The DXSpider Installation Manual v1.50 Iain Philipps, G0RDI (g0rdi@77hz.com), Ian Maude, G0VGS, (g0vgs@gb7mbc.net) and Charlie Carroll, K1XX, (k1xx@ptcnh.net) March 2003 revision 0.7 A reference for SysOps of the DXSpider DXCluster program. ______________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents 1. Linux Installation 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Preparation 1.3 Installing the software 1.4 Setting callsigns etc 1.5 The client program 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 3.4 Configuration 3.5 axports 3.6 nrports 3.7 nrbroadcast 3.8 ax25d.conf 3.9 node.conf 3.10 Getting it all running 4. Configuration 4.1 Allowing ax25 connects from users 4.2 Setting up telnet connects (from 1.47 onwards) 4.3 Allowing telnet connects from users (before version 1.47 or for special purposes) 4.4 Setting up for AGW Engine (1.47 onwards) 4.5 Setting up node connects 4.6 Connection scripts 4.7 Starting the connection 4.8 Telnet echo 4.9 Autostarting the cluster 5. Microsoft Windows Installation 5.1 Introduction 5.2 The requirements 5.3 The system 5.4 Perl 5.5 Additional packages 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. The crucial ingredient for all of this is Perl. Earlier versions of Spider required perl 5.004, however it is now STRONGLY recommended that you use at least version 5.6.1 as this is the version being used in the development of Spider. In addition to the standard Red Hat distribution you will require the 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 part of your perl distribution. o Data-Dumper-2.101.tar.gz this is included in perl 5.6.1 and above o TimeDate-2.27.tar.gz o IO-1.20.tar.gz (for perl 5.00403 and lower) o Net-Telnet-3.03.tar.gz o Curses-1.08a.tar.gz o Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz (for perl versions lower than 5.8 ) o Digest-SHA1-2.01.tar.gz On most modern distributions most (if not all) the modules you will need are either included or can be loaded automatically. Please consult your distro's instructions for loading new programs and look for modules that usually start with the string "perl-". For instance:- o Mandrake: urpmi perl-TimeDate perl-Digest-SHA1 perl-Curses perl- Net-Telnet o Redhat/Fedora: up2date perl-TimeDate perl-Digest-SHA1 perl-Curses perl-Net-Telnet o SuSE: use yast o Debian: use apt-get Some distros are now packaging perl-DB_File separately as well, so you may have to add that to the list above. Copy the CPAN modules listed above to a convenient place on your computer. One good place would be /usr/local/packages, and the instructions which follow will assume that that's where you have put them. Log in as 'root', and make sure you're at '/root' before you continue. Here are exactly the commands you must issue next: - # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/TimeDate-2.27.tar.gz # cd TimeDate-2.27 # perl Makefile.PL # make test # make install # cd .. # # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Net-Telnet-3.03.tar.gz # cd Net-Telnet-3.02 # perl Makefile.PL # make test # make install # cd .. # # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Curses-1.08a.tar.gz # cd Curses-1.08a # perl Makefile.PL # make test # make install # cd .. # # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz # cd Time-HiRes-01.20 # perl Makefile.PL # make test # make install # cd .. # # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Digest-SHA1-2.01.tar.gz # cd Digest-SHA1-2.01 # perl Makefile.PL # make test # make install # cd .. Only if you need to do these because your perl is old:- # # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/IO-1.20.tar.gz # cd IO-1.20 # perl Makefile.PL # make test # make install UNINST=1 # cd .. # # tar xvfz /usr/local/packages/Data-Dumper-2.101.tar.gz # cd Data-Dumper-2.101 # perl Makefile.PL # make test # make install # cd .. # 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. 1.2. Preparation 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 1.50 for this section but of course you would use the latest version. Login as root and create a user to run the cluster under. