Welcome to thebridge, a member of the CQiNet family. http://CQiNet.sourceforge.net Thebridge is an EchoLink compatible conference bridge that runs under FreeBSD, Linux, QNX, Mac OS X, Windows and hopefully most other Posix compatible operating systems. If you've never hear of EchoLink then this software probably won't make much sense to you. See: http://www.echolink.org then if you are still interested continue here. The EchoLink system, and by extension this software, are for Ham radio operators. Unfortunately unlike "real" Ham Radio SWLs (short wave listeners) are not welcomed so if you're not already a licensed ham it is unlikely that you will find much of value here, sorry. Finally I believe there is a moratorium on new Echolink conference servers so unless you are already running a conference or are using thebridge for other purposes you might as well save yourself the frustration and give up now. As of this writing there were 124 conferences on line and 81 (65 %) were empty. Spreading activity out the point that most conferences sit idle all day is counter productive in my opinion. If you haven't given up yet but are running *nix and not Windows you are lost, read the file README instead of this one. ############################################ Updating from previous versions of thebridge ############################################ New versions of thebridge are usually backwards compatible with configuration files from earlier releases HOWEVER new variables are added frequently. Since the sample tbd.conf file includes documentation on some features which are not mentioned elsewhere it is worthwhile to review the sample configuration file with each release to discover new capabilities which you may want to take advantage of. ########### Portability ########### A quick word on portability: I have not attempted to build thebridge on Windows using any tools other than Microsoft Visual Studio version 5 or 6. It shouldn't be too hard to get it to build with other tools if an appropriate makefile or project file is created. Make sure the symbol "_WIN32" is defined. If you get it running using another tool chain I would be interested in hearing about it. ################### Building on Windows ################### If you've downloaded the prebuilt version of thebridge (thebridge-x.xx-exe.zip) the following has already been done for you. Skip on to configuration... Extract: The distrubution file is a Gzip'ed TAR file. The popular Winzip program knows how to deal with these kind of files. If you don't have it you can download an evaluation copy from www.winzip.com. When you extract the files make sure you preserve the directory structure. (In Winzip make sure the "Use folder names" box is checked. Make: Find thebridge.dsp using Windows explorer and double click on it. This should cause Microsoft Visual Studio to fire up and load the project. Click build. There shouldn't be any errors or warnings displayed during the build process. If you get warnings or errors I'd be interested in hearing about them. The final output of the build process is the thebridge deamon "tbd.exe" which will be in either the Debug or Release subdirectory depending on the build configuration you selected. The name of thebridge executable is tbd.exe for "TheBridge Daemon (and it's also a good excuse to create yet another TLA). Well It's a Daemon on *nix systems anyway, on Windows it may be installed as a Daemon (service) on Windows 2000 or Windows XP, otherwise it's run as a command line program. This does not mean that it will run on DOS, thebridge is a 32bit Windows program. Thebridge uses the Winsock2 API, if the EchoLink client program runs on your computer you should be all set. If your computer runs an old version of Windows 95 you may need to upgrade to Winsock2. ####################### thebridge Configuration ####################### There is a single text file "tbd.conf" that is used to configure thebridge. Fire up your favorite editor and change the various variables to appropriate values. Refer to the comments in the file for guidance. Most sites will only need to change the ConferenceCall, ConferencePass, ConferenceQth and WorkingDir settings. NOTE: the EchoLink directory servers *WILL NOT ACCEPT* a conference style callsign like "*W1AW*" unless you have specifically registered as a conference by the EchoLink administrators. I suggest that you test the conference using your usual callsign first. See www.echolink.org/el/conf.htm for more details. Lines beginning with ';' or '#' are comments, if you decide to set any of the optional settings be sure to delete leading ';' character before the configuration variable. --- snip --- C:\thebridge-0.05> notepad tbd.conf --- snip --- What, notepad isn't your favorite editor ? Nevermind. ####### Testing ####### The daemon has two command line switches to aid testing. The first switch -f specifies where the configuration is located. The default is tbd.conf in the current directory. The second switch -d enables debug mode, causing the program to output debug information to the screen. The debug switch may be used multiple times to increase the detail level of the information displayed up to a maximum of twice. --- snip --- C:\thebridge-0.05\debug>tbd thebridge Version 0.05 PullerLoginAck(): Client 2 successfully updated status. ParseStationList(): completed successfully, 376 stations listed. --- snip --- The first message indicates that the daemon was successful in logging into the directory server. Note: the EchoLink servers indicate a successful login even if the supplied callsign/password combination is unknown, invalid or banned. But the success does indicate that tbd was able to establish an TCP connection to the server. The second message is the real good news, our directory request returned 376 stations. If your callsign or password were not recognized there would be 0 stations. If you are not able to get a station list, check the configuration file. You might also want to rerun the test using some "-d" switches to help determine what when wrong. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the EchoLink protocols it is not possible to test thebridge further using a single computer. In particular the client program uses the same ports as the server so it's impossible to run a server and a client on the same host at the same time. Even if you have multiple computers you can't test the program unless you also have multiple *external, routable* IP addresses. You can't connect to thebridge from another computer on your local LAN if your local LAN is connected to the Internet using a NAT box or other form of Internet sharing where all of your computers appear to be coming from the same IP address. The easiest way to complete the testing is to have a couple of friends connect to thebridge and see if they can talk to each other. When a station connects to thebridge you'll see a message similar to the following: --- snip --- WD4NMQ JEFF logged into conference. W7NTF GARY logged into conference. --- snip --- Once you've verified that thebridge is operating correctly we're ready to complete the installation. Hit Ctrl-C to abort thebridge. --- snip --- Received SIGINT, shutting down PullerLoginAck(): Client 4 successfully updated status. Logged out, exiting. C:\thebridge-0.05> --- snip --- ####################### Installation as Service ####################### Installing thebridge as a system service is an option on Windows 2000 and XP. A service is a program that runs in the background without any visible component that can also be configured to start automatically when the system is booted. Running thebridge as a service is particularly attractive when thebridge is run on a remote server. I've only tested thebridge on Windows 2000, but it should run on Windows NT 4.0 and XP as well. Once you have configured and tested thebridge you can install it as service by specify using the -w and -i command line switches. The working directory must be specified first followed by the -i switch. --- snip --- C:\thebridge-0.05> tbd -w c:\thebridge-0.05 -i tbd service installed successfully. C:\thebridge-0.05> --- snip --- Once the service has been installed it may be started using the services applet located under administrative tools on the control panel. As you may have already guessed thebridge is listed as "tbd". To start thebridge running double click on it's name and then click the start button. Once tbd is running examine the log and make sure there are no error messages. You will find the log file(s) in the working directory specified when the service was installed. If you want thebridge to start automatically when the system is booted change the startup time from "Manual" to "Automatic". You may uninstall the service by using the -u switch. --- snip --- C:\thebridge-0.05> tbd -u tbd service uninstalled. C:\thebridge-0.05> --- snip ---