<!-- Title information -->
-<title>The DXSpider Installation and Administration Manual</title>
+<title>The DXSpider Administration Manual v1.47</title>
<author>Ian Maude, G0VGS, (ianmaude@btinternet.com)</author>
-<date>Version 1.47 (Revision 1.30), April 2001</date>
+<date></date>
<abstract>
A reference for SysOps of the DXSpider DXCluster program.
<!-- Begin the document -->
-<sect>Installation (Original version by Iain Philipps, G0RDI)
-
-<sect1>Introduction
-
-<P>
-This section describes the installation of DX Spider v1.46 on a
-<htmlurl url="http://www.redhat.com" name="RedHat"> Linux Distribution.
-Wherever possible I will try to include differences for other distributions.
-I do not intend to try and cover the installation of Linux or the setup
-of the AX25 utilities. If you need help on this then read Iains original
-installation guide that comes with the Spider distribution.
-
-<P>
-I am assuming a general knowledge of Linux and its commands. You should
-know how to use <em>tar</em> and how to edit files using your favourite editor.
-
-<P>
-The crucial ingredient for all of this is
-<htmlurl url="http://www.perl.org" name="Perl">. Earlier versions of
-Spider required perl 5.004, however it is now <it>STRONGLY</it> recommended
-that you use at least version 5.005_03 as this is the version being used
-in the development of Spider.
-
-<P>In addition to the standard Red Hat distribution you will require the
-following modules from <htmlurl url="http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html" name="http://www.cpan.org/CPAN.html"> ...
-
-<P>
-<itemize>
-
-<item> Data-Dumper-2.101.tar.gz
-<item> TimeDate-1.10.tar.gz
-<item> IO-1.20.tar.gz (for perl 5.00403 and lower)
-<item> Net-Telnet-3.02.tar.gz
-<item> Curses-1.05.tar.gz
-<item> Time-HiRes-01.20.tar.gz
-
-</itemize>
-
-<P>
-
-<em>Do</em> get the latest versions of these packages and install them
-but use the above list as the earliest versions usable.
-
-<sect1>Preparation
-
-<P>
-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
-1.46 for this section but of course you would use the latest version.
-
-<P>
-Login as root and create a user to run the cluster under. <bf><it>UNDER
-NO CIRCUMSTANCES USE ROOT AS THIS USER!</it></bf>. I am going to use
-the name <em>sysop</em>. 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.
-
-<P>
-<tscreen><verb>
-# adduser -m sysop
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-Now set a password for the user ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-# passwd sysop
-# New UNIX password:
-# Retype new UNIX password:
-passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<sect1>Installing the software
-
-<P>
-Now to unpack the DX Spider distribution, set symbolic links and group
-permissions. Copy the tarball to /home/sysop and do the following.
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-# cd ~sysop
-# tar xvfz spider-1.46.tar.gz
-# ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider
-# groupadd -g 251 spider (or another number)
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-If you do not have the command <em>groupadd</em> available to you simply
-add a line in /etc/group by hand.
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-# vi /etc/group (or your favorite editor)
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-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
-
-<tt>
-spider:x:251:sysop,g0vgs,root
-</tt>
-
-<P>
-The next step is to set the permissions on the Spider directory tree and files ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-# chown -R sysop.spider spider
-# find . -type d -exec chmod 2775 {} \;
-# find . -type f -exec chmod 775 {} \;
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-This last step allows various users of the group <em>spider</em> 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.
-
-<P>
-Finally, you need to fix the permissions on the ax25_call and netrom_call
-programs. Check where they are with the <em>locate</em> command and alter
-the permissions with the <em>chmod</em> command like this ..
