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16 <H2><A NAME="s3">3. Configuration</A></H2>
18 <H2><A NAME="ss3.1">3.1 Allowing ax25 connects from users</A>
21 <P>As stated previously, the aim of this document is not to tell you how to
22 configure Linux or the ax25 utilities. However, you do need to add a line
23 in your ax25d.conf to allow connections to DXSpider for your users. For
24 each interface that you wish to allow connections on, use the following format ...
28 default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
32 <H2><A NAME="ss3.2">3.2 Allowing telnet connects from users</A>
35 <P>Allowing telnet connections is quite simple. Firstly you need to add a line
36 in /etc/services to allow connections to a port number, like this ....
40 spdlogin 8000/tcp # spider anonymous login port
43 <P>Then add a line in /etc/inetd.conf like this ....
47 spdlogin stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /spider/src/client login telnet
51 <P>This needs to be added above the standard services such as ftp, telnet etc.
52 Once this is done, you need to restart inetd like this ....
61 <P>Now login as <EM>sysop</EM> and cd spider/perl. You can test that spider
62 is accepting telnet logins by issuing the following command ....
66 client.pl login telnet
69 <P>You should get a login prompt and on issuing a callsign, you will be given
70 access to the cluster. Note, you will not get a password login. There seems
71 no good reason for a password prompt to be given so it is not asked for.
73 <P>Assuming all is well, then try a telnet from your linux console ....
81 <P>You should now get the login prompt and be able to login as before.
83 <H2><A NAME="ss3.3">3.3 Setting up node connects</A>
86 <P>In order to allow cluster node connections, spider needs to know that the
87 connecting callsign is a cluster node. This is the case whether the connect
88 is incoming or outgoing. In spider this is a simple task and can be done in
91 <P>Later versions of Spider can distinguish different software and treat them
92 differently. For example, the WCY beacon cannot be handles by AK1A type
93 nodes as AK1A does not know what to do with PC73. There are 4 different
94 types of node at present and although they may not have any major
95 differences at the moment, it allows for compatibility. The 4 types are ...
106 <P>For now, we will assume that the cluster we are going to connect to is an
109 <P>Start up the cluster as you did before and login as the sysop with client.pl.
110 The cluster node I am wanting to make a connection to is GB7BAA but you would
111 obviously use whatever callsign you required. At the prompt type ...
119 <P>The case does not matter as long as you have a version of DXSpider later than
120 1.33. Earlier versions required the callsign to be in upper case.
122 <P>That is now set, it is as simple as that. To prove it, login on yet another
123 console as sysop and issue the command ...
127 client.pl gb7baa (using the callsign you set as a node)
131 <P>You should get an initialisation string from DXSpider like this ...
139 <P>If the callsign you just set up as a cluster node is for an incoming connect,
140 this is all that needs to be done. If the connection is to be outgoing then
141 a connection script needs to be written.
143 <H2><A NAME="ss3.4">3.4 Connection scripts</A>
146 <P>Because DXSpider operates under Linux, connections can be made using just about
147 any protocol; AX25, NETRom, tcp/ip, ROSE etc are all possible examples.
148 Connect scripts live in the /spider/connect directory and are simple ascii files.
149 Writing a script for connections is therefore relatively simple.
151 <P>The connect scripts consist of lines which start with the following keywords
156 # All lines starting with a # are ignored, as are completely
159 timeout timeout followed by a number is the number of seconds to wait for a
160 command to complete. If there is no timeout specified in the script
161 then the default is 60 seconds.
163 abort abort is a regular expression containing one or more strings to look
164 for to abort a connection. This is a perl regular expression and is
165 executed ignoring case.
167 connect connect followed by ax25 or telnet and some type dependent
168 information. In the case of a telnet connection, there can be up to
170 The first is the ip address or hostname of the computer you wish to
171 connect to and the second is the port number you want to use (this
172 can be left out if it is a normal telnet session).
173 In the case of an ax25 session then this would normally be a call to
174 ax25_call or netrom_call as in the example above. It is your
175 responsibility to get your node and other ax25 parameters to work
176 before going down this route!
178 ' ' is the delimiting character for a word or phrase of an expect/send
179 line in a chat type script. The words/phrases normally come in pairs,
180 either can be empty. Each line reads input from the connection until
181 it sees the string (or perl regular expression) contained in the
182 left hand string. If the left hand string is empty then it doesn't
183 read or wait for anything. The comparison is done ignoring case.
184 When the left hand string has found what it is looking for (if it is)
185 then the right hand string is sent to the connection.
