Writing AX.25 Server Progie

Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Kelly Black]

I am looking to start writing an AX.25 server program under Linux.  I
have read a little bit of socket programming in other books, and would
like to code up a simple server for testing.  I have looked at example
code from beacon.c, ax25mond.c, axconv.c

I was wondering if anybody could point me to other sources of socket
programming for AX.25 that are up to date as far as keeping pace with
the libax25 and coding conventions.

I have to admit that I have never written a C program that used sockets
before, but wish to give it a go.

Sketchy details of the end product:
Replacement of ARES/Data program used for the Twin Cities Marathon in
Minnesota.  I would like to write a program to be more tailored to this
event and put the code out under GPL so others can hack and use whatever
bits they find useful (or not useful)
:-)

Thanks,
Kelly Black
KB0GBJ

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[M Taylor]

On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 12:07:02AM -0600, Kelly Black wrote:
> I was wondering if anybody could point me to other sources of socket
> programming for AX.25 that are up to date as far as keeping pace with
> the libax25 and coding conventions.
> 
> I have to admit that I have never written a C program that used sockets
> before, but wish to give it a go.
> 
> Sketchy details of the end product:
> Replacement of ARES/Data program used for the Twin Cities Marathon in
> Minnesota.  I would like to write a program to be more tailored to this

I would look at some of the APRS software, I think there is some simple
clients/servers which should be less "strange" than the utilities
and low-level applications than come with the stock ax25-tools and ax25-apps.

Look through Hamsoft <http://radio.linux.org.au/>, most applications
include source code.

Good luck,

-ve1mct

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, M Taylor wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 12:07:02AM -0600, Kelly Black wrote:
> > I was wondering if anybody could point me to other sources of socket
> > programming for AX.25 that are up to date as far as keeping pace with
> > the libax25 and coding conventions.
> >
> > I have to admit that I have never written a C program that used sockets
> > before, but wish to give it a go.
> >
> > Sketchy details of the end product:
> > Replacement of ARES/Data program used for the Twin Cities Marathon in
> > Minnesota.  I would like to write a program to be more tailored to this
>
> I would look at some of the APRS software, I think there is some simple
> clients/servers which should be less "strange" than the utilities
> and low-level applications than come with the stock ax25-tools and ax25-apps.

Like Xastir?  That's the APRS app that's written in C and runs on
Unix/Linux/Mac OSX (so far).  I think most of the socket stuff is in
interface.c.  I've been told that the way we do an AX.25 receive is
not the most efficient, but it works.  Something about that we can
get all packets for all interfaces from the one call, but the way we
do it we're separating the packets for each interface and throwing
away the rest?  Details are fuzzy.

Anyway, it's working code, and constantly being maintained.

If your application is GPL'ed, you can use pieces of the code
directly:

    http://www.xastir.org

Go to Sourceforge project page/CVS/Browse CVS Repository to get to
the individual files, or snag the whole thing via CVS or a file
download.  Stick to the development releases if you grab a file.
They run MUCH better than the last "stable" release.

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Kelly Black]

On Tue, 2002-12-31 at 10:35, Curt Mills, WE7U wrote:
> Like Xastir?  That's the APRS app that's written in C and runs on
> Unix/Linux/Mac OSX (so far).  I think most of the socket stuff is in
> interface.c.  I've been told that the way we do an AX.25 receive is
> not the most efficient, but it works.  Something about that we can
> get all packets for all interfaces from the one call, but the way we
> do it we're separating the packets for each interface and throwing
> away the rest?  Details are fuzzy.
> 
> Anyway, it's working code, and constantly being maintained.
> 
> If your application is GPL'ed, you can use pieces of the code
> directly:
> 
>     http://www.xastir.org

Cool.. Thanks for the heads up.  I have checked the source out of CVS
and will give them a look see.

Kelly Black
KB0GBJ

P.S. Is this not a great hobby or what.  I have not been a "kit builder"
for years, but am keeping interested in Ham Radio via programming, and
finding helpful people everywhere.  Thanks everyone for responding, and
have a Happy New Year!

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Chuck Gelm]

Howdy, Y'all:

 IMHO, from what I can tell after subscribing to the Xastir list
for several weeks, is that
the code is development or prototype rather than
stable.

