On Oct 5, 2009, at 9:00 PM, Radioman wrote: > > Hi John, > Tnks.. > so what is the commonly used release of CentOS for the Gateway? > 4 or 5? > > Tony > NN1D
You'll probably get better "Gateway-specific" answers from the Gateway lists... usually frequented only by Gateway admins... this list is for general D-STAR discussion for all. The Gateway lists are a bit more "specialized". However, to answer your question, the latest CentOS 5 version (as of today) works just fine. The Icom instruction manual screenshots are done with a slightly older release, so it helps if you've played with CentOS/Linux Installs and know what you're doing. Also helps a lot to read the Icom documentation that comes with the Gateway software and understand what they're trying to accomplish, if you're familiar with Linux, there are "easier" ways to edit the system files and set up their stuff... but they cater to the lowest common denominator and show people how to do it via the GUI applications that RedHat makes for administration of their flavor of Linux. (Things like setting up the IP addresses, etc... are usually done via just editing text files on Linux systems, but hey... if you like GUI admin... whatever floats your boat.) If you have zero experience with Linux, I highly recommend sticking to the Icom examples. And if you have any networking knowledge, throw it out the window... Icom's weird-assed networking setup is necessary for what their application does, once it's loaded. However since the box is supposed to be installed behind a NAT/ firewall device... there's not MUCH point in running the host-based firewall on CentOS, and honestly... their examples make it harder than it needs to be. I personally recommend just shutting off the host- based firewall and putting something that works well at the point in the network design where the NAT/firewall box goes on the "external" 10.x.x.x network interface on the Gateway. It'll save you headaches, probably. You need the following: A NAT router capable of handling a full Class C of addresses behind the NAT. (Many Small Office/Home Office routers are limited to NOT being able to do NAT for the entire 10.x.x.x RFC 1918 private address range -- these will not work. Personally I've been overjoyed with the flexibility of using a router from the folks that do the MikroTik software and RouterBoard, but they're not cheap.) A server that meets the Icom minimum hardware standards. (Contact Icom, or look in the Gateway documentation for hardware specifications, including two NIC cards and they also have some processor speed requirements based on single-core CPU's, which are rare these days, so extrapolation is in order...), RAM, etc. The Icom Gateway V2 software, which is now (wasn't always) a chargeable item, $299 I think. You also MUST get up the installation instructions from the Trust Server folks and follow them once the Icom Software installation is complete. (A "normal" D-STAR Gateway in the U.S. has a number of add- on, non-Icom software packages running "along-side" or "on top of" the Icom Gateway software, including dstarmonitor, APRS integration, and dplus linking software. The Trust Server folks have documentation on how to accomplish the installation of all these items easily, and correctly.) Get on the "other" mailing lists. There's an open list for DStar Gateway operators that's generally a quiet but useful "discussion" list, and an announcement-only list that is set up by the Trust Server folks. When you talk to them to get your Gateway registered, get the e-mail list information too. (We're talkin' maybe 10 postings a year to their announce-only list, but when they post, they're important stuff... the other list is just to keep the traffic off the other one, but is *usually* quiet too.) Other useful items: If and only if you feel comfortable with Linux and know what you're doing, consider firing up sendmail on the box and configuring it properly to send you the root user's e-mail, since CentOS installs some "decent" monitoring scripts by default. Also comes in handy for this next one... Google around for the instructions on how to have an Icom Gateway e- mail you when someone requests a registration. Why the whole registration process isn't centralized, is anyone's guess... but every Gateway also has a web-server for your local users to register on the network, and logging in all the time to see if someone wants to register is lame. Someone put up information about how to add an e- mail alert to the Tomcat code, and it works fine. Get that going. Final thoughts: Registrations and what-not, and also knowing how the Gateway server works is a two-person job, if you ask me. I'm "stuck" as the only person knowing our local system, and handling registrations and eventually I'll burn out on it or lose interest. Should have involved more volunteers from the start. Now not really finding any... who want to spend a few hours learning how the guts work. I hear from some other GW Admins that the Icom America tech support folks (mainly Gerry) are good at getting confused folks up and running. I never had to call him, but e-mails to get the registration of the GW itself into the U.S. Trust network took a couple of days, which is really good in the grand scheme of tech support... but some people get all whiny about it. Don't expect to fire up a GW in a few hours and have it 100% working... it'll take a little bit of time. -- Nate Duehr, WY0X n...@natetech.com
