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Adding a D-Rats reflector directly into an Icom Dstar repeater stack

 

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Hello Everyone,

I'm curious if it's possible to add the D-rats python application directly onto the D-star / Centos Linux controller and avoid having to have an external computer and radio to create a local ratflector?

--David
KI6ZHD
 

This is a great question. It's something I've always wanted to try.
The ircddb system supports running D-RATS on the gateway computer. I don't know anymore about it than that.
Since you mention Centos, I assume you are running a D-Plus system.
The following is only my best guess - try this at your own risk!
You can install D-RATS on Centos. It will report that two or three items are missing for D-RATS to run. You must install them manually. Run the D-RATS repeater application. Mark the "Accept incoming connections" box, click the on button and you should have a Ratflector at callsign.dstargateway.org port 9000.?

Connecting to the repeater stack is not as clear. I assume you could make a network connection and point to port 20003. I do not know what the network address of the repeater modules would be.

To my knowledge, none of this has been tried or tested. Use appropriate caution and back up your gateway database before you start tinkering.?

If you do have some success, please report it to the group.
Patrick (N3TSZ)


From: "David Ranch dstar@... [d-rats_group]"
To: d-rats_group@...
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2015 5:29 PM
Subject: [d-rats_group] Adding a D-Rats reflector directly into an Icom Dstar repeater stack

?

Hello Everyone,

I'm curious if it's possible to add the D-rats python application directly onto the D-star / Centos Linux controller and avoid having to have an external computer and radio to create a local ratflector?

--David
KI6ZHD
 

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I have had this running for about a month, and it is working well? Not sure at this point that I can tell you any of the steps to getting it installed.? I wasn’t smart enough to document how I did it.? Unless someone else can point you to a good set of instructions I will try to piece it back together when I have a chance.
 

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Hey Dan,

Ok.. thanks and that's encouraging.? Could you tell me exactly what you have configured in the D-RATS "radio" section, the Network TCP Gateway, and Network TCP Forwarding sections??? Also, are you running IRCDDB on your Dstar stack?

--David
KI6ZHD


On 10/26/2015 04:46 PM, 'Dan Ozment' dan@... [d-rats_group] wrote:

?

I have had this running for about a month, and it is working well? Not sure at this point that I can tell you any of the steps to getting it installed.? I wasn’t smart enough to document how I did it.? Unless someone else can point you to a good set of instructions I will try to piece it back together when I have a chance.
 

any follow up here??

Could you tell me exactly what you have configured in the D-RATS "radio" section, specifically what your port screen looks like.

how did the radio stack connect to the software?
 

I don't know if you got a response on this or not but I will put my 2 cents in...

These were my observations on it and haven't done this in a while. This is something I also want to do and it would be the defining factor of moving the gateway that I'm an admin/co-owner (KC9SJY) of over to ircDDB instead of using G2/DPLUS with Icom hardware. It would eliminate having some hardware device in between the repeater and the user for D-RATS. Though, I would still have to convert all scripts with some bash/linux magic (predominately to use textransmit) from those that I currently possess many DPLUS scripts to get WX info off my station nearby wjocj work well with this current setup...

The way that I understand this is done and tested with a simplex hotspot is to turn on D-RATS server by using ircddbgateway.

Then, it should create a port that you can tell D-RATS as a radio to connect as localhost and then that port number.

My observations (may not be entirely correctly) were that with a station on RF could see the transmissions from the hotspot's D-RATS client connected to this port. Any activity from a gateway would be receiviable here.

The hotspot's client (server) doesn't see anything but can transmit it and goes out RF for the client to see. I don't remember but not really sure any gateway activity is received by a remote client or not.RATS activity.

What I seem to remember is that G4KLX posted a while ago that probably exists currently in the current versionis a way that low speed data through ircDDB can be debugged but don't remember how that was done. If he would be provide some data and have some time to go over it, programming could be done to make this function work.