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES USE ROOT AS THIS USER!. I am going to use the name sysop. You can call it anything you wish. Depending on your security requirements you may wish to use an existing user, however this is your own choice. # adduser -m sysop For SuSE distributions, the command would be .. # useradd -m sysop Now set a password for the user ... # passwd sysop # New UNIX password: # Retype new UNIX password: passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully 1.3. Installing the software Now to unpack the DX Spider distribution, set symbolic links and group permissions. Copy the tarball to /home/sysop and do the following. # cd ~sysop # tar xvfz spider-1.50.tar.gz # ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider # groupadd -g 251 spider (or another number) If you do not have the command groupadd available to you simply add a line in /etc/group by hand. # vi /etc/group (or your favorite editor) 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 spider:x:251:sysop,g0vgs,root The next step is to set the permissions on the Spider directory tree and files .... # chown -R sysop.spider spider # find . -type d -exec chmod 2775 {} \; # find . -type f -exec chmod 775 {} \; 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. Finally, you need to fix the permissions on the ax25_call and netrom_call programs. Check where they are with the locate command and alter the permissions with the chmod command like this .. # chown root ax25_call netrom_call # chmod 4775 ax25_call netrom_call 1.4. Setting callsigns etc Now login to your machine as the user you created earlier. In my case that user is called sysop. Once logged in, issue the following commands .... $ cd /spider $ mkdir local $ mkdir local_cmd $ cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm $ cd local $ vi DXVars.pm (or your favourite editor) Using the distributed DXVars.pm as a a template, set your cluster callsign, sysop callsign and other user info to suit your own environment. $mycall = "GB7DJK"; This is the call sign of your cluster. Here in the UK we have separate callsigns for our cluster nodes. If you can't use a different callsign I suggest you use an SSID of '-2' for the node callsign '$mycall'. $myalias = "G1TLH"; This is the sysop user callsign, normally your own. PLEASE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR CALLSIGNS Note that this a perl file which will be parsed and executed as part of the cluster. If you get it wrong then perl will complain when you start the cluster process. It is important only to alter the text of any section. Some of the lines look a little odd. Take this line for example .... $myemail = "ianmaude\@btinternet.com"; There appears to be an extra slash in there. However this has to be there for the file to work so leave it in. 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! Save the new file and change directory to ../perl .... $ cd ../perl Now type the following command which creates the basic user file with you as the sysop. $ ./create_sysop.pl 1.5. The client program In earlier versions of Spider, all the processes were Perl scripts. This was fine but with a lot of users your computer memory would soon be used up. To combat this a new client was written in "C". This client only works for incoming connects at the moment. Before you can use it though it has to be "made". CD to /spider/src and type make. You should see the output on your screen and hopefully now have a small C program called client. Leave it in this directory. 1.6. Starting up for the first time We can now bring spider up for the first time and see if all is well or not! It should look something like this ... $ ./cluster.pl DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.50 Copyright (c) 1998 Dirk Koopman G1TLH loading prefixes ... loading band data ... loading user file system ... starting listener ... reading existing message headers reading cron jobs orft we jolly well go ... If all is well then login on another term or console as sysop and cd to /spider/src. Now issue the following command ... $ ./client 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 this case we will assume that this was set as GB7MBC. You should therefore see this when you login .... G0VGS de GB7MBC 19-Nov-1999 2150Z > 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 .... shutdown 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 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. o Login as root o Get the additional CPAN modules and install them (root) o Create the "sysop" user and set a password (root) o Put the Spider tarball in sysop and untar it (root) o ln -s sysop/spider /spider (root) o groupadd -g 251 spider (root) o Add any more users you need to the group entry in /etc/group (root) o Set the permissions on the spider tree (root) o Fix permissions on ax25_call and netrom_call (root) o Login as the sysop user o cd to /spider (sysop) o mkdir local (sysop) o mkdir local_cmd (sysop) o cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm (sysop) o cd to /spider/local and edit DXVars to set your details (sysop) o cd ../perl (sysop) o ./create_sysop.pl (sysop) o ./cluster.pl (sysop) Spider should now be running and you should be able to login using the client program. o Login as root o Enter the correct line in ax25d.conf (root) o Enter the correct line in /etc/services (root) o Enter the correct line in /etc/inetd.conf (root) o killall -HUP inetd (root) Spider should now be able to accept logins via telnet, netrom and