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-# chown root ax25_call netrom_call
-# chmod 4775 ax25_call netrom_call
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<sect1>Setting callsigns etc
-
-<P>
-Now login to your machine as the user you created earlier. In my case that
-user is called <em>sysop</em>. Once logged in, issue the following commands ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-$ cd /spider
-$ mkdir local
-$ mkdir local_cmd
-$ cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm
-$ cd local
-$ vi DXVars.pm (or your favourite editor)
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-Using the distributed DXVars.pm as a a template, set your cluster callsign,
-sysop callsign and other user info to suit your own environment. 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 ....
-
-<tt>
-$myemail = "ianmaude\@btinternet.com";
-</tt>
-
-<P>
-There appears to be an extra slash in there. However this has to be there
-for the file to work so leave it in.
-
-<P><bf>PLEASE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR CALLSIGNS</bf>
-
-<P>
-DON'T alter any file in /spider/perl, they are overwritten with every
-release. Any files or commands you place in /spider/local or /spider/local_cmd
-will automagically be used in preference to the ones in /spider/perl EVEN
-while the cluster is running!
-
-<P>
-Save the new file and change directory to ../perl ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-$ cd ../perl
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-Now type the following command which creates the basic user file with you as
-the sysop.
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-$ ./create_sysop.pl
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<sect1>Starting up for the first time
-
-<P>
-We can now bring spider up for the first time and see if all is well or not!
-It should look something like this ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-$ ./cluster.pl
-DXSpider DX Cluster Version 1.46
-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 ...
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-If all is well then login on another term or console as <em>sysop</em> and
-cd to /spider/src. Now issue the following command ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-$ ./client
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-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 ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-G0VGS de GB7MBC 19-Nov-1999 2150Z >
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-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 ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-shutdown
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-and both the cluster and the client should return to Linux prompts.
-
-<sect1>The Client program
-
-<P>
-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
-<em>incoming</em> connects at the moment. Before you can use it though it
-has to be "made". CD to /spider/src and type <em>make</em>. You
-should see the output on your screen and hopefully now have a small C program
-called <em>client</em>. Leave it in this directory.
-
-
-<sect>Quick installation guide (Linux version)
-
-<P>
-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.
-
-<itemize>
-<item>Login as root
-<item>Get the additional CPAN modules and install them (root)
-<item>Create the "sysop" user and set a password (root)
-<item>Put the Spider tarball in ~sysop and untar it (root)
-<item>ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider (root)
-<item>groupadd -g 251 spider (root)
-<item>Add any more users you need to the group entry in /etc/group (root)
-<item>Set the permissions on the spider tree (root)
-<item>Fix permissions on ax25_call and netrom_call (root)
-<item>Login as the sysop user
-<item>cd to /spider (sysop)
-<item>mkdir local (sysop)
-<item>mkdir local_cmd (sysop)
-<item>cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm (sysop)
-<item>cd to /spider/local and edit DXVars to set your details (sysop)
-<item>cd ../perl (sysop)
-<item>./create_sysop.pl (sysop)
-<item>./cluster.pl (sysop)
-</itemize>
-
-Spider should now be running and you should be able to login using the
-client program.
-
-<itemize>
-<item>Login as root
-<item>Enter the correct line in ax25d.conf (root)
-<item>Enter the correct line in /etc/services (root)
-<item>Enter the correct line in /etc/inetd.conf (root)
-<item>killall -HUP inetd (root)
-</itemize>
-
-Spider should now be able to accept logins via telnet, netrom and ax25.
-
-<itemize>
-<item>Login as sysop
-<item>Start the cluster (sysop)
-<item>set/node and type for links (sysop)
-<item>Write any connect scripts (sysop)
-<item>Edit /spider/crontab as required (sysop)
-<item>Edit any other files as necessary (sysop)
-<item>Set filters, hops and forwarding files (sysop)
-<item>Login as root
-<item>Enter the correct line in /etc/inittab (root)
-</itemize>
-
-<sect>Configuration
-
-<sect1>Allowing ax25 connects from users
-
-<P>
-As stated previously, the aim of this document is not to tell you how to
-configure Linux or the ax25 utilities. However, you do need to add a line
-in your ax25d.conf to allow connections to DXSpider for your users. For
-each interface that you wish to allow connections on, use the following format ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-or, if you wish your users to be able to use SSID's on their callsigns ..
