1 <!doctype linuxdoc system>
5 <!-- Title information -->
7 <title>The DXSpider FAQ</title>
8 <author>Ian Maude, G0VGS, (g0vgs@gb7mbc.net)</author>
9 <date>December 2001 Revision: 1.8</date>
11 A reference for SysOps of the DXSpider DXCluster program.
14 <!-- Table of contents -->
17 <!-- Begin the document -->
19 <P>Please mail any FAQs to the maintainer at the address above.
24 <sect1>Where do I get DXSpider?
27 All things Spider can be found at <htmlurl url="http://www.dxcluster.org" name="www.dxcluster.org"> and the actual program and patches can be found in the <htmlurl url="http://www.dxcluster.org/download/index.html" name="download"> area.
29 <sect1>How do I use the patches?
32 Patching is done in the standard linux way ...
35 zcat /tmp/patch-1.40 | patch -p0
39 assuming the patch version you are using is 1.40 and resides in /tmp!
42 Be aware that each patch assumes the previous patch has been applied. That
43 is to say if you are patching from version 1.38 to 1.40 you would first need
44 to apply patch-1.39 and then patch-1.40.
46 <sect1>If I use a tarball to overwrite my installation, what happens to my configuration?
49 The tarballs are designed to not overwrite your existing configuration
50 and can be used at any time to update your Spider software. All the key
51 files have the suffix .issue (eg. DXVars.pm.issue) at default.
53 <sect1>I am running RedHat 5.2 and I am getting strange errors, what is wrong?
56 The version of Perl that comes with 5.2 seems to be some kind of pre-release
57 and is broken. You can get a new version of perl from
58 <htmlurl url="http://www.dxcluster.org/download/index.html" name="www.dxcluster.org">
59 or <htmlurl url="ftp://updates.redhat.com" name="ftp://updates.redhat.com">.
60 Don't forget to patch it with the CPAN modules.
64 <sect1>How can I get Spider to restart automatically if it crashes?
67 Put this line into /etc/inittab ..
70 DX:3:respawn:/bin/su -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" sysop > /dev/tty7
73 Run <em>telinit q</em> as root. Spider will restart so be aware. However, any
74 time you reboot, cluster.pl will start in tty7 and if it crashes, it should restart ok.
76 <sect1>How can I monitor traffic to and from a node or user?
79 There are 2 ways to achieve this. You can use the <em>tail</em> command like this ..
82 tail -f /spider/data/debug/167.dat |grep G0VGS
85 or in later versions of Spider, there is a command called <em>watchdbg</em> in which
86 case you simply type ..
92 <sect1>My neighbouring node cannot use the RCMD command to me, he just keeps
93 getting the "tut tut" message.
96 Assuming that the permissions are set correctly (perm level 5 required), it could be
97 that the home_node is set incorrectly. You can reset the home_node using the <em>spoof</em>
101 spoof gb7adx set/home gb7adx
104 Assuming that the node_call you are changing is gb7adx.
106 <sect1>I do not seem to be sending any bulletin mail to my link partners, what is wrong?
109 There is a file in /spider/msg called forward.pl.issue. Rename this to
110 forward.pl and edit it to meet your requirements. You will need to issue
111 the command <em>load/forward</em> or restart Spider for the changes to
114 <sect1>How can I automatically limit the amount of debug logfiles that are stored?
117 Use the tmpwatch command. Create a file in /etc/cron.daily/ containing the line ...
120 /usr/sbin/tmpwatch -f 240 /spider/data/debug
123 Remember to make it executable!
125 This will limit your debug data down to the last 10 days
127 <sect1>I updated my Linux distribution and now Spider cannot read the users file or the dupefile, what is the problem?
130 Almost certainly this is a change in the db format of perl. Follow these
131 few steps to correct the problem.
134 <item>stop the cluster (disable any autostart in inittab)
135 <item>cd /spider/data
136 <item>issue the command perl user_asc
137 <item>restart the cluster
140 That should solve the problem.
142 <sect1>Since I last updated I seem to be getting duplicate spots appearing.
145 What has probably happened is that the dupefile has got corrupted in
146 some way. Simply delete the /spider/data/dupefile and restart the
147 cluster. It may take a little time to become fully functional but
148 should solve your problem.
150 <sect1>I have deleted a message but it is still there, why?
153 This is now the way messages are handled for deletion in Spider. If you
154 look closely you will see a 'D' following the message number. This
155 message is marked for deletion and will be deleted in 2 days if nothing
156 further is done. Optionally you can use the command <em>delete/expunge</em>
157 to delete it immediately.