ax25. o Login as sysop o Start the cluster (sysop) o set/node and type for links (sysop) o Write any connect scripts (sysop) o Edit /spider/crontab as required (sysop) o Edit any other files as necessary (sysop) o Set filters, hops and forwarding files (sysop) o Login as root o Enter the correct line in /etc/inittab (root) 3. Setting up the AX25 Utilities The aim of this section is not to fully cover the installation and configuration of all the possible ax25 modules. I will attempt to cover a simple installation and configure 2 serial ports as if they had TNC's on them. I will also show what additional configuration the DXSpider program requires. Please bear in mind that I am basing this section on a RedHat 7.1 distribution, if you are using SuSe or any other distibution then your mileage may vary. I will be happy to make any changes and additions if you email me any errors or distribution specific requirements. You would probably benefit from reading the AX25-HOWTO which is much more comprehensive and an interesting configuration program is also available called ax25-config which may help you to configure things. The following files are extracts from the working files at GB7MBC and are in daily use. However, there are many ways that you can configure the ax25 utils, this is just the one I use, it does not mean it is necessarily the best or for that matter, the right way! 3.1. Getting Started There are 2 things you need to do initially. You need to get the 3 files required for the ax25 installation and you need to make some changes to the kernel configuration. The first thing is to get the versions of the ax25 utils that match your kernel. You may also wish to get a node package of some kind. There are 2 main node packages in use of which I shall keep to the original by Tomi Manninen, OH2BNS as this is included in the ax25 rpms as standard. The other is AWZNode by IZ5AWZ. NB: The AX25 stuff in 2.4 kernels appears to have been broken until 2.4.18. I strongly suggest you get at least this kernel. For 2.4 kernels you need these files... o libax25-0.0.7-7.i386.rpm o ax25-tools-0.0.6-13.i386.rpm o ax25-apps-0.0.4-9.i386.rpm 3.2. The kernel First you need to add Amateur Radio Support to your kernel. This is a main menu item and should be easily found. Within this header you will find lots of options. For our purposes you need to enable Amateur Radio AX.25 Level 2 Protocol, NET/ROM and the Serial Port KISS Driver. For the purposes of this document I will work under the assumption that you include them in the kernel fully, ie not as modules. If you need to look at compiling your kernel for ax25 more fully, I would refer to the excellent AX25-HOWTO I should say at this stage that NET/ROM is not mandatory. If you do not use it simply ignore any instruction concerning it. Now recompile your kernel in the normal way and reboot your system. 3.3. Installing the RPM's Now install the RPM's you downloaded, libax25 first, then ax25-tools, then ax25-apps. rpm -ivh libax25-0.0.7-7.i386.rpm rpm -ivh ax25-tool-0.0.6-13.i386.rpm rpm -ivh ax25-apps-0.0.4-9.i386.rpm 3.4. Configuration You will find the configuration files in /etc/ax25. These consist of several files ... o axports o nrports o nrbroadcast o ax25d.conf o node.conf These are the main files. You will find other files but they do not have any use unless you are wanting to use that particular protocol, Rose or axip for example. NOTE:- before we start it is important to realise that every interface requires a different SSID. You should be able to follow this in the following examples. 3.5. axports This file sets up the ax25 ports you want to use. An example is below for a standard TNC2 ... #portname callsign baudrate paclen window description 2m gb7mbc-2 19200 256 2 2m port on 144.900MHz 4m gb7mbc-4 19200 256 2 4m port on 70.325MHz Note that the portnames have to be unique. The file headings are as follows ... portname - The name you will refer to the port by callsign - The ax25 callsign you want to assign to the port baudrate - The speed you communicate between TNC and computer paclen - The maximum packet length for ax25 connections window - The ax25 window parameter. This is like 'maxframe' description - A textual description of the port 3.6. nrports This file sets up the netrom ports you want to use. An example is below and includes a port for both cluster and node. You will see why we need 2 ports later ... #portname callsign alias paclen description netrom gb7mbc-8 BARE 236 Node Netrom Port netrom2 gb7mbc-9 MBCDX 236 Cluster Netrom Port Note that the portnames have to be unique. The file headings are as follows ... portname - The name you will refer to the port by callsign - This is the callsign that NET/ROM traffic from this port will use alias - The NET/ROM alias this port will be assigned paclen - The maximum