[Xastir] Digipeating

[Curt, WE7U]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004, Tyler Allison wrote:

> Xastir is firstly an APRS client, secondly a relay host. It doesnt have
> any traditional digipeating capability. What I mean is that it wont sit
> and watch a TNC, grap packets off the TNC, mangle them some way, and send
> a copy back out a few seconds later. At least not that I know if.

Well, it has some capability to be strictly a "RELAY" digipeater,
but nothing else.  That capability is only on some of the interfaces
that don't have another method of doing so.  If you're running a
serial TNC interface (non-KISS), then you use the TNC's ability to
RELAY digipeat instead.

There's absolutely no capability for smart digipeating though.  No
WIDEn-N flooding protocol or anything like that.  That's what
packages like digi_ned are for, and we didn't want to reinvent the
wheel.


> It can 'relay' weather alerts, Internet to RF, RF to Internet, etc.

Igate is the correct term here.


> > Then there was a second comment that digi-NED could be used. My
> > questions:
> >
> > 1. Will Xastir and digi-NED run side-by side on the same machine?
>
> They could...yes.

And do.  Just set up with AX.25 kernel networking talking to your
TNC's or sound cards.  Xastir and digi_ned can then access the same
ports.


> > How does Xastir interface to digi-NED, or does it not do that?

It does not.


> You can setup AGWPE on a windows system on your network and tell Xastir to
> talk to AGWPE's TCP/IP port.

And you can set up Xastir on top of Cygwin/Xwindows on your Windows
box and have it talk to the AGWPE instance on the same box.  I've
also connected to an AGWPE instance across the country that was
running on a Windows box of course, and Xastir was here running on a
Linux box.


> > I want to keep my ui-view32 system running, (on a different machine on my
> >  network) but wish to experiment with Xastir on its own dedicated Debian
> > machine, on this same network.
>
> If you can setup AGWPE on a windows box on your network you should be able
> to point both ui-view32 *and* xastir at the same AGWPE server and do your
> testing that way. If ui-view32 is already on a windows sytem using AGWPE
> you can simply point the Xastir client at the AGWPE server that your
> ui-view32 system is using and be good to go.

Yep.  You'd have to update to the latest CVS Xastir in order to get
the AGWPE authentication stuff working.  That plus other AGWPE stuff
was recently worked on.


> > I'm thinking in the long term, Xastir has
> > a strong potential for continuing development,

And a long track record of it.


> > while UI-View, due to
> > Roger's unfortunate health situation, may not.
>
> No slight on Roger and I wish him a swift recovery but you are probably
> thinking intelligently.

A lot of people are praying for that guy.

--
Curt, WE7U			         http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
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