IMPORTANT:
-What you'll be left with once you've followed these instructions -is (hopefully) a working DX Spider v1.50 system that is capable -of accepting or originating "internet" connections, plus inbound -and outbound AX.25 and TCP/IP radio connections.
-On the other hand, you may have an enquiring mind, or better yet, -may be looking for a useful way of connecting your current -(perhaps) AK1A cluster "to the internet" via some networking -mechanism (BPQEther, etc) or other. I won't be producing -instructions for the latter case, because I don't have an AK1A to -play with. But someone might ...
-Whatever, this document is intended to get you started with DX -Spider in a Microsoft Windows ™ environment. It's not -intended to teach you anything other than how to perform a -minimum configuration of a DX Spider installation and have it -able to connect across "the internet" to other DX Clusters, while -accepting inbound TELNET and radio connections.
- -The very first things you're going to need are (in order of -importance):-
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The platform I used to generate these instructions was a -"vanilla" Microsoft Windows Me 4.90.3000 system, with a 700MHz -AMD Athlon processor and 96 Mb memory. I've also personally -verified that it runs on my laptop (Pentium 266MHz, 32 Mb memory, -Windows 98 SE v4.10.2222 A) and a computer that I assembled from -a random pile of junk (AMD K6-2 333MHz, 64 Mb memory, Windows 98 -v4.10.1998). As a result, I have reason to believe that what I'm -about to describe will perform equally on any 32-bit MS Windows -environment with 32 Mb of memory.
-Because of the changes that have recently been made to the core -"cluster.pl" module and the introduction of a very lightweight -"winclient.pl", I have a sneaking suspicion that this will now -run on any platform that has reasonably complete support for -Perl. Is there someone out there with both an enquiring mind and -(say) a Macintosh, for instance?
-Please bear in mind, though, that my instructions relate solely -to how to get this going under a Microsoft Windows environment, -and I have zero intention of trying to make them say otherwise.
- -Install your chosen Perl environment. Unless you have a very good -reason for not doing so, I strongly suggest that you use -ActivePerl v5.6. For my testing & development, I used build 623. -(A recent installation used the newer ActivePerl v5.6.1, build -633 without any noticable difficulty.) You can get this from: -http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/Download.html
-The link takes you to an initial page of System Requirements and -Software Prerequisites. If you do not have it already installed, -you can download and install the Windows Installer 2.0 for a Win98 -installation. Be forewarned, you will have to reboot your PC at the -completion of the installer's installation.
-If you already have the installer on your PC, simply click on the -Next arrow at the bottom of the page. Two clicks will finally get -you to the actual download page. The MSI version of Build 633 is -now 8.6MB in size, so make that a big cup of tea or coffee if you're -on a slow dial-up connection.
-During installation, please ensure that you do choose the options -to "Add Perl to the PATH environment variable" and "Create Perl -file extension association"; it will make your life so much -easier. Once the installation is finished, be sure to reboot your -PC. You probably won't be told anywhere else that this needs to -be done now, but it does. Really.
-Once you've rebooted, open a "DOS box" (Start > Run > command -might do it, if you can't find it elsewhere) and from wherever it -lands, type PERL -v <ENTER> (it's better if that's a lower-case -'v', because an upper-case 'V' means something else. You should -be rewarded with some interesting information about your Perl -installation. If you're not, you must go back to the beginning -and discover what went wrong and fix it. It's pointless to -proceed unless this simple check is passed. Assuming it did work, -you may now move on.
- -Some extensions ("packages") need to be added to the base Perl -distribution, and we'll do this next. If you're using the Perl I -recommended, and don't know any better for yourself, then just -blindly following these instructions will work just fine. If that -didn't describe you, then you're on your own.
-Visit the following URL:
--http://www.activestate.com/PPMPackages/zips/6xx-builds-only/
-and download the following files:-
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-
-Data-Dumper.zip
-Net-Telnet.zip
-TimeDate.zip
-Time-HiRes.zip
-DB_File.zip
-
-If this is a new installation, now would also be a good time to -install a copy of WinZip on your PC. Make yourself a convenient -directory to unpack all of these zip files into (I put mine in -"D:\ppm>" but "C:\ppm" works just as well.) and do the following -(the bits you type in are blue ). You can upzip all of the files into -the same directory. When prompted, simply overwrite the Readme file -from each zip package. Note that where these files land will be -directly related to where you chose to install your ActivePerl -(mine, as you can probably guess from what follows, went into "D:\Perl"):-
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-
-D:\ppm>ppm install Data-Dumper.ppd
-Installing package 'Data-Dumper.ppd'
-Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.bs
-Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.dll
-Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.exp
-Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.lib
-Installing D:\Perl\html\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.html
-Installing D:\Perl\site\lib\Data\Dumper\Dumper.pm
-Writing D:\Perl\site\lib\auto\Data\Dumper\Dumper.packlist
-D:\ppm>
-
-I'm not going to bother you with exhaustive details of the rest -of them, but suffice it to say you need to:
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-
-ppm install DB_File.ppd
-ppm install Net-Telnet.ppd
-ppm install TimeDate.ppd
-ppm install Time-HiRes.ppd
-
-If all that seemed to work OK, time to move along. Before anyone -who is familiar with PPM tells me that we didn't need to download -and keep those files locally, I knew that. I also knew that PPM -is sometimes awkward to configure via firewalls, and that -sometimes the repositories don't always work the way we'd hope. I -do it that way because it suits me.
- -Get the current version of the DX Spider distribution. This needs -to be v1.50 or later. You've got two ways (currently) of getting -this; either get a CVS update from sourceforge (if you don't know -what this is, then it isn't for you) or get the latest "official" -release from:
--http://www.dxcluster.org/download/index.html
-or if you want the lastest snapshot of CVS version (which is produced -every night):-
--http://www.dxcluster.org/download/CVSlatest.tgz
-This is generally the best one to go for as it is completely up to -date. However, there is always the very slight chance that it might -unstable. Generally, there will be a note on the website if this is -the case.
- -The only difference between "CVSlatest.tgz" and the latest -"official" release version is that it is more up to date. Do not confuse -the "CVSlatest.tgz" file with "Downloading from Sourceforge with CVS" - they -are two quite different things. "Downloading from Sourceforge with CVS" is -explained in a section within the Admin manual.
- -If you go down the CVS route (ie installing WinCVS as explained in the Admin -manual and downloaded from sourceforge), then everything will be nicely -installed on your local disk. If you got the CVSlatest.tgz file, unzip -( -winzip) it to "C:\". -This is an important point since paths are included within the .tgz -file. Make sure you unzip to the root directory of whichever drive you use... -"C:\" or "D:\" or .., not "C:\spider." If you double click on CVSlatest.tgz, -WinZip should open with a dialogue box that says the Archive contains a single -file (CVSlatest.tar) and asks whether WinZip should decompress it to a -temporary fold and then open it. Say "Yes" and then you will get the typical -Classical WinZip listing of files ready for extraction. Remember, extract -them to your desired root directory ("C:\" or "D:\" or ...). The following -examples assume that you put it on drive "C:\", for convenience.
- -