size of NET/ROM frames transmitted description - A textual description of the port 3.7. nrbroadcast This file sets up the netrom broadcast qualities. An example is below ... #axport min_obs def_qual worst_qual verbose 4m 5 10 100 1 The file headings are as follows ... axport - The port name in axports that you wish to broadcast NET/ROM on. min_obs - The minimum obsolescence value for the port def_qual - The default quality for the port worst_qual - The worst quality for the port. Any routes under this quality will be ignored verbose - This flag determines whether you will only broadcast your own node (0) or all known nodes (1) 3.8. ax25d.conf This file controls any incoming ax25 and NET/ROM connections and steers them to the relevant program. There are lots of configuration options you can set here, however they are well covered in the AX25-HOWTO. For our purposes I will show a typical set of parameters. An example is below ... [gb7mbc-0 via 2m] parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0 NOCALL * * * * * * L default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25 [gb7mbc-1 via 2m] parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0 NOCALL * * * * * * L default * * * * * * 0 root /usr/sbin/node node [gb7mbc-0 via 4m] parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0 NOCALL * * * * * * L default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25 [gb7mbc-1 via 4m] parameters 2 1 6 900 * 15 0 NOCALL * * * * * * L default * * * * * * 0 root /usr/sbin/node node parameters 1 10 * * * 3 * NOCALL * * * * * * L default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25 parameters 1 10 * * * 3 * NOCALL * * * * * * L default * * * * * * 0 root /usr/sbin/node node 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 their callsign in a TNC and tries to connect with the standard NOCALL set into their TNC will not connect, the 'L' means 'lockout'. Lastly and importantly, notice the order of the sections. They are all done in interface order. You should be able to see that the normal line for access to the cluster is like this .. default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25 however, if you wish your users to be able to use SSID's on their callsigns .. default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %s ax25 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 first example and then add a specific line for that node like this: GB7DJK-2 * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client gb7djk-2 ax25 default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25 3.9. node.conf For those of you that wish to run the node, you need to set up the node.conf file. There are a couple of additional files, node.perms is very similar to the way ftp permissions are set up in NOS systems and node.motd is the message anyone logging into the node will get. The node.conf file sets all the parameters of the node as you would expect. An example is below ... # /etc/ax25/node.conf - LinuxNode configuration file # # see node.conf(5) # Idle timeout (seconds). # IdleTimeout 1800 # Timeout when gatewaying (seconds). # ConnTimeout 40000 # Visible hostname. Will be shown at telnet login. # HostName gb7mbc.ampr.org # ReConnect flag. # ReConnect off # "Local" network. # #LocalNet 44.139.8.48/32 # Command aliases. See node.conf(5) for the meaning of the uppercase # letters in the name of the alias. # ##Alias CAllbook 'telnet %{2:44.17.0.53} 1235 %1 s' #Alias CONVers 'telnet %{2:oh2ti} 3600 "/n %u %{1:139}\n/w *"' #Alias CLuster 'c hkiclh' Alias CONV "telnet lurpac 3600" Alias BBS "c 70cm gb7crv" Alias DXC "telnet localhost 9000" Alias MUD "telnet homer 4000" ##Alias TEMP "finger temp@mary.g6phf" ##Alias TNOS "c ip1 gb7mbc-5" ##Alias TUtor "telnet gb7mbc 3599" # Hidden ports. # #HiddenPorts 2 # External commands. See node.conf(5) for the meaning of the uppercase # letters in the name of the extcmd. # # Flags: 1 Run command through pipe # 2 Reconnected flag # #ExtCmd TPM 3 nobody /usr/bin/finger finger tpm #ExtCmd ECho 1 nobody /bin/echo echo \%U \%u \%S \%s \%P \%p \%R \%r \%T \%t \%\% \%0 \%{1:foobar} \%{2} \%3 \%4 \%5 # Node ID. # NodeId "\nBARE:GB7MBC-1" #NodeId \033[01;31m***\033[0m # Netrom port name. This port is used for outgoing netrom connects. # NrPort netrom # Logging level # LogLevel 3 # The escape character (CTRL-T) # EscapeChar ^T # Resolve ip numbers to addresses? # ResolveAddrs off # Node prompt. # #NodePrompt "\n" #NodePrompt "%s@%h \%i> " NodePrompt "\nBARE:GB7MBC-1 \%i > " #NodePrompt "\a\033[36m%U\033[0m de \033[01;32m#LNODE\033[0m:\033[01;33mOH2BNS-10\033[0m> " This should be fairly obvious I hope. 3.10. Getting it all running Ok, now we have all the relevant files configured, the next step is to get it all running. The first thing to do is attach the TNC's. Your TNC's should be in KISS mode