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %s ax25
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-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:
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-GB7DJK-2 * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client gb7djk-2 ax25
-default * * * * * * - sysop /spider/src/client client %u ax25
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<sect1>Allowing telnet connects from users
-
-<P>
-From version 1.47 there is a new (more efficient) way of doing this
-(see next section) but, if you prefer, the method of doing it described
-here will continue to work just fine.
-
-<P>
-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 ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-spdlogin 8000/tcp # spider anonymous login port
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-Then add a line in /etc/inetd.conf like this ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-spdlogin stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd /spider/src/client login telnet
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-Once this is done, you need to restart inetd like this ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-killall -HUP inetd
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-
-<P>Now login as <em>sysop</em> and cd spider/src. You can test that spider
-is accepting telnet logins by issuing the following command ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-./client login telnet
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-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.
-
-<P>
-Assuming all is well, then try a telnet from your linux console ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-telnet localhost 8000
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-You should now get the login prompt and be able to login as before.
-
-<sect1>Setting up telnet connects (from 1.47 onwards)
-
-<P>
-From version 1.47 you can choose to allow the perl cluster.pl program to
-allow connections directly (i.e. not via the <tt>/spider/src/client</tt>
-interface program). If you are using Windows then this is the only method
-available of allowing incoming telnet connections.
-
-<P>
-To do this you need first to remove any line that you may previously have set
-up in /etc/inetd.conf. Remember to:-
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-killall -HUP inetd
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-to make the change happen...
-
-<P>
-Having done that, you need to copy the file
-<em>/spider/perl/Listeners.pm</em> to <em>/spider/local</em> and
-then edit it. You will need to uncomment the line containing &dquot;0.0.0.0&dquot;
-and select the correct port to listen on. So that it looks like this:-
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-@listen = (
- ["0.0.0.0", 8000],
-);
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-As standard, the listener will listen on all interfaces simultaneously.
-If you require more control than this, you can specify each interface
-individually:-
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-@listen = (
- ["gb7baa.dxcluster.net", 8000],
- ["44.131.16.2", 6300],
-);
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-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.
-
-<P>
-Restart the cluster.pl program to enable the listener.
-
-<P>
-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.
-
-<sect1>Setting up for AGW Engine (1.47 onwards)
-
-<P>
-AGW Engine is a Windows based ax25 stack. You can connect to an AGW engine
-from Linux as well as Windows based machines.
-
-<P>
-In order to enable access to an AGW Engine you need to copy
-<em>/spider/perl/AGWConnect.pm</em> to <em>/spider/local</em> and edit it.
-Specifically you must:-
-
-<itemize>
-<item> set <tt>$enable</tt> to 1.
-<item> set <tt>$login</tt> and <tt>$passwd</tt> to the values set up in your AGW installation.
-If you haven't set any there, then you should not touch these values.
-<item> You can connect to a remote AGW engine (ie on some other machine) by changing <tt>$addr</tt>
-and <tt>$port</tt> appropriately.
-<item> Restart the cluster.pl program
-</itemize>
-
-
-<sect1>Setting up node connects
-
-<P>
-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.
-
-<P>
-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 ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-set/node (AK1A type)
-set/spider
-set/dxnet
-set/clx
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-For now, we will assume that the cluster we are going to connect to is an
-AK1A type node.
-
-<P>
-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 ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-set/node gb7baa
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-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.
-
-<P>
-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 ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-./client gb7baa (using the callsign you set as a node)
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-You should get an initialisation string from DXSpider like this ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-./client gb7baa
-PC38^GB7MBC^~
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-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.
-
-<P>
-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:
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-unset/node gb7baa
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<sect1>Connection scripts
-
-<P>
-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.