HTH, Chuck

"Curt Mills, WE7U" wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, M Taylor wrote:
> 
> > On Sun, Dec 29, 2002 at 12:07:02AM -0600, Kelly Black wrote:
> > > I was wondering if anybody could point me to other sources of socket
> > > programming for AX.25 that are up to date as far as keeping pace with
> > > the libax25 and coding conventions.
> > >
> > > I have to admit that I have never written a C program that used sockets
> > > before, but wish to give it a go.
> > >
> > > Sketchy details of the end product:
> > > Replacement of ARES/Data program used for the Twin Cities Marathon in
> > > Minnesota.  I would like to write a program to be more tailored to this
> >
> > I would look at some of the APRS software, I think there is some simple
> > clients/servers which should be less "strange" than the utilities
> > and low-level applications than come with the stock ax25-tools and ax25-apps.
> 
> Like Xastir?  That's the
 (under development)
>                          APRS app that's written in C and runs on
> Unix/Linux/Mac OSX (so far).  I think most of the socket stuff is in
> interface.c.  I've been told that the way we do an AX.25 receive is
> not the most efficient, but it works.  Something about that we can
> get all packets for all interfaces from the one call, but the way we
> do it we're separating the packets for each interface and throwing
> away the rest?  Details are fuzzy.
> 
> Anyway, it's 
 (under development)
>              working code, and constantly being maintained.
> 
> If your application is GPL'ed, you can use pieces of the code
> directly:
> 
>     http://www.xastir.org
> 
> Go to Sourceforge project page/CVS/Browse CVS Repository to get to
> the individual files, or snag the whole thing via CVS or a file
> download.  Stick to the development releases if you grab a file.
> They run MUCH better than the last "stable" release.
> 
> --
> Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
> Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
> "Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
> "Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
> "The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Chuck Gelm wrote:

> Howdy, Y'all:
>
>  IMHO, from what I can tell after subscribing to the Xastir list
> for several weeks, is that
> the code is development or prototype rather than
> stable.

Funny!  That's the nature of open-source:  It'll constantly be in
development because we're constantly improving it, not because it's
buggy.  With ten developers and 100's of things we want to add,
we'll never be done.  If we suddenly implemented everything on the
feature request list, the users would come up with another 200
things they'd want.  Overnight!

If you saw little development activity, no discussion on the mailing
lists, and no new releases coming out of the project, that's when
you'd know the project is getting stale and might come to a complete
halt.  Those are the warning signs of a dying open-source project.

The nature of coding though is that when you add new code, you add
new bugs.  Each new feature requires a few days to fix the new bugs
introduced.  Typically these are very minor and don't affect much
more than the new feature itself.  We just went through a period
where we were rather active at adding new features, and we're just
getting to the end of the debug period.

Other things you've probably read about are cases where a new Linux
distribution comes out and the distribution is not done correctly.
When users try to compile/run Xastir on them, Xastir shows off the
problems in the distribution.  In this case we can kick
SuSE/RedHat/Mandrake/etc in the behind and tell them to fix up their
distributions.

Try it out and tell us how often Xastir falls over, then try one of
the Windows programs and see how long they last.  In fact, try
both of them hooked up to the full firenet feed for a week (you'll
get around 20,000 objects on your screen).  Most of the Windows APRS
apps will croak, and croak quickly.

Xastir "development" versions are much more bug-free than the last
"stable" release (from last February).  New "development" versions
come out about every two weeks.  We're about due for another one.

Users who don't want to participate in the development will
typically run the development releases or the "stable" release if
they don't know any better.  User's that want to try out all the new
features the second they're added run the CVS version and update
often (every day works reasonably well).  CVS makes this easy/fast
to do.


That was fun.  Where else can I cause trouble now?

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Wilbert Knol]

On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Chuck Gelm wrote:

>  IMHO, from what I can tell after subscribing to the Xastir list

From what I can tell, having used it for more than a year, is, that 
it's rock solid.

In fact, I even use it at QRL. Steaming around the Southern Ocean, 
XASTIR shows the ship's position on a sea-floor chart.


Wilbert, ZL2BSJ

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Kelly Black]

On Wed, 2003-01-01 at 01:30, Wilbert Knol wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Chuck Gelm wrote:
> 
> >  IMHO, from what I can tell after subscribing to the Xastir list
> 
> >From what I can tell, having used it for more than a year, is, that 
> it's rock solid.
> 

I am just looking for examples of socket programming for AX.25, so I
don't care if they are even finished or not (as I have not even started
a "hello world" example server yet!)