and connected to the serial ports involved. You now use the 'kissattach' command to connect the TNC's to the system like this ... kissattach /dev/ttyS0 2m 44.131.96.199 kissattach /dev/ttyS1 4m 44.131.96.199 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 ... kissparms -p 2m -t 150 -l 150 -s 50 -r 50 kissparms -p 4m -t 150 -l 150 -s 50 -r 50 The command 'man kissparms' will give you the explanation of the switches. Now we need to attach the NET/ROM ports in the same way ... nrattach netrom nrattach netrom2 All of the above can be put in a file and called from /etc/rc.d/rc.local. Put all the above commands in a file called rc.ax25 and put a line in rc.local to call it. Now you can start the daemons that set everything in motion ... ax25d netromd -i 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. There are 2 files that need to be edited. First edit /etc/services and add node 3000/tcp #OH2BNS's Node Software Assuming you want it to run on port 3000 Now cd /etc/xinetd.d and edit a new file called node. It should look like this ... # default: on # unencrypted username/password pairs for authentication. service node { socket_type = stream wait = no user = root server = /usr/sbin/node log_on_failure += USERID disable = no } You now need to restart the xinetd daemon. First find out what the PID is like so .. ps auxw |grep xinetd You will get a reply something like this ... root 592 0.0 0.1 2256 620 ? S Feb07 0:00 xinetd -stayalive -reuse -pidfile /var/run/xinetd.pid The PID or Process ID is 592 in this case so now we can issue the command ... kill -HUP 592 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 ... telnet localhost 3000 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. Configuration 4.1. Allowing ax25 connects from users This is dealt with in the previous section 4.2. Setting up telnet connects (from 1.47 onwards) >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... Having done that, you need to copy the file /spider/perl/Listeners.pm to /spider/local and then edit it. You will need to uncomment the line containing "0.0.0.0" and select the correct port to listen on. It comes out of the box looking something like:- @listen = ( # ["0.0.0.0", 7300], ); Change it so that it looks like this:- @listen = ( ["0.0.0.0", 7300], ); Later versions have more comments in the Listeners.pm file that are designed to help you remove the correct '#' character. As standard, the listener will listen on all interfaces simultaneously. If you require more control than this, you can specify each interface individually:- @listen = ( ["gb7baa.dxcluster.net", 7300], ["44.131.16.2", 6300], ); 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. Restart the cluster.pl program to enable the listener. One important difference with the internal listener is that no echoing is done by the cluster program. Users will need to set 'local-echo' on in their telnet clients if it isn't set automatically (as per the standards). Needless to say this will probably only apply to Windows users. 4.3. Allowing telnet connects from users (before version 1.47 or for special purposes) >From version 1.47 there is a new (more efficient) way of doing this (see previous section) but, if you prefer, the method of doing it described here will continue to work just fine. Allowing telnet connections is quite simple. Firstly you need to add a line in /etc/services to allow connections to a port number, like this .... spdlogin 8000/tcp # spider anonymous login port 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 .... killall -HUP inetd Now login as sysop and cd spider/src. You can test that spider is accepting telnet logins by issuing the following command .... ./client login telnet 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 not asked for. Assuming all is well, then try a telnet from your linux console .... telnet localhost 8000 You should now get the login prompt and be able to login as before. 4.4. Setting up for AGW Engine (1.47 onwards) AGW Engine is a Windows based ax25 stack. You can connect to an AGW engine from Linux as well as Windows based machines. In order to enable access to an AGW Engine you need to copy /spider/perl/AGWConnect.pm to /spider/local and edit it. Specifically you must:- o set $enable to 1. o set $login and $passwd to the values set up in your AGW installation. If you haven't set any there, then you should not touch these values. o You can connect to a remote AGW engine (ie on some other machine) by changing $addr and $port appropriately. o Restart the cluster.pl program 4.5. Setting up node connects In order to allow cluster node connections, spider needs to know that the connecting callsign is a cluster node. This is the case whether the connect is incoming or outgoing. In spider this is a simple task and can be done in runtime. Later versions of Spider can distinguish different software and treat them differently. For example, the WCY beacon cannot be handles by AK1A type nodes as AK1A does not know what to do with PC73. There are 4 different types of node at present and although they may not have any major differences at the moment, it allows for compatibility. The 4 types are ... set/node (AK1A type) set/spider set/dxnet set/clx For now, we will assume that the cluster we are going to connect to is an AK1A type node. 