73
Josh, AB9FT
 

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Hello Josh,

I too would really like to see this issue resolved as I'd love to see being able to run D-RATS on a local repeater stack w/o the need for a secondary transmitter.? If a TCP connector could be integrated directly into ircDDB, it would be great to see if one D-RATS ratflector could service the -B, -C, and maybe even the -A modules!

So the question is.. who do we pursue this with since it seems that 50% of the communications is already working?

--David
KI6ZHD



On 12/29/2015 10:53 AM, kg9bo@... [d-rats_group] wrote:

?

I don't know if you got a response on this or not but I will put my 2 cents in...

These were my observations on it and haven't done this in a while. This is something I also want to do and it would be the defining factor of moving the gateway that I'm an admin/co-owner (KC9SJY) of over to ircDDB instead of using G2/DPLUS with Icom hardware. It would eliminate having some hardware device in between the repeater and the user for D-RATS. Though, I would still have to convert all scripts with some bash/linux magic (predominately to use textransmit) from those that I currently possess many DPLUS scripts to get WX info off my station nearby wjocj work well with this current setup...

The way that I understand this is done and tested with a simplex hotspot is to turn on D-RATS server by using ircddbgateway.

Then, it should create a port that you can tell D-RATS as a radio to connect as localhost and then that port number.

My observations (may not be entirely correctly) were that with a station on RF could see the transmissions from the hotspot's D-RATS client connected to this port. Any activity from a gateway would be receiviable here.

The hotspot's client (server) doesn't see anything but can transmit it and goes out RF for the client to see. I don't remember but not really sure any gateway activity is received by a remote client or not.RATS activity.

What I seem to remember is that G4KLX posted a while ago that probably exists currently in the current versionis a way that low speed data through ircDDB can be debugged but don't remember how that was done. If he would be provide some data and have some time to go over it, programming could be done to make this function work.
 

KG9BO (I think) said...


The way that I understand this is done and tested with a simplex hotspot is to turn on D-RATS server by using ircddbgateway. ?Then, it should create a port that you can tell D-RATS as a radio to connect as localhost and then that port number. ?My observations (may not be entirely correctly) were that with a station on RF could see the transmissions from the hotspot's D-RATS client connected to this port. Any activity from a gateway would be receiviable here


I think this functionality is already built into ircDDBGateway, but I don't think it works (either that or I'm not finding documentation that I can understand). ? I enabled the DRATS option on ircDDBGateway. ?I connected ?a DRATS client instance to the ircDDBGateway DRATS port. ?Finally, I linked up to REF030D where there is another ratflector linked by RF. ? ? I don't remember which way this worked, but I was only able to get one-way communication. ?I believe it worked outbound from the ircDDB side to REF030D, but nothing sent from the REF030D side made it back to the ircDDB side.


If it worked it would add much needed functionality to a really good tool. ? I don't think it would even require a switch from DPlus to ircDDBGateway. ? Could be as simple as putting DRATS and ircDDBGateway on a Raspberry Pi.

As for running a ratflector on a DSTAR gateway, I have been doing that for several months now. ?Works great - depending on the bandwidth to the repeater site. ? But, the ratflector isn't in any way linked to the repeater. ?It's merely running on the same box.?


I posted my experience with ircDDBGateway and DRATS on the ircDDBGateway forum, but never got any advice except something like "I tried that too and didn't have much success". ? ?If we could generate interest with the developer I would be happy to participate in testing.


Dan

W4DTO
 

I am working very hard to figure this out - over on the ircddbgateway group I have a thread on this topic.. the product seems to not function - I feel this is a bug. I have collected a ton of data to support (I hope) fixing the functionality of this.?

If you check out that thread I have a lot of details on what is and is not working. I could really use more testing and help - specifically my gateway is still G2 and I need to test if DRATS problems are data issues from G2<-ircDDBgateway (I have one way data issues I feel is a bug)?

