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I searched through the past posts on here and scoured the web as well. What I haven't seen is a step by step process on how to set up your own ratflector. I see in the D-RATS instructions they explain it but it really seems to be missing some key points.?
I simply want to set up a ratflector on a dedicated computer for our OEM/RACES/ARES/SKYWARN to be able to use.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Keith
Call : kc2oon
Ocean County Skywarn Asst. Coordinator
National Weather Service Skywarn Program
http://www.qsl.net/kc2elg/
Ocean County ARES
www.WA2RES.com
Emergency Management Communications
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Hello Keith, ? Have a look here:
? There is also a PDF document in the files section of this group that has a few more details: Running_your_own_Ratflector_0.3.3.pdf ? If that doesn’t help then e-mail me and I’ll do my best to help get you started. ? FYI: d-rats_repeater runs very well on some of the small, single board computers that run Linux such as a Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone. ? 73 and Happy New Year! Mike, N0SO ? PS: My personal ratflector (running on Fedora Linux on a Raspberry Pi) is: port 9000 ? ?
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From: d-rats_group@... [mailto:d-rats_group@...]
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2014 10:30 AM
To: d-rats_group@...
Subject: [d-rats_group] The process of setting up a Ratflector, help.? ? I searched through the past posts on here and scoured the web as well. What I haven't seen is a step by step process on how to set up your own ratflector. I see in the D-RATS instructions they explain it but it really seems to be missing some key points.? ? I simply want to set up a ratflector on a dedicated computer for our OEM/RACES/ARES/SKYWARN to be able to use. ? Any help would be greatly appreciated. ? Keith
Call : kc2oon
Ocean County Skywarn Asst. Coordinator
National Weather Service Skywarn Program
http://www.qsl.net/kc2elg/
Ocean County ARES www.WA2RES.com
Emergency Management Communications
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Hi Keith,
Looking at?, if you want to run an internet-only Ratflector it is as basic as running the?d-rats_repeater.exe server, check the "Accept incoming connections" box and entering a port number.
After you've done that, it is a matter of directing users to connect to this over the internet and unfortunately this is the most variable part of it. Depending on your internet configuration, routers, firewalls and etc, this could be simple or very complicated.
If your server has a dedicated IP address and you use port 9000, you would just give this IP address and port to users.
Sincerely, Chris Arnesen, KU7PDX Washington County ARES/RACES D-STAR Repeater Administrator
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Dear Keith and Chris,
Chris's recommendation is correct and a good one.? However, if you want to go one step further, you can also check "trust localhost" on the ratflector, start up an instance of d-rats on the same machine as your ratflector, name the d-rats instance as your ratflector name plus add "-R", and add a radio in preferences to localhost.? Then anyone connecting to your ratflector will also see in the Stations Panel your instance of D-RATS (name would be W5MPZ-R for example).? Anyone could then connect to your instance of d-rats-R, and upload and download files.? SFARES does this to store all our resource files.? This is another valuable use of d-rats.
73 de N4VIP, Don Hinsman and Happy Holidays
On Fri, Dec 26, 2014 at 10:00 AM, chris@... [d-rats_group] <d-rats_group@...> wrote:
?
Hi Keith,
Looking at?, if you want to run an internet-only Ratflector it is as basic as running the?d-rats_repeater.exe server, check the "Accept incoming connections" box and entering a port number.
After you've done that, it is a matter of directing users to connect to this over the internet and unfortunately this is the most variable part of it. Depending on your internet configuration, routers, firewalls and etc, this could be simple or very complicated.
If your server has a dedicated IP address and you use port 9000, you would just give this IP address and port to users.
Sincerely, Chris Arnesen, KU7PDX Washington County ARES/RACES D-STAR Repeater Administrator
-- 73 de N4VIP (SFARES EC, Santa Fe and San Miguel Counties DEC),?Don
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Setting up a "Ratflector" can be easy or hard, depending on your situation. Run the D-RATS Repeater application that is included with the software download. The minimum you need to do is click the ON button. Now give the IP address to users so they may make a connection to your Ratflector. If the computer is behind a router, you may have to forward the port to the computer running the repeater application. You should also set up an instance of the D-RATS client on the same computer as the repeater. Give it the callsign of KC2ELG. Delete any existing connections in Preferences>Radio. Add a new network connection with the IP address of 127.0.0.1. Check the "Trust Local Host" box in the repeater application. This will now act as a file server and mail drop. If you have access to antennas where the Ratflector will be housed, consider connecting radios to your Ratflector. A D-STAR radio and a KISS TNC will easily connect to a D-RATS repeater.