186 This process is repeated for every line of chat script.
188 client client starts the connection, put the arguments you would want here
189 if you were starting the client program manually. You only need this
190 if the script has a different name to the callsign you are trying to
191 connect to (i.e. you have a script called other which actually
192 connects to GB7DJK-1 [instead of a script called gb7djk-1]).
195 <P>There are many possible ways to configure the script but here are two examples,
196 one for a NETRom/AX25 connect and one for tcp/ip.
201 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
202 # don't forget to chmod 4775 netrom_call!
203 connect ax25 /usr/sbin/netrom_call bbs gb7djk g1tlh
207 # you can leave this out if you call the script 'gb7dxm'
217 connect telnet dirkl.tobit.co.uk
220 # tell GB7DJK-1 that it is connected to GB7DJK
221 # you can leave this out if you call this script 'gb7djk'
226 <P>Both these examples assume that everything is set up properly at the other end.
227 You will find other examples in the /spider/examples directory.
229 <H2><A NAME="ss3.5">3.5 Starting the connection</A>
232 <P>You start the connection, from within a sysop enabled cluster login, by typing
233 in the word <EM>connect</EM> followed by a script name like this ....
237 G0VGS de GB7MBC 13-Dec-1998 2041Z >connect gb7djk-1
238 connection to GB7DJK-1 started
239 G0VGS de GB7MBC 13-Dec-1998 2043Z >
242 <P>This will start a connection using the script called <EM>gb7djk-1</EM>. You can
243 follow the connection by watching the term or console from where you started
244 <EM>cluster.pl</EM>. You should see something like this ...
248 <- D G1TLH connect gb7djk-1
249 -> D G1TLH connection to GB7DJK-1 started
250 -> D G1TLH G1TLH de GB7DJK 13-Dec-1998 2046Z >
252 CONNECT sort: telnet command: dirkl.tobit.co.uk
253 CHAT "login" -> "gb7djk"
255 Red Hat Linux release 5.1 (Manhattan)
256 Kernel 2.0.35 on an i586
260 CHAT "word" -> "gb7djk"
262 received "Password: "
264 Connected to GB7DJK-1, starting normal protocol
265 <- O GB7DJK-1 telnet
267 GB7DJK-1 channel func state 0 -> init
269 <- D GB7DJK-1 Last login: Sun Dec 13 17:59:56 from dirk1
270 <- D GB7DJK-1 PC38^GB7DJK-1^~
271 <- D GB7DJK-1 PC18^ 1 nodes, 0 local / 1 total users Max users 0 Uptime
277 <P>With later versions of Spider there is a set/login command for users. This
278 tells them when a user or node logs in or out. If you do not add a line to
279 your scripts after the final line (or before the client line which should always
280 be last if needed) then the login/logout information will be sent to users
281 <I>before</I> the login actually completes. This means if a node is
282 unreachable, it will continue sending logins and logouts to users even though it
283 is not actually connecting. To avoid this use the following line ...
291 <P>In a script, this might look like ...
296 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
297 connect telnet mary 3000
299 '>' 'telnet 44.131.93.96 7305'
304 <H2><A NAME="ss3.6">3.6 Telnet echo</A>
307 <P>Cluster links in particular suffer greatly from the presence of telnet echo.
308 This is caused by the telnet negotiation itself and can create at worst severe
309 loops. At best it creates unnecessary bandwidth and large logfiles! There are
310 things that can be done to limit this problem but will not always work dependent
311 on the route taken to connect.
313 <P>Telnet echo itself should only be a problem if the connection is being made to
314 the telnet port (23). This port uses special rules that include echo negotiation.
315 If the connection is to a different port, such as 8000, this negotiation does
316 not happen and therefore no echo should be present.
318 <P>Sometimes it is not possible to make a direct connection to another node and this
319 can cause problems. There is a way of trying to suppress the telnet echo but
320 this will not always work, unfortunately it is difficult to be more specific.
321 Here is an example of what I mean ...
326 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
327 connect telnet mary.lancs.ac.uk
330 '\$' 'stty -echo raw'
331 '\$' 'telnet 44.131.93.96'
335 <P>So, the first connection is made by Spider. This is fine as Spider uses the
336 Net_Telnet script from within perl. This actually uses TCP rather than TELNET
337 so no negotiation will be done on the first connection. Once connected to
338 mary.lancs.ac.uk, the command is sent to suppress echo. Now a telnet is made
339 to a cluster node that is accepting connections on port 23. The problem with
340 this link is that the negotiation is made by the remote machine, therefore you
341 have no control over it. The chances are that this link will create echo and
342 there will be no way you can stop it.
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