I am happy to detail my current progress just email me. I also hope to publish a bug with exact issues to the ircddbgateway team soon I am collecting a lot of data packets and logs to deliver a full story before I yell "bug"

I would really appreciate any of you providing feedback on the ircddbgateway group to get attention to the user community - the more of us that want to see this working the better we get software development (I am an low level cpp guy but dont feel I can attack this bug with my cpp skills)

Ideally yes ircDDBgateway would just "run drats" on the server no extra radio no hotspot this works fine today in simplex hotspot mode. it works one direction in gateway mode so we are almost there.. I will document this fully when it works 100%

?- my dream is that if people are connected to the repeater they just "forward all traffic to the repeater" the repeater has backup internet and power - my users may not.. I also keep files of importance on the drats as well as mentioned I can deliver WX data and other repeater data as binary info to DRATS and all users can access this like a radio file server and information source. additionally I can just link my ratflector local to other ratflectors and we create a real nice network - no need for extra servers hosts or radios?

please join ircddbgateway and jump on the thread - help me identify the bug or holler out support for the functionality so we raise the awareness - dstar and drats is a powerful tool we just need to sharpen it a little.

Kelly K7MHI
 

Dan thankyou! this is exact behavior I have I am happy someone else had it I will publish a bug on the ircddbgateway ASAP if you could please notify that this needs attention it would be most helpful - I know Johnathan is away on vacation right now so I was waiting till he got back so it wasnt lost in "holiday email"

Kelly K7MHI
 

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Kelly, I'll be glad to do anything I can to help. ?If I have time tomorrow I will set up my test bed again. ?I had planned to do that and grab packet captures from the network to try to see if the data is getting to the two end points. Maybe that will help Jonathan.

Dan



Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S? 5, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone


-------- Original message --------
From: "kellykeeton@... [d-rats_group]" <d-rats_group@...>
Date: 12/29/2015 17:35 (GMT-05:00)
To: d-rats_group@...
Subject: [d-rats_group] Re: Adding a D-Rats reflector directly into an Icom Dstar repeater stack

?

Dan thankyou! this is exact behavior I have I am happy someone else had it I will publish a bug on the ircddbgateway ASAP if you could please notify that this needs attention it would be most helpful - I know Johnathan is away on vacation right now so I was waiting till he got back so it wasnt lost in "holiday email"


Kelly K7MHI
 

I too, had wanted to run D-RATS on the gateway computer and link it directly to the repeater. But my experiences with users who became annoyed with the repeater keying up with out any voice traffic on it made me change direction. My approach is to use two D-STAR radios connected through the the D-RATS repeater program (Ratflector) to act as a data repeater. I have a UHF repeater pair available. I am going to use an Icom U82 portable as the receiver and an Icom IC-800 as the transmitter. Since they will be connected by their respective serial data ports, only low speed data will pass. In addition, I will have a TNC and VHF simplex radio connected to another port. All this will be running on a Raspberry Pi at the same site as the club repeater and share the internet connection. The router at the site forwards incoming packets on port 9000 to the Raspberry Pi. The system acts as hub, where any data coming in one port is sent out all of the others. A long range goal is to connect a 300 bps packet modem and HF radio. I don't yet have enough data to determine whether or not D-RATS on HF is practical.

This system has several advantages:
No interference with/by voice traffic.
Wide area coverage for low power or mobile D-STAR users.
Interoperability with stations using packet hardware.
Internet access for field units.

It is also recommended ?to run the D-RATS client program on the same Raspberry Pi computer. It can be used for bulletins and alerts, file storage and retrieval, and mail forwarding - even to internet e-mail addresses. This is also a practical alternative to Winlink.

This project is still a work in progress. I will keep the group apprised of my efforts, and welcome any questions.
?
Patrick (N3TSZ)



From: "dan dan@... [d-rats_group]" <d-rats_group@...>
To: d-rats_group@...
Sent: Tuesday, December 29, 2015 6:44 PM
Subject: RE: [d-rats_group] Re: Adding a D-Rats reflector directly into an Icom Dstar repeater stack

?
Kelly, I'll be glad to do anything I can to help. ?If I have time tomorrow I will set up my test bed again. ?I had planned to do that and grab packet captures from the network to try to see if the data is getting to the two end points. Maybe that will help Jonathan.

