Centos6
Introduction
Centos is a community rebuild of Redhat enterprise linux (RHEL) and the instructions given here will also work for other modern redhat based linux distributions such as RHEL,Scientific Linux, Fedora Linux
Centos is an excellent choice of linux distribution to run DXSpider on.
RHEL (& by extension Centos) is supported for ten years from it's release date, the Centos 6.x series will be supported until 2020.
Installing Dxspider on centos version 6.x
See Centos5 notes for centos 5.x versions
centos7 notes
starting from a basic 'bare bones' server install that is up to date
Some notes before we begin.
commands starting with
#
are carried out as the root user
$
are carried out as the sysop user
Selinux is by default enabled and there is no need to disable it for running a telnet DXSpider node.
yum is the package manager
to update the system use
# yum update
to install package 'foo'
# yum install foo
Package Installation
as the root user install the additional package repository EPEL, this is required for perl-Curses
see http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL/FAQ#What_is_EPEL.3F
instructions here
as of 2012/03/12 the command is
# rpm -Uvh http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/i386/epel-release-6-5.noarch.rpm
install needed packages
# yum install perl-TimeDate perl-Time-HiRes perl-Digest-SHA1 perl-Curses perl-Net-Telnet git gcc make
if you intend using the vi text editor you may wish to install vim which extends the basic vi editor features
# yum install vim
if you prefer to use the nano editor (probably the best choice for beginners)
# yum install nano
if you prefer the emacs editor
# yum install emacs
Configuring The User And Group
Now create the sysop user
# adduser -m sysop
# passwd sysop
Choose a strong password here!
yes I know that /home/sysop/spider we are about to link to does not exist yet but the plan is to use git to pull it in as the sysop user a bit later and we are root right now. Doing it in this order does not break anything.
# ln -s ~sysop/spider /spider
before adding the spider group it is advisable to check that group # 251 is not already in use
# cat /etc/group |grep 251
Which should produce no output, if 251 is already assigned to a group choose a different group Number here, On Redhat based distributions Group numbers below 500 are assigned to system services so choose a free group number below 500
# groupadd -g 251 spider
Use the following commands to add the users to the spider group
# usermod -aG spider sysop # usermod -aG spider root
Getting The Latest Version Of DXSpider
Change to user sysop
# su - sysop
use git to get latest DXspider build
$ git clone git://scm.dxcluster.org/scm/spider
Fix up permissions (AS THE SYSOP USER )
Very bad things happen if you run these as root and in the wrong place, so I wish to make it abundantly clear that these are to be run as the sysop user in the sysop's home directory /home/sysop
$ chown -R sysop.spider spider
$ find . -type d -exec chmod 2775 {} \;
$ find . -type f -exec chmod 775 {} \;
Cluster Configuration
We are installed, now to configure the cluster
$ cd /spider $ mkdir local $ mkdir local_cmd $ cp perl/DXVars.pm.issue local/DXVars.pm $ cd local $ vi DXVars.pm (or your favourite editor)
Using the distributed DXVars.pm as a a template, set your cluster callsign, sysop callsign and other user info to suit your own environment.
$mycall = "GB7DJK";
This is the call sign of your cluster. Here in the UK we have separate callsigns for our cluster nodes. If you can't use a different callsign I suggest you use an SSID of '-2' for the node callsign '$mycall'.
$myalias = "G1TLH";
This is the sysop user callsign, normally your own.
PLEASE USE CAPITAL LETTERS FOR CALLSIGNS
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 ....
$myemail = "ianmaude\@example.com";
There appears to be an extra slash in there. However this has to be there for the file to work so leave it in.
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!
Save the new file and change directory to ../perl ....
$ cd ../perl
Now type the following command which creates the basic user file with you as the sysop.
$ ./create_sysop.pl
Compile the Client program
$ cd /spider/src $ make
Internet Access
Now set up your cluster so that it is available from the internet
you need to copy the file /spider/perl/Listeners.pm to /spider/local and then edit it. You will need to uncomment the line containing "0.0.0.0" and select the correct port to listen on.
$ cp /spider/perl/Listeners.pm /spider/local/
edit /spider/local/Listeners.pm
It comes out of the box looking something like:-
@listen = ( # ["0.0.0.0", 7300], );
Change it so that it looks like this:-
@listen = ( ["0.0.0.0", 7300], );
Later versions have more comments in the Listeners.pm file that are designed to help you remove the correct '#' character.
As standard, the listener will listen on all interfaces simultaneously. If you require more control than this, you can specify each interface individually:-
@listen = ( ["gb7baa.dxcluster.net", 7300], ["44.131.16.2", 6300], );
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.
Restart the cluster.pl program to enable the listener.
Firewall Configuration
This might be a good time to modify the default firewall to allow connections to the cluster on port 7300 (or other port of your choosing)
as root edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables add the line
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 7300 -j ACCEPT
Just after the line permitting ssh on port 22 and before the REJECT rules
restart iptables
#service iptables restart
Service Configuration
whilst you are still root, now might be a good time to configure the cluster to auto-start
In this regard there are differences between the way that centos 5.x and 6.x handle startups
6.x uses upstart so we need to create an upstart configuration
create the following file /etc/init/dxspider.conf
# This service kicks off the DXspider cluster start on stopped rc RUNLEVEL=[3] stop on starting runlevel [016] respawn respawn limit 10 5 exec /bin/su -c "/usr/bin/perl -w /spider/perl/cluster.pl" sysop >/dev/tty7
now start the cluster
#start dxspider
Should you need to stop it
#stop dxspider
will do the trick
change back to the sysop user
#su - sysop
Cluster Peers
create a connect script to connect to your peer node(s)
to do this create a new connect script for your chosen peer in /spider/connect/ One entry per peer
$cd /spider/connect
Next create a connect script to bring up connections, here I use the vi editor but you can also use nano
$vi ei7mre
my script looks like this, be sure to change the connect line to telnet to you peer node and the 'Login' line to your own cluster callsign
timeout 15 connect telnet mayodx.ath.cx 7300 'Login' 'ei7tst'
now use the cluster console to set up the peer node as a dxspider node
$ /spider/perl/console.pl
issue
set/spider <peer call as used for connect script>
(in my exmaple: set/spider ei7mre ) now connect
connect ei7mre
Crontab
Tidying up
you will want your cluster to automatically connect to your peer node(s)
create a file called crontab in /spider/local_cmd
$cd /spider/local_cmd
with an entry like
* * * * * start_connect('ei7mre') unless connected('ei7mre')
This will cause the cluster to attempt to connect to ei7mre unless already connected, once per minute
using the connect script file that was created earlier
IPv6 Support
Assuming you have IPv6 connectivity.
Dxspider supports IPv6 but you need to install the 'IO::Socket::INET6' perl module first
# yum install perl-IO-Socket-INET6
Now configure the /spider/local/Listeners.pm file
replace the line ["0.0.0.0", 7300] with ["::", 7300]
restart dxspider and it will be listening for IPv4 and IPv6 connections
you will need to add a firewall rule to /etc/sysconfig/ip6tables to allow inbound cluster connections
add the following just after the ssh rule and before the REJECT rules
-A INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 7300 -j ACCEPT
restart ip6tables
# service ip6tables restart
Other Things
run the NTP service to keep the clock accurate
First install NTP
# yum install ntp
Configure NTP to start at boot
# chkconfig ntpd on
Start the service
# service ntpd start
you can check all is well by querying the NTP service
#ntpdc -pn