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- <TITLE>The DXSpider Installation and Administration Manual : Hop control</TITLE>
+ <TITLE>The DXSpider Installation and Administration Manual : Automating things</TITLE>
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-<H2><A NAME="s4">4. Hop control</A></H2>
+<H2><A NAME="s4">4. Automating things</A></H2>
-<P>Starting with version 1.13 there is simple hop control available on a per
-node basis. Also it is possible to isolate a network completely so that you
-get all the benefits of being on that network, but can't pass on information
-from it to any other networks you may be connected to (or vice versa).
+<P>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 and if
+connection scripts fail they have to be started again manually too, not much use
+if you are not at the console! So, in this section we will automate both.
+Firstly starting the cluster.
<P>
-<H2><A NAME="ss4.1">4.1 Basic hop control</A>
+<H2><A NAME="ss4.1">4.1 Autostarting the cluster</A>
</H2>
-<P>In /spider/data you will find a file called hop_table.pl. This is the file
-that controls your hop count settings. It has a set of default hops on the
-various PC frames and also a set for each node you want to alter the hops for.
-You may be happy with the default settings of course, but this powerful tool
-can help to protect and improve the network. The file will look something
-like this ...
+<P>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.
+<P>
+<P>Login as root and bring up the /etc/inittab file in your favourite editor. Add
+the following lines to the file near the end ...
<P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
<PRE>
-#
-# hop table construction
-#
-
-package DXProt;
-
-# default hopcount to use
-$def_hopcount = 5;
-
-# some variable hop counts based on message type
-%hopcount =
-(
- 11 => 10,
- 16 => 10,
- 17 => 10,
- 19 => 10,
- 21 => 10,
-);
-
-
-# the per node hop control thingy
-
-
-%nodehops =
-
- GB7ADX => { 11 => 8,
- 12 => 8,
- 16 => 8,
- 17 => 8,
- 19 => 8,
- 21 => 8,
- },
-
- GB7UDX => { 11 => 8,
- 12 => 8,
- 16 => 8,
- 17 => 8,
- 19 => 8,
- 21 => 8,
- },
- GB7BAA => {
- 11 => 5,
- 12 => 8,
- 16 => 8,
- 17 => 8,
- 19 => 8,
- 21 => 8,
- },
-};
+##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
</PRE>
</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
-<P>Each set of hops is contained within a pair of curly braces and contains a
-series of PC frame types. PC11 for example is a DX spot. The figures here
-are not exhaustive but should give you a good idea of how the file works.
+<P>This will automatically start DXSpider on tty7 (ALT-F7) on bootup and restart
+it should it crash for any reason.
<P>
-<P>You can alter this file at any time, including whilst the cluster is running.
-If you alter the file during runtime, the command <EM>load/hops</EM> will
-bring your changes into effect.
+<P>As root type the command <EM>telinit q</EM>. DXSpider should start up
+immediately. You will see the output on tty7 and if you login as <EM>sysop</EM>
+you should find everything running nicely.
<P>
-<H2><A NAME="ss4.2">4.2 Isolating networks</A>
+<P>So far so good, now to automate script connections...
+<P>
+<H2><A NAME="ss4.2">4.2 The crontab file</A>
</H2>
-<P>It is possible to isolate networks from each other on a "gateway" node using the
-<EM>set/isolate <node_call></EM> command.
-<P>
-<P>The effect of this is to partition an isolated network completely from another
-nodes connected to your node. Your node will appear on and otherwise behave
-normally on every network to which you are connected, but data from an isolated
-network will not cross onto any other network or vice versa. However all the
-spot, announce and WWV traffic and personal messages will still be handled
-locally (because you are a real node on all connected networks), that is locally
-connected users will appear on all networks and will be able to access and
-receive information from all networks transparently. All routed messages will
-be sent as normal, so if a user on one network knows that you are a gateway for
-another network, he can still still send a talk/announce etc message via your
-node and it will be routed across.
-<P>
-<P>The only limitation currently is that non-private messages cannot be passed down
-isolated links regardless of whether they are generated locally. This will change
-when the bulletin routing facility is added.
-<P>
-<P>If you use isolate on a node connection you will continue to receive all
-information from the isolated partner, however you will not pass any information
-back to the isolated node. There are times when you would like to forward only
-spots across a link (maybe during a contest for example). To do this, isolate
-the node in the normal way and put in a filter in the /spider/filter/spots
-directory to override the isolate. This filter can be very simple and consists
-of just one line ....
+<P>Login as <EM>sysop</EM> 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)
<P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
<PRE>
-$in = [
- [ 1, 0, 'd', 0, 3] # The last figure (3) is the hop count
-];
+# 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') if !connected('gb7xxx')
</PRE>
</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
-<P>There is a lot more on filtering in the next section.
+<P>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.
+<P>
+<P>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
+<A HREF="http://www.dxcluster.org/cron.html">DXSpider</A> website
+at the cron page where it is explained more fully.
<P>
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