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 ... set/node gb7baa 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. That is now set, it is as simple as that. To prove it, login on yet another console as sysop, cd to spider/src and issue the command ... ./client gb7baa (using the callsign you set as a node) You should get an initialisation string from DXSpider like this ... ./client gb7baa PC38^GB7MBC^~ 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. Sometimes you make a mistake... Honest, it does happen. If you want to make a node back to being a normal user, regardless of what type it is, do: unset/node gb7baa 4.6. Connection scripts Because DXSpider operates under Linux, connections can be made using just about any protocol; AX25, NETRom, tcp/ip, ROSE etc are all possible examples. Connect scripts live in the /spider/connect directory and are simple ascii files. Writing a script for connections is therefore relatively simple. The connect scripts consist of lines which start with the following keywords or symbols:- # All lines starting with a # are ignored, as are completely blank lines. timeout timeout followed by a number is the number of seconds to wait for a command to complete. If there is no timeout specified in the script then the default is 60 seconds. abort abort is a regular expression containing one or more strings to look for to abort a connection. This is a perl regular expression and is executed ignoring case. connect connect followed by ax25, agw (for Windows users) or telnet and some type dependent information. In the case of a telnet connection, there can be up to two parameters. The first is the ip address or hostname of the computer you wish to connect to and the second is the port number you want to use (this can be left out if it is a normal telnet session). In the case of an ax25 session then this would normally be a call to ax25_call or netrom_call as in the example above. It is your responsibility to get your node and other ax25 parameters to work before going down this route! ' ' is the delimiting character for a word or phrase of an expect/send line in a chat type script. The words/phrases normally come in pairs, either can be empty. Each line reads input from the connection until it sees the string (or perl regular expression) contained in the left hand string. If the left hand string is empty then it doesn't read or wait for anything. The comparison is done ignoring case. When the left hand string has found what it is looking for (if it is) then the right hand string is sent to the connection. This process is repeated for every line of chat script. client client starts the connection, put the arguments you would want here if you were starting the client program manually. You only need this if the script has a different name to the callsign you are trying to connect to (i.e. you have a script called other which actually connects to GB7DJK-1 [instead of a script called gb7djk-1]). There are many possible ways to configure the script but here are three examples, one for a NETRom/AX25 connect, one for AGW engines and one for tcp/ip. timeout 60 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail) # don't forget to chmod 4775 netrom_call! connect ax25 /usr/sbin/netrom_call bbs gb7djk g1tlh # you can leave this out if you call the script 'gb7dxm' client gb7dxm ax25 timeout 60 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail) # this does exactly the same as the previous example # the '1' is the AGW port number to connect thru for g1tlh connect agw 1 g1tlh # you can leave this out if you call the script 'gb7dxm' client gb7dxm ax25 timeout 15 connect telnet dirkl.tobit.co.uk # tell GB7DJK-1 that it is connected to GB7DJK # you can leave this out if you call this script 'gb7djk' client gb7djk telnet Both these examples assume that everything is set up properly at the other end. You will find other examples in the /spider/examples directory. 