Also check out the Skywarn reporting form in the files section of this group. Download and import it in to the D-RATS message function.
Patrick N3TSZ
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Thanks for the quick responses everyone. Some of the posts promp more questions. I see that when I installed D-rats it installed the repeater program. Didn't know after using using D-rats for years even what that was. Big Duh on my part.
First question is to Mike n0so. How did you get a HTTP address for your ratflector? I'm familiar with setting up websites and I use CoreFTP to work on them.
Second question is to Chris ku7pdx. You said internet only. To add a radio, is setting up a radio in the repeater exe. the same as setting up a radio in the D-rats communications tool exe. ??
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I haven't set up a radio with the Ratflector before, but looking at the settings it appears to be exactly the same as in D-RATS.
Sincerely, Chris Arnesen, KU7PDX
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Well it would seem my issues have to do with IP addresses now.? I'm working through them and getting closer to success. The struggle doesn't bother me because he helps me understand the processes involved. Thanks for everyones guidence on here.
Keith kc2oon
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Figured out my IP address problems. OK, this may seem weird but I saw a post on here where a guy was having the same problems I was having. He was configuring the repeater program like instructed and his wouldn't work. He said he cleared all the inputs (name, serial/internet, ip address etc..) and simply turned on the repeater program. It worked for him. It WORKED for me as well. Whats up with that? So I can access my ratflector on my Raspberry Pi from any computer running DRATS so far in my house. The computers aren't networked either so that is a good first step. ?I couldn't access it with my cellular hotspot and my laptop. It timed out so I'm not sure what is up with that.? The last test is accessing it from somewhere other than my house. More to follow....
Keith kc2oon?
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Sorry for the lag - I was offline yesterday for a Boy Scout activity.
We pay an ISP a few dollars a year to maintain the domain name . One of the ISP services allows adding the name as an alias. That gets anything a dressed to "" forwarded to our home system. Our home router is setup to "port forward" requests for port 9000 to the Raspberry Pi computer on our home LAN that hosts the d-rats_repeater software. For cases where your home IP address changes frequently there are services like DuckDNS that will sync up the ip address when it changes.
Adding a radio to a Ratflector is just like adding one in the d-rats client. It's been a while since I've looked at d-rats code but as I recall the code is almost the same.
Let me know if you need help, I'll be glad lend a hand.
Mike, N0SO
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On Dec 27, 2014, at 8:26 AM, kc2oon@... [d-rats_group] < d-rats_group@...> wrote:
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Thanks for the quick responses everyone. Some of the posts promp more questions. I see that when I installed D-rats it installed the repeater program. Didn't know after using using D-rats for years even what that was. Big Duh on my part.
First question is to Mike n0so. How did you get a HTTP address for your ratflector? I'm familiar with setting up websites and I use CoreFTP to work on them.
Second question is to Chris ku7pdx. You said internet only. To add a radio, is setting up a radio in the repeater exe. the same as setting up a radio in the D-rats communications tool exe. ??
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Well. I'm not really having much luck here. I can set up the ratflector on my Pi (only unconfigured, no port assigned) and access it through any computer in the house when I point it to the same port and IP address. When I add network port to the repeater app, the other computers refuse to connect to it. If I clear out all the settings on the repeater program and simply hit?"on" it works. I cannot connect to it from outside the house. I have port forwarded 9000 and 9001 in my router and allowed whats called "allow server hosting" which unblocks incoming traffic for hosting web, email, ftp etc...? I have given my Raspberry a static ip address. I can only assume with others having success it has got to be my router settings or something like that.
I guess I'll keep plugging at it.
Keith kc2oon?
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Did you add port forwarding on your connection to the outside internet?? Inside your firewall, you are all 192.168.X.X but you need to add port forwarding in your firewall to port 9000.
N4VIP, Don Hinsman
On Sun, Dec