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+ <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 line works fine for RedHat and SuSE distributions. The line required for
+Slackware distributions is slightly different. My thanks to Aurelio, PA3EZL for
+this information.
<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.
+<BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
+<PRE>
+DX:23:respawn:/bin/su - sysop -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" >/dev/tty7
+</PRE>
+</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
-<H2><A NAME="ss4.2">4.2 Isolating networks</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>This will automatically start DXSpider on tty7 (ALT-F7) on bootup and restart
+it should it crash for any reason.
<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>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>
-<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>So far so good, now to automate script connections...
<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 ....
+<H2><A NAME="ss4.2">4.2 The crontab file</A>
+</H2>
+
+<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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