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16 <H2><A NAME="s1">1. Installation (Original version by Iain Phillips, G0RDI)</A></H2>
18 <H2><A NAME="ss1.1">1.1 Introduction</A>
21 <P>This section describes the installation of DX Spider v1.46 on a
22 <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com">RedHat</A> Linux Distribution.
23 Wherever possible I will try to include differences for other distributions.
24 I do not intend to try and cover the installation of Linux or the setup
25 of the AX25 utilities. If you need help on this then read Iains original
26 installation guide that comes with the Spider distribution.
28 <P>I am assuming a general knowledge of Linux and its commands. You should
29 know how to use <EM>tar</EM> and how to edit files using your favourite editor.
31 <P>The crucial ingredient for all of this is
32 <A HREF="http://www.perl.org">Perl</A>. Earlier versions of
33 Spider required perl 5.004, however it is now <I>STRONGLY</I> recommended
34 that you use at least version 5.005_03 as this is the version being used
35 in the development of Spider.
37 <P>In addition to the standard Red Hat distribution you will require the
39 <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html">CPAN</A> modules: -
43 <LI> MD5-1.7.tar.gz</LI>
44 <LI> Data-Dumper-2.10.tar.gz</LI>
45 <LI> TimeDate-1.08.tar.gz</LI>
46 <LI> IO-1.20.tar.gz</LI>
47 <LI> Net-Telnet-3.02.tar.gz</LI>
48 <LI> Curses-1.05.tar.gz</LI>
49 <LI> Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz
54 <P><EM>Do</EM> get the latest versions of these packages and install them
55 but use the above list as the earliest versions usable.
57 <H2><A NAME="ss1.2">1.2 Preparation</A>
60 <P>I will assume that you have already downloaded the latest tarball of
61 the DXSpider software and are ready to install it. I am assuming version
62 1.46 for this section but of course you would use the latest version.
64 <P>Login as root and create a user to run the cluster under. <B><I>UNDER
65 NO CIRCUMSTANCES USE ROOT AS THIS USER!</I></B>. I am going to use
66 the name <EM>sysop</EM>. You can call it anything you wish. Depending
67 on your security requirements you may wish to use an existing user,
68 however this is your own choice.
77 <P>Now set a password for the user ...
83 # Retype new UNIX password:
84 passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully
88 <H2><A NAME="ss1.3">1.3 Installing the software</A>
91 <P>Now to unpack the DX Spider distribution, set symbolic links and group
92 permissions. Copy the tarball to /home/sysop and do the following.
97 # tar xvfz spider-1.46.tar.gz
98 # ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider
99 # groupadd -g 251 spider (or another number)
102 <P>If you do not have the command <EM>groupadd</EM> available to you simply
103 add a line in /etc/group by hand.
107 # vi /etc/group (or your favorite editor)
110 <P>You also need to add some others to the group, including your own callsign
111 (this will be used as an alias) and root. The finished line in /etc/group
112 should look something like this
113 <P><CODE>spider:x:251:sysop,g0vgs,root</CODE>
115 <P>The next step is to set the permissions on the Spider directory tree and files ....
119 # chown -R sysop.spider spider
120 # find . -type d -exec chmod 2775 {} \;
121 # find . -type f -exec chmod 775 {} \;
125 <P>This last step allows various users of the group <EM>spider</EM> to have
126 write access to all the directories. This is not really needed just yet
127 but will be useful when web interfaces start to appear.
129 <P>Finally, you need to fix the permissions on the ax25_call and netrom_call
130 programs. Check where they are with the <EM>locate</EM> command and alter
131 the permissions with the <EM>chmod</EM> command like this ..
135 # chown root ax25_call netrom_call
136 # chmod 4775 ax25_call netrom_call
140 <H2><A NAME="ss1.4">1.4 Setting callsigns etc</A>
143 <P>Now login to your machine as the user you created earlier. In my case that
144 user is called <EM>sysop</EM>. Once logged in, issue the following commands ....
151 $ cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm
153 $ vi DXVars.pm (or your favourite editor)
157 <P>Using the distributed DXVars.pm as a a template, set your cluster callsign,
158 sysop callsign and other user info to suit your own environment. Note that
159 this a perl file which will be parsed and executed as part of the cluster. If
160 you get it wrong then perl will complain when you start the cluster process.
161 It is important only to alter the text of any section. Some of the lines look
162 a little odd. Take this line for example ....
163 <P><CODE>$myemail = "ianmaude\@btinternet.com";</CODE>
165 <P>There appears to be an extra slash in there. However this has to be there
166 for the file to work so leave it in.
168 <P><B>PLEASE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR CALLSIGNS</B>
170 <P>DON'T alter the DXVars.pm (or any other file) in /spider/perl, they are
171 overwritten with every release. Any files or commands you place in /spider/local
172 or /spider/local_cmd will automagically be used in preference to the ones in
173 /spider/perl EVEN while the cluster is running!
175 <P>Save the new file and change directory to ../perl ....
183 <P>Now type the following command which creates the basic user file with you as
192 <H2><A NAME="ss1.5">1.5 Starting up for the first time</A>
195 <P>We can now bring spider up for the first time and see if all is well or not!
196 It should look something like this ...
201 DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.46
202 Copyright (c) 1998 Dirk Koopman G1TLH
204 loading band data ...
205 loading user file system ...
206 starting listener ...
207 reading existing message headers
209 orft we jolly well go ...
213 <P>If all is well then login on another term or console as <EM>sysop</EM> and
214 cd to /spider/perl. Now issue the following command ...
222 <P>This should log you into the cluster as the sysop under the alias callsign we
223 set earlier. In this case the callsign is G0VGS. The cluster callsign is set
224 in the DXVars.pm file in /spider/local. In this case we will assume that this
225 was set as GB7MBC. You should therefore see this when you login ....
229 G0VGS de GB7MBC 19-Nov-1999 2150Z >
232 <P>If you do, congratulations! If not, look over the instructions again, you
233 have probably missed something out. You can shut spider down again with the
242 <P>and both the cluster and the client should return to Linux prompts.
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