That would make a lot of sense and explain a lot of issues I've had. A exponential back-off timer would probably work best, similar to what TCP has. It probably should be configurable to adjust for the connection type.
I have plans to deploy xastir on a GMRS connection, and this would be kinda important. My 2 cents. -Dan N7NMD - Dan Zubey Indahmar Technology http://www.indahmar.com On Sun, 2009-05-24 at 00:36 +0930, Tony Hunt wrote: > Well Ive solved this one. I am suprised nobody replied or worked this out. > Trust me to show up with a query just when the group gets frantic and > obsessed on some other subject subject. Seems to happen to me on here. > Sorry I am not going to make any comment on the "pos file" thread. > > Ive learned a bit about the Internet servers and clients and the way > they intereact. > The problem was that the client (xastir) was actually initiating the > disconnect every 10 mins. I found that other clients like Uiview were > worse with the same issues. > > I Telneted into aprsd and found that it did not do any disconnect and > would just sit there eternally. I Telnetted into a Javaserver here in VK > and watched that also. Interestingly the Javsservers seem to beacon a > line of Java blah every 15-30 seconds as a rule. This appears to act as > a keep alive mechanism for the clients. Herein lies the key. > Ive got Aprsd logging into a National Javaserver using the User > defianble port. I am not sending a filter command so I dont see any > traffic comming back off the server. Thats not a problem as I only want > to pass traffic onto the Javaserver from HF via Aprsd. This however > creates a severe lack of traffic on the interface especially at night as > there are no posits comming in for hours off HF. > > Xastir appears to have some internally set timer at 10 mins. So that > after 10 mins of no activity xastir assumes the Internet server > connection has failed. This is actually much longer than the Uiview > default value (5mins) for the same timer. In fact 10 minutes is a > lifetime in real terms. I am suprised that xastir has it set at 10 mins. > In reality it seems to realise its lost the socket much quicker than > that most of the time when a failure occors. > > The problem was that I had aprsd NetBeacon running at 20 mins. Ive now > dropped it to 4 mins and the problem seems to have been resolved. > Fortuately Aprsd Netbeacons have a Q construct such that they wont be > gated to RF (this version does anyway) . > > A couple of things come out of this. > > 1: An option to vary this timer in xastir say down to a smaller value > would be good. 10 mins is a long time to wait to realise you have lost > the Internet feed. I just pulled the plug on the router to this machine > and it took 10 mins for xastir to notice the interface was missing in > action. It went into hard failure and then I reconnected the router. It > took yet another 10 mins before getting back onto the server. > > 2: This is probably the most problematic issue. I noticed while testing > xastir and repeatedly starting and stopping aprsd alot that if I didnt > restart aprsd pretty quickly within a couple of mins then I would end up > with a failed interface in error stuck for long periods in xastir. This > generally needs manual user intervention if your impatient. > What appears to happen with xastir is this. After a Internet interface > connection failure it retries within some given time frame. Then after > that failure it gives up and marks the interface in Error. I hate to get > on here and compare xastir with other clients but I am about to do just > that. Theres a feature in xastir called "reconnect on net faiure". But > why is it soooooo unforgiving throwing the towel in so soon? I looked in > the xastir config file and found DEVICE0_RECONN:1 .. If its set to 1 > then it retries. If its set to 0 then it does not. It would be good if > we could set this value to something higher like 10 and then let that > govern the number of retry attempts. Or even have a timer value we could > set between retry attempts. Uiview just sits there all day retrying > every 2 minutes. > If the Javaserver goes down or is unreachable for a while due to DNS > issues on the Internet then the whole interface scrams and sits in La La > land for a considerable time. Thats not very robust for a system that > should self heal and rectify issues. > Example : Ive seen folks driving around using UMTS connections with APRS > clients allready in VK. Now mobile networks being what they are will > give loss of service at times. Driving around trying to use xastir like > this would prove frustrating just because you lost the intenet > connection once for 2-3 mins till you got back into a coverage area. > Xastir would likely toss it in until you interviened and forced it to > reconect or waitied 20 mins perahps. Ive seen folks are interested in > running xastir on different platforms like Symbian and other mobile > devices so its not so crazy. > > Thats my 2 bits worth. > > Tony vk5ah > > > >I am playing about with aprsd and xastir. Ive got a single TNC native mode > >on aprsd using it as a HF gate . Its logged into the IS and seems to keep > >the connection and pass packets fine. > >Xastir is vk5ah-10 and aprsd is vk5ah-4 . xasir is displaying the posits > >from aprsd on the map ok as well. > > >Ive logged xastir into aprsd 127.0.0.1 10151 on the same machine. This > >seems to work but every 10 minutes and 2 seconds it seems to login to aprsd > >again. So in the view incomming data window I see the aprsd welcome text pop > >up. > > >Why is this happening ? Anyone any ideas ? It looks like xastir is > >disconnecting and reconnecting. I should be able to stop this somehow. > > >The aprsd.log is filling up fast. I can see the login count is also climbing > >on the http status page for aprsd. > >Here are some log file extracts. > > >aprsd-log > >Fri May 22 06:42:38 2009 127.0.0.1 connected on 10151 > >Fri May 22 06:42:38 2009 127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 disconnected 0:10:02 > >Fri May 22 06:42:39 2009 127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 XASTIR 1.9.2 Verified > >Fri May 22 06:52:40 2009 127.0.0.1 connected on 10151 > >Fri May 22 06:52:40 2009 127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 disconnected 0:10:02 > >Fri May 22 06:52:41 2009 127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 XASTIR 1.9.2 Verified > >Fri May 22 07:02:42 2009 127.0.0.1 connected on 10151 > >Fri May 22 07:02:42 2009 127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 disconnected 0:10:02 > >Fri May 22 07:02:43 2009 127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 XASTIR 1.9.2 Verified > > >Tony Hunt vk5ah > _______________________________________________ > Xastir mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir > _______________________________________________ Xastir mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xastir.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/xastir
