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4 <title>Connecting to other Clusters</title>
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13 <h2>Connecting to other Clusters</h2>
18 <address><a href="mailto:djk@tobit.co.uk">Dirk Koopman G1TLH</a></address>
20 <!-- Created: Sun Dec 13 20:25:14 GMT 1998 -->
22 Last modified: Fri Jan 8 14:27:18 GMT 1999
24 <p>At the moment, anybody can connect inwards at any time from outside, either by ax25 or by
25 telnet (assuming you have followed the instructions in <a href="install.html">installation</a>
26 instructions. However, in order to connect outwards, you will need to create <em>connect</em> scripts.
28 <p><em>Connect</em> scripts live in the <tt>/spider/connect</tt> directory and are simple ascii scripts
29 that are written using a normal editor. There are a couple of examples in the issue directory.
31 <p>Here are a few of basic types, first a telnet connection where the
32 client is set up in the passwd file thus:-
34 gb7djk:x:1372:1291::/home/gb7djk:/usr/bin/perl /spider/perl/client.pl gb7djk telnet
36 and the connect script would be:-
40 connect telnet dirkl.tobit.co.uk
45 <p>For a connect that requires a login and execution of the programs
46 from a normal shell, do:-
50 connect telnet dirkl.tobit.co.uk
53 '\$' 'cd /spider/perl'
54 # set the line to prevent echoing, leaving this out will
55 # confuse whole networks for hours!
57 # tell GB7DJK that you are GB7DJK-1
58 '\$' 'client.pl gb7djk-1 telnet'
59 # tell GB7DJK-1 that it is connected to GB7DJK
60 # you can leave this out if you call this script 'gb7djk'
64 <p>and finally an ax25 example:-
67 abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
68 # don't forget to chmod 4775 netrom_call!
69 connect ax25 /usr/sbin/netrom_call bbs gb7djk g1tlh
74 # you can leave this out if you call the script 'gb7dxm'
78 <p>A connection is started manually by typing in <tt>connect <scriptname></tt> on a sysop enabled
79 <tt>client.pl</tt> session. For example:-
81 G1TLH de GB7DJK 13-Dec-1998 2041Z > connect gb7djk-1
82 connection to GB7DJK-1 started
83 G1TLH de GB7DJK 13-Dec-1998 2043Z >
86 <p>You can watch the progress of the connection (if you have the standard debugging enabled) on the
87 <tt>cluster.pl</tt> screen and you should see something like this:-
89 <- D G1TLH connect gb7djk-1
90 -> D G1TLH connection to GB7DJK-1 started
91 -> D G1TLH G1TLH de GB7DJK 13-Dec-1998 2046Z >
93 CONNECT sort: telnet command: dirkl.tobit.co.uk
94 CHAT "login" -> "gb7djk"
96 Red Hat Linux release 5.1 (Manhattan)
97 Kernel 2.0.35 on an i586
101 CHAT "word" -> "gb7djk"
105 received "Password: "
107 Connected to GB7DJK-1, starting normal protocol
108 <- O GB7DJK-1 telnet
110 GB7DJK-1 channel func state 0 -> init
112 <- D GB7DJK-1 Last login: Sun Dec 13 17:59:56 from dirk1
113 <- D GB7DJK-1 PC38^GB7DJK-1^~
114 <- D GB7DJK-1 PC18^ 1 nodes, 0 local / 1 total users Max users 0 Uptime 0 00:00^5447^~
118 <p>The connect scripts consist of lines which start with the
119 following keywords or symbols:-
123 <p><li><b>#</b> All lines starting with a <b>#</b> are
124 ignored, as are wholly blank lines.
126 <p><li><b>timeout</b> followed by a number is the number of
127 seconds to wait for a command to complete. If there is no
128 <b>timeout</b> specified in the script then the default is 60
131 <P><li><b>abort</b> is a regular expression containing one or
132 more strings to look for to abort a connection. This is a perl
133 regular expression and is executed ignoring case.
135 <p><li><b>connect</b> followed by <b>ax25</b> or <b>telnet</b>
136 and some type dependent information. In the case of a
137 <b>telnet</b> connection, there can be up to two parameters,
138 the first is the ip address or hostname of the computer you
139 wish to connect to and the second is the port number you want
140 to use (this can be left out if it is a normal telnet
143 <p>In the case of an <b>ax25</b> session then this would
144 normally be a call to <tt>ax25_call</tt> or
145 <tt>netrom_call</tt> as in the example above. It is your
146 responsibility to get your node and other ax25 parameters to
147 work before going down this route!
149 <p><li><b>'</b> is the delimiting character for a word or
150 phrase of an expect/send line in a <tt>chat</tt> type
151 script. The words/phrases normally come in pairs, either can
152 be empty. Each line reads input from the connection until it
153 sees the string (or perl regular expression) contained in the
154 left hand string. If the left hand string is empty then it
155 doesn't read or wait for anything. The comparison is done
158 <p>When the left hand string has found what it is looking (if
159 it is) then the right hand string is sent to the connection.
161 <p>This process is repeated for every line of <tt>chat</tt> script.
163 <p><li><b>client</b> starts the connection, put the arguments
164 you would want here if you were starting the client program
165 manually. You only need this if the script has a different
166 name to the callsign you are trying to connect to (i.e. you
167 have a script called <tt>other</tt> which actually connects to
168 <tt>GB7DJK-1</tt> [instead of a script called
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