If anybody has some alpha level code as well that is available under the
GPL, I would be interested in sharing ideas as soon as I at a level to
share them :-)

Kelly
KB0GBJ

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Chuck Gelm]

Hi, Curt:

 Thanks for your informative response.
I'll try a 'stable' release of Xastir soon.
However, I have no idea what CVS is.
Is CVS are requirement?

Chuck

"Curt Mills, WE7U" wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 31 Dec 2002, Chuck Gelm wrote:
> 
> > Howdy, Y'all:
> >
> >  IMHO, from what I can tell after subscribing to the Xastir list
> > for several weeks, is that
> > the code is development or prototype rather than
> > stable.
> 
> Funny!  That's the nature of open-source:  It'll constantly be in
> development because we're constantly improving it, not because it's
> buggy.  With ten developers and 100's of things we want to add,
> we'll never be done.  If we suddenly implemented everything on the
> feature request list, the users would come up with another 200
> things they'd want.  Overnight!
> 
> If you saw little development activity, no discussion on the mailing
> lists, and no new releases coming out of the project, that's when
> you'd know the project is getting stale and might come to a complete
> halt.  Those are the warning signs of a dying open-source project.
> 
> The nature of coding though is that when you add new code, you add
> new bugs.  Each new feature requires a few days to fix the new bugs
> introduced.  Typically these are very minor and don't affect much
> more than the new feature itself.  We just went through a period
> where we were rather active at adding new features, and we're just
> getting to the end of the debug period.
> 
> Other things you've probably read about are cases where a new Linux
> distribution comes out and the distribution is not done correctly.
> When users try to compile/run Xastir on them, Xastir shows off the
> problems in the distribution.  In this case we can kick
> SuSE/RedHat/Mandrake/etc in the behind and tell them to fix up their
> distributions.
> 
> Try it out and tell us how often Xastir falls over, then try one of
> the Windows programs and see how long they last.  In fact, try
> both of them hooked up to the full firenet feed for a week (you'll
> get around 20,000 objects on your screen).  Most of the Windows APRS
> apps will croak, and croak quickly.
> 
> Xastir "development" versions are much more bug-free than the last
> "stable" release (from last February).  New "development" versions
> come out about every two weeks.  We're about due for another one.
> 
> Users who don't want to participate in the development will
> typically run the development releases or the "stable" release if
> they don't know any better.  User's that want to try out all the new
> features the second they're added run the CVS version and update
> often (every day works reasonably well).  CVS makes this easy/fast
> to do.
> 
> That was fun.  Where else can I cause trouble now?
> 
> --
> Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
> Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
> "Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
> "Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
> "The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Chuck Gelm wrote:

>  Thanks for your informative response.
> I'll try a 'stable' release of Xastir soon.

No!  Try the latest "development" package instead!  :-)


> However, I have no idea what CVS is.
> Is CVS are requirement?

_I_ think it is!  ;-)

CVS stands for Concurrent Versions System.  It's built on top of
RCS, so you need both installed.

Here's what you can do as a user.  Following are two LONG lines, so
if your e-mail is wrapping them, unwrap them before typing.  They
will create an "xastir" directory where you are sitting and populate
it with the latest sources:


cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xastir login

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xastir co xastir


When prompted for a password for anonymous, press the Enter key.

Ok.  Now that you have Xastir sources sitting there (wasn't that
easy?), you can do this:


    cd xastir
    ./configure
    make
    make install-strip;chmod 4555 /usr/local/bin/xastir


Now you have Xastir installed.

To update to the latest developers code, you do this:


    cd xastir
    cvs update
    make install-strip;chmod 4555 /usr/local/bin/xastir


The "cvs update" part takes only a few seconds, 'cuz it just snags
down the patches to the code, and not the whole stinkin' sources.
It makes it very fast/easy to keep up with the latest.  You can do a
cvs update immediately after a developer anywhere in the world has
submitted changes, and you'll get them.  How's that for up-to-date
code!

Some people do an update every day.  If changes come down, they
compile/install.  The codebase moves pretty fast sometimes.

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[John Ackermann N8UR]

Two things to add to Curt's reply:

First, I can vouch that Xastir works great!  Chuck, I've been up and 
running with it just about full time (plus or minus hardware hiccups) for 
the last few months.  You should be able to see me on your APRS map of the 
Dayton area with the "X" icon.