-
-<P>
-The connect scripts consist of lines which start with the following keywords
-or symbols:-
-
-<descrip>
-
-<tag/#/All lines starting with a <tt>#</tt> are ignored, as are completely
- blank lines.
-
-<tag/timeout/<tt>timeout</tt> 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.
-
-<tag/abort/ <tt>abort</tt> 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.
-
-<tag/connect/<tt>connect</tt> 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!
-
-<tag/'/<tt>'</tt> 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.
-
-<tag/client/<tt>client</tt> 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]).
-</descrip>
-
-
-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.
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-timeout 60
-abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
-# don't forget to chmod 4775 netrom_call!
-connect ax25 /usr/sbin/netrom_call bbs gb7djk g1tlh
-'Connect' ''
-'Connect' 'c np7'
-'Connect' 'c gb7dxm'
-# you can leave this out if you call the script 'gb7dxm'
-client gb7dxm ax25
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-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
-'Connect' ''
-'Connect' 'c np7'
-'Connect' 'c gb7dxm'
-# you can leave this out if you call the script 'gb7dxm'
-client gb7dxm ax25
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-timeout 15
-connect telnet dirkl.tobit.co.uk
-'login' 'gb7djk'
-'word' 'gb7djk'
-# tell GB7DJK-1 that it is connected to GB7DJK
-# you can leave this out if you call this script 'gb7djk'
-client gb7djk telnet
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-Both these examples assume that everything is set up properly at the other end.
-You will find other examples in the /spider/examples directory.
-
-<sect1>Starting the connection
-
-<P>
-You start the connection, from within a sysop enabled cluster login, by typing
-in the word <em>connect</em> followed by a script name like this ....
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-G0VGS de GB7MBC 13-Dec-1998 2041Z >connect gb7djk-1
-connection to GB7DJK-1 started
-G0VGS de GB7MBC 13-Dec-1998 2043Z >
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-This will start a connection using the script called <em>gb7djk-1</em>. You can
-follow the connection by watching the term or console from where you started
-<em>cluster.pl</em>. From version 1.47 onwards, you will need to <tt>set/debug connect</tt> first.
-You should see something like this ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-<- 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
-
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-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
-<it>before</it> 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 ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-'connect' ''
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-In a script, this might look like ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-timeout 35
-abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
-connect telnet mary 3000
-'ogin:' 'gb7mbc'
-'>' 'telnet 44.131.93.96 7305'
-'connect' ''
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<sect1>Telnet echo
-
-<P>
-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.
-
-<P>
-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.
-
-<P>
-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 ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-timeout 35
-abort (Busy|Sorry|Fail)
-connect telnet mary.lancs.ac.uk
-'ogin:' 'gb7mbc'
-'word:' 'mypasswd'
-'\$' 'stty -echo raw'
-'\$' 'telnet 44.131.93.96'
-'connect' ''
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-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.
-
-
-<sect>Automating things
-
-<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.
-
-<sect1>Autostarting the cluster
-
-<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>
-Login as root and bring up the /etc/inittab file in your favourite editor. Add
-the following lines to the file near the end ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-##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
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-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 ...
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-DX:235:respawn:/bin/su -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" sysop >/dev/tty7
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-
-The line required for Slackware distributions is slightly different. My thanks to
-Aurelio, PA3EZL for this information.
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-DX:23:respawn:/bin/su - sysop -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" >/dev/tty7
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<P>
-This will automatically start DXSpider on tty7 (ALT-F7) on bootup and restart
-it should it crash for any reason.
-
-<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>
-So far so good, now to automate script connections...
-
-<sect1>The crontab file
-
-<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)
-
-<tscreen><verb>
-# 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 unless connected('gb7xxx')
-</verb></tscreen>
-
-<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>
-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
-<htmlurl url="http://www.dxcluster.org/cron.html" name="DXSpider"> website
-at the cron page where it is explained more fully.
-
<sect>Hop control
<P>
projects / spider.git / blobdiff