4.7. Starting the connection You start the connection, from within a sysop enabled cluster login, by typing in the word connect followed by a script name like this .... G0VGS de GB7MBC 13-Dec-1998 2041Z >connect gb7djk-1 connection to GB7DJK-1 started G0VGS de GB7MBC 13-Dec-1998 2043Z > 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 set/debug connect first. You should see something like this ... <- D G1TLH connect gb7djk-1 -> D G1TLH connection to GB7DJK-1 started -> D G1TLH G1TLH de GB7DJK 13-Dec-1998 2046Z > timeout set to 15 CONNECT sort: telnet command: dirkl.tobit.co.uk CHAT "login" -> "gb7djk" received " Red Hat Linux release 5.1 (Manhattan) Kernel 2.0.35 on an i586 " received "login: " sent "gb7djk" CHAT "word" -> "gb7djk" received "gb7djk" received "Password: " sent "gb7djk" Connected to GB7DJK-1, starting normal protocol <- O GB7DJK-1 telnet -> B GB7DJK-1 0 GB7DJK-1 channel func state 0 -> init <- D GB7DJK-1 <- D GB7DJK-1 Last login: Sun Dec 13 17:59:56 from dirk1 <- D GB7DJK-1 PC38^GB7DJK-1^~ <- D GB7DJK-1 PC18^ 1 nodes, 0 local / 1 total users Max users 0 Uptime 0 00:00^5447^~ etc 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 which should always be last if needed) then the login/logout information will be sent to users before the login actually completes. This means if a node is unreachable, it will continue sending logins and logouts to users even though it is not actually connecting. To avoid this use the following line ... In a script, this might look like ... timeout 35 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail) connect telnet mary 3000 4.8. Telnet echo Cluster links in particular suffer greatly from the presence of telnet echo. This is caused by the telnet negotiation itself and can create at worst severe loops. At best it creates unnecessary bandwidth and large logfiles! There are things that can be done to limit this problem but will not always work dependent on the route taken to connect. Telnet echo itself should only be a problem if the connection is being made to the telnet port (23). This port uses special rules that include echo negotiation. If the connection is to a different port, such as 7300, this negotiation does not happen and therefore no echo should be present. Sometimes it is not possible to make a direct connection to another node and this can cause problems. There is a way of trying to suppress the telnet echo but this will not always work, unfortunately it is difficult to be more specific. Here is an example of what I mean ... timeout 35 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail) connect telnet mary.lancs.ac.uk 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 connection. Once connected to mary.lancs.ac.uk, the command is sent to suppress echo. Now a telnet is made to a cluster node that is accepting connections on port 23. The problem with this link is that the negotiation is made by the remote machine, therefore you have no control over it. The chances are that this link will create echo and there will be no way you can stop it. 4.9. Autostarting the cluster Ok, you should now have DXSpider running nicely and allowing connects by cluster nodes or users. However, it has to be shutdown and restarted manually. It would be much easier to have it start automatically. This is not only a way to start the cluster automatically, it also works as a watchdog, checking the sanity of DXSpider and respawning it should it crash for any reason. Before doing the following, shutdown the cluster as you did earlier. Login as root and bring up the /etc/inittab file in your favourite editor. Add the following lines to the file near the end ... ##Start DXSpider on bootup and respawn it should it crash DX:3:respawn:/bin/su -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" sysop >/dev/tty7 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 ... DX:235:respawn:/bin/su -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" sysop >/dev/tty7 The line required for Slackware distributions is slightly different. My thanks to Aurelio, PA3EZL for this information. DX:23:respawn:/bin/su - sysop -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" >/dev/tty7 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. 5. Microsoft Windows Installation 5.1. Introduction IMPORTANT: What you'll be left with once you've followed these instructions is (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 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. 5.2. 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 5.3. 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. 5.4. 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. (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 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 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 (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. 5.5. 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 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> 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. 