Second, there's one snag in the Xastir build process that Curt didn't 
mention.  I am using the kernal ax.25 tools, and unless the xastir binary 
is made suid root, it can't open the ax.25 connection.  To solve that, as 
root do "chmod u+s /usr/local/bin/xastir" (assuming that's where it's 
installed).  suid root is a security risk, but for the typical ham machine 
it's probably an acceptable one, and is less dangerous that living your 
life as root!

73,
John

--On Thursday, January 02, 2003 11:02 AM -0800 "Curt Mills, WE7U" 
<hacker@tc.fluke.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Chuck Gelm wrote:
>
>>  Thanks for your informative response.
>> I'll try a 'stable' release of Xastir soon.
>
> No!  Try the latest "development" package instead!  :-)
>
>
>> However, I have no idea what CVS is.
>> Is CVS are requirement?
>
> _I_ think it is!  ;-)
>
> CVS stands for Concurrent Versions System.  It's built on top of
> RCS, so you need both installed.
>
> Here's what you can do as a user.  Following are two LONG lines, so
> if your e-mail is wrapping them, unwrap them before typing.  They
> will create an "xastir" directory where you are sitting and populate
> it with the latest sources:
>
>
> cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xastir login
>
> cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xastir co xastir
>
>
> When prompted for a password for anonymous, press the Enter key.
>
> Ok.  Now that you have Xastir sources sitting there (wasn't that
> easy?), you can do this:
>
>
>     cd xastir
>     ./configure
>     make
>     make install-strip;chmod 4555 /usr/local/bin/xastir
>
>
> Now you have Xastir installed.
>
> To update to the latest developers code, you do this:
>
>
>     cd xastir
>     cvs update
>     make install-strip;chmod 4555 /usr/local/bin/xastir
>
>
> The "cvs update" part takes only a few seconds, 'cuz it just snags
> down the patches to the code, and not the whole stinkin' sources.
> It makes it very fast/easy to keep up with the latest.  You can do a
> cvs update immediately after a developer anywhere in the world has
> submitted changes, and you'll get them.  How's that for up-to-date
> code!
>
> Some people do an update every day.  If changes come down, they
> compile/install.  The codebase moves pretty fast sometimes.
>
> --
> Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
> Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
> "Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
> "Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
> "The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
>



----
John Ackermann    N8UR         jra@febo.com     http://www.febo.com
President, TAPR                n8ur@tapr.org    http://www.tapr.org

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[John Ackermann N8UR]

Oops... ignore my second point in my reply.  My brain farted and it didn't 
click that Curt's chmod 4555 command did in fact set suid root.  Sorry.

John

--On Thursday, January 02, 2003 11:02 AM -0800 "Curt Mills, WE7U" 
<hacker@tc.fluke.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Chuck Gelm wrote:
>
>>  Thanks for your informative response.
>> I'll try a 'stable' release of Xastir soon.
>
> No!  Try the latest "development" package instead!  :-)
>
>
>> However, I have no idea what CVS is.
>> Is CVS are requirement?
>
> _I_ think it is!  ;-)
>
> CVS stands for Concurrent Versions System.  It's built on top of
> RCS, so you need both installed.
>
> Here's what you can do as a user.  Following are two LONG lines, so
> if your e-mail is wrapping them, unwrap them before typing.  They
> will create an "xastir" directory where you are sitting and populate
> it with the latest sources:
>
>
> cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xastir login
>
> cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/xastir co xastir
>
>
> When prompted for a password for anonymous, press the Enter key.
>
> Ok.  Now that you have Xastir sources sitting there (wasn't that
> easy?), you can do this:
>
>
>     cd xastir
>     ./configure
>     make
>     make install-strip;chmod 4555 /usr/local/bin/xastir
>
>
> Now you have Xastir installed.
>
> To update to the latest developers code, you do this:
>
>
>     cd xastir
>     cvs update
>     make install-strip;chmod 4555 /usr/local/bin/xastir
>
>
> The "cvs update" part takes only a few seconds, 'cuz it just snags
> down the patches to the code, and not the whole stinkin' sources.
> It makes it very fast/easy to keep up with the latest.  You can do a
> cvs update immediately after a developer anywhere in the world has
> submitted changes, and you'll get them.  How's that for up-to-date
> code!
>
> Some people do an update every day.  If changes come down, they
> compile/install.  The codebase moves pretty fast sometimes.
>
> --
> Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
> Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
> "Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
> "Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
> "The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>
>



----
John Ackermann    N8UR         jra@febo.com     http://www.febo.com
President, TAPR                n8ur@tapr.org    http://www.tapr.org

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, John Ackermann   N8UR wrote:

> Second, there's one snag in the Xastir build process that Curt didn't
> mention.  I am using the kernal ax.25 tools, and unless the xastir binary
> is made suid root, it can't open the ax.25 connection.  To solve that, as
> root do "chmod u+s /usr/local/bin/xastir"

Ahh, but I did mention it!  Kind'a sort'a:  "chmod 4555" does the
same thing.  You have to think in octal though...


