dxcluster.net", 7300],
+
+
+
+
+ On my machine, I've simply uncommented the "localhost" entry by
+ removing the '#' from the front of the line. I've also uncommented the
+ second line, and changed the hostname to point at "spud.ath.cx".
+
+ 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.
+
+
+ 2.4. Connecting to other clusters
+
+ If you want to connect this to another cluster, then you'll want to
+ negotiate a link with someone. For experimental purposes, I'm happy to
+ allow folk to connect to GB7DXA (spud.ath.cx), on the understanding
+ that the system may or may not be there and may or may not be
+ connected to anything particularly useful at any given moment. Contact
+ me by Email if you want me to set up a connection for you.
+
+ Last updated: 05-Mar-01
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
projects / spider.git / blobdiff