Dan



Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S? 5, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone


-------- Original message --------
From: "kellykeeton@... [d-rats_group]"
Date: 12/29/2015 17:35 (GMT-05:00)
To: d-rats_group@...
Subject: [d-rats_group] Re: Adding a D-Rats reflector directly into an Icom Dstar repeater stack

?
Dan thankyou! this is exact behavior I have I am happy someone else had it I will publish a bug on the ircddbgateway ASAP if you could please notify that this needs attention it would be most helpful - I know Johnathan is away on vacation right now so I was waiting till he got back so it wasnt lost in "holiday email"

Kelly K7MHI
 

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I did a little testing on this tonight to see if I could document any clues.? Here’s my configuration, test, and conclusion.

?

Configuration:

Station #1:?? D-RATS – 2820 Radio – Local Icom Dstar Repeater – REF030D

Station #2:?? D-RATS – ircDDBGateway on a Raspberry Pi – REF030D

In this configuration I’m not running any of Jonathan’s repeater apps – only ircDDBGateway.

?

The ircDDBGateway/Pi configuration is how I run my DVAP and a NWDigital board, So, I’m confident it works.

?

Test:

If I transmit from D-RATS on Station 1 I’m not heard on Station 2.? But, I was able to chat with Patrick (N3TSZ) from Station 1. ?Patrick was seeing me because of another ratflector that is linked to REF030D.? If I transmit from D-RATS on Station 2 I see the message on Station 1, and Patrick confirmed that he saw the message.?

?

While doing this test I ran Wireshark to capture packets between Station 2 and the Pi.? I see two way communication when I transmit from Station 2.? I was able to dig through the packets enough to see the text of the message I transmitted, and I see a single ACK packet back from the Pi to the DRATS station.?? But, nothing else.

?

I also did the capture from my router so I could see what was happening between the Pi and REF030D.?? I see two way traffic there for every packet that is sent from either Station 1 (I believe this is correct, may need to confirm it again) ?or Station 2 (I’m positive on this one).

?

Conclusion:??

I am able to send successfully from D-RATS connected to ircDDBGateway to REF030D, but I never receive any response other than an ACK packet from the Pi.?? I appear to have traffic between ircDDBGateway and REF030D for all traffic on ?REF030D.? ircDDBGateway does not appear to be sending anything back to D-RATS from REF030D even though ircDDBGateway is receiving packets.? ?

?

If Jonathon is interested in exploring this further I will be happy to provide my packet capture and do any further testing that I can.?? If anyone has an idea of something else to test here I will be glad to give it a try.

?

Dan

W4DTO
 

Dan this is great its the same experience I have and my results match yours - an additional test that I ran was simply running the DVAP with the software. so my station was radio--->DVAP--->DstartGateway(PCrepeater)-->ircddbGW--->drats

this setup works fully.. its only when the gateway traverses the internet that "inbound packets" seem to not function. (the bug)?

thanks I will be putting in the bug this weekend in hopes to raise attention to it. on the IRCddbGW group

Kelly
Eric H. Christensen
 

I am looking for whether or not it is possible to connect a D-RATS server directly to a D-STAR repeater. I found this thread but it seems to end without resolution. Did this ever get figured out?

73,
Eric WG3K
Marius, YO2LOJ
 

ircddbgateway has a "dratsEnabled" option which, when enabled, allows a d-rats connection from a client or a reflector on the tcp port identical to the udp repeater port set in the configuration (usually tcp/20011 for the first one).

Marius, YO2LOJ

On 31/03/2023 02:46, Eric H. Christensen via groups.io wrote:
I am looking for whether or not it is possible to connect a D-RATS server directly to a D-STAR repeater. I found this thread but it seems to end without resolution. Did this ever get figured out?

73,
Eric WG3K

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