> (assuming that's where it's
> installed).  suid root is a security risk, but for the typical ham machine
> it's probably an acceptable one, and is less dangerous that living your
> life as root!

Good points.  Thanks for mentioning that!  The Xastir's README.1ST
file has a bit more on this topic and the pro's and con's.

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Xastir.lsm ?; was Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Chuck Gelm]

"Curt Mills, WE7U" wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Chuck Gelm wrote:
> 
> >  Thanks for your informative response.
> > I'll try a 'stable' release of Xastir soon.
> 
> No!  Try the latest "development" package instead!  :-)

 Heh, heh, heh.  You think you can trick me into
debugging someone's software. ?  Think again. ;-)

> > However, I have no idea what CVS is.
> > Is CVS are requirement?
> 
> _I_ think it is!  ;-)
> 
> CVS stands for Concurrent Versions System.  It's built on top of
> RCS, so you need both installed.

 So, now I need RCS too!  :-(
I think that RCS is Revision Control System.
Why would I need to keep track of someone else's revisions?
Oh, never mind that.
Is there a Xastir.lsm ?

Chuck
<snipped to end>

Re: Xastir.lsm ?; was Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Chuck Gelm wrote:

>  Heh, heh, heh.  You think you can trick me into
> debugging someone's software. ?  Think again. ;-)

That's pretty good!  I might have to borrow that sometime in the
future...


>  So, now I need RCS too!  :-(
> I think that RCS is Revision Control System.
> Why would I need to keep track of someone else's revisions?

Think of RCS as being able to tell you what has changed in _one_
file between revisions.  Think of CVS as the same thing but able to
do it on an entire tree of files instead of just one.  That's the
basic idea.

If you have a large tree of files (like Xastir) and want to check
the status of your tree against the development tree, you issue one
command and it will tell you which files have changed.  Issue
another command against a particular file and it will show you the
diff's.  Issue another command ("cvs update") and it will make your
tree be in sync with the development tree.  It's all pretty slick.
Just don't mess with the "CVS" directories and the bookkeeping files
contained within, or CVS will get lost.  Easy enough to delete the
entire thing and bring down a fresh tree though in that case.

For the developers it's even slicker, as we can be committing
changes to different parts of the tree at the same time.  Trying to
change the same file at the same time gets tricky, as the first one
there gets the lock, and the 2nd is refused.  #2 gets to figure out
how to merge his changes in with the first guy's before CVS will let
him check his stuff in.  A race to the finish!

I've been in races with a developer in Germany before in just this
scenario.  Sometimes he wins, sometimes I do.  And you thought
software coding was just an armchair sport...  ;-)


> Is there a Xastir.lsm ?

Don't see one anywhere.  We have an xastir.1 and an xastir.spec
though!

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Xastir.lsm ?

[Chuck Gelm]

Hi, Curt:

Thanks.

 However, my main issue is that I do not want to keep track of
development revisions.  My main issue is that I want the 'stable'
version release and the 'stable' files.  My original
opinion that I posted here, was that Xastir is developmental
code.  Your posts seem to confirm this opinion.

