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