5.6. Getting Spider Get the current version of the DX Spider distribution. This needs to 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: http://www.dxcluster.org/download/index.html or if you want the lastest snapshot of CVS version (which is produced every night):- http://www.dxcluster.org/download/CVSlatest.tgz This is generally the best one to go for as it is completely up to date. However, there is always the very slight chance that it might unstable. Generally, there will be a note on the website if this is the case. The only difference between "CVSlatest.tgz" and the latest "official" 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. 6. Installing the software 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:- copy c:\spider\perl\DXVars.pm.issue c:\spider\local\DXVars.pm Now you'll need to edit this file using a text editor like Notepad. 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! o $myqth - The station's geographical location (QTH). o $mylatitude - The station latitude in degrees and decimal fractions 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 $myemail variables. And unless you are absolutely certain you know what you're doing, you should change nothing else in this file. Note that if you use an "@" or a "$" character in one of the above strings (typically in $myemail) you must write them as "\@" or "\$". 6.1. Incoming telnets If you want to enable inbound "TELNET" connections (or you are running 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 The following line need attention:- # ["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 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 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 allow your machine to be visible to the outside world you should change the "0.0.0.0" to "127.0.0.1" [which is "localhost"]. This will then only allow connections from inside your machine. As was said earlier: if you aren't running Win9x (or you want to use DXTelnet or somesuch), then you need to have the machine listening at least to "127.0.0.1" ("0.0.0.0" means all IP addresses). 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, 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:- 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 $login The login ID and passwd only need to be set if you are accessing AGW separately via its web interface. This interface is normally not needed for use with DXSpider. 6.3. Setting up the initial user files Next you need to create the initial user files, etc. A tool is supplied which will do this for you. To run the tool:- cd \spider\perl perl create_sysop.pl If all goes according to plan, you will see no output from this program, and after a brief wait, your DOS prompt will be returned. Depending on how brave you are, you might now care to try the following:- perl cluster.pl If you did everything you were told, your DOS window will now hold a display which looks something like:- DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.50 Copyright (c) 1998-2002 Dirk Koopman G1TLH loading prefixes ... loading band data ... loading user file system ... starting listeners ... Internal port: localhost 27754 load badwords: Ok reading in duplicate spot and WWV info ... reading existing message headers ... load badmsg: Ok load forward: Ok load swop: Ok @msg = 0 before delete @msg = 0 after delete reading cron jobs ...v cron: reading /spider/cmd/crontab cron: adding 1 0 * * 0 DXUser::export("$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) If you are running Windows 9x you can access your new cluster (from the local machine) by finding yourself another "DOS box" and doing the following:- cd \spider\perl perl winclient.pl 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 to the port you defined in Listeners.pm (7300 as default), thus:- Menu->Start->Run telnet localhost 7300 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). Anyway, if you are rewarded with a display which looks something like:- 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 interface is very basic. It is a simple command line. There are better looking interfaces. Most of the "standard" logging and DX Cluster access programs that are capable of connecting via a TCP or telnet connection will work as a "Sysop Console" client. You connect to "localhost" on the port that you defined in Listeners.pm (usually 7300). I recommend packages like DXTelnet. 6.4. 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. 7. General Information The following relates to all versions of DXSpider and is not platform related. 7.1. The crontab file Login as sysop and create a file in /spider/local_cmd called crontab. Edit it with your favourite editor and add a line like this (I have included a comment) # check every 10 minutes to see if gb7xxx is connected and if not # start a connect job going 0,10,20,30,40,50 * * * * start_connect('gb7xxx') unless connected('gb7xxx') 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.