:-|

Happy New Year, Chuck

"Curt Mills, WE7U" wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Chuck Gelm wrote:
> 
> >  Heh, heh, heh.  You think you can trick me into
> > debugging someone's software. ?  Think again. ;-)
> 
> That's pretty good!  I might have to borrow that sometime in the
> future...
> 
> >  So, now I need RCS too!  :-(
> > I think that RCS is Revision Control System.
> > Why would I need to keep track of someone else's revisions?
> 
> Think of RCS as being able to tell you what has changed in _one_
> file between revisions.  Think of CVS as the same thing but able to
> do it on an entire tree of files instead of just one.  That's the
> basic idea.
> 
> If you have a large tree of files (like Xastir) and want to check
> the status of your tree against the development tree, you issue one
> command and it will tell you which files have changed.  Issue
> another command against a particular file and it will show you the
> diff's.  Issue another command ("cvs update") and it will make your
> tree be in sync with the development tree.  It's all pretty slick.
> Just don't mess with the "CVS" directories and the bookkeeping files
> contained within, or CVS will get lost.  Easy enough to delete the
> entire thing and bring down a fresh tree though in that case.
> 
> For the developers it's even slicker, as we can be committing
> changes to different parts of the tree at the same time.  Trying to
> change the same file at the same time gets tricky, as the first one
> there gets the lock, and the 2nd is refused.  #2 gets to figure out
> how to merge his changes in with the first guy's before CVS will let
> him check his stuff in.  A race to the finish!
> 
> I've been in races with a developer in Germany before in just this
> scenario.  Sometimes he wins, sometimes I do.  And you thought
> software coding was just an armchair sport...  ;-)
> 
> > Is there a Xastir.lsm ?
> 
> Don't see one anywhere.  We have an xastir.1 and an xastir.spec
> though!
> 
> --
> Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
> Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
> "Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
> "Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
> "The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Xastir.lsm ?

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Chuck Gelm wrote:

>  However, my main issue is that I do not want to keep track of
> development revisions.  My main issue is that I want the 'stable'
> version release and the 'stable' files.  My original
> opinion that I posted here, was that Xastir is developmental
> code.  Your posts seem to confirm this opinion.

hi hi

Think what you want, run what you want.  You've got the facts now.
I have no control over what you do with them.  ;-)

Everything we've ever released on SourceForge is still there
available for download, so run whatever version you prefer.  Myself,
I'd choose the development version released 01/02/2003.  It won't
fall over on you and has loads of new, very desirable features
compared to the february 2002 "stable" release.  You're only hurting
yourself by choosing an earlier version, but again, it's your
choice.  Expect another release in two weeks.  And another.  And
another.

"stable"/"development" have quite different meanings across
projects.  In our case it should be "somewhat stable"/"more stable".

We'll probably release a new "stable" package sometime in the next
month or three, for those that can't force themselves to run
bleeding-edge software, and for the Linux distributions to pick up.

That's probably enough on this thread.  Back to other more
interesting Linux ham stuff!

-- 
Curt Mills, WE7U                    hacker_NO_SPAM_@tc.fluke.com
Senior Methods Engineer/SysAdmin
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math!"
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates!" -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Dennis Boone]

 > Replacement of ARES/Data program used for the Twin Cities Marathon in
 > Minnesota.

Kelly:

Strange coincidences.  I recently built a perl database server similar
to ARESDATA for Linux.  I've just returned from holiday travels, so
much of what I would have said has already been discussed, but I
thought I would offer a few thoughts.

I spent a week looking into AX.25 server programming, and concluded
that to do it in perl would require a fair amount of work on the perl
networking modules.  However, I did discover that ax25d and the
net_call program can be combined to solve the line ending issues and
let you write a standard internet socket application.  This has the
additional advantages that there are lots of perl modules to support
such development, and that you can also use something like telnet to
access your application, as well as AX25 connects.  Since you seem to
have radio TCP/IP running in your area, you could also use telnet over
radio.

I opted for command line style, rather than a menu-driven approach,
but there's no reason why you would have to take that path.  You could
also build a client application which provided gui (or menu chui)
interface, and make the client-server protocol be fairly terse,
conserving bandwidth.

If you (or anyone else) wants to see the code I built, it's at:

    http://msuarc.egr.msu.edu/kb8zqz/packet/trivnetdbd

The code is ugly, especially in its abuse of global variables, but you
should be able to get a feel for the networking stuff.

Dennis Boone
KB8ZQZ

Re: Writing AX.25 Server Progie

[Kelly Black]

On Sun, 2003-01-05 at 21:02, Dennis Boone wrote:
>  > Replacement of ARES/Data program used for the Twin Cities Marathon in
>  > Minnesota.
> 
> Kelly:
> 
> Strange coincidences.  I recently built a perl database server similar
> to ARESDATA for Linux.  I've just returned from holiday travels, so
> much of what I would have said has already been discussed, but I
> thought I would offer a few thoughts.
> 
Dennis,

Thanks for the pointer and the code sample.  After some initial fun
using ax25d, I am plowing ahead with C socket programming.  I know it is
probably not the way I should go, but have read a bit about socket
programming and wish to try and go ahead.

I know a tiny bit of Perl, so I will give it a look see.  I thank you
again for the code sample.  I was wondering what license you would be
putting your code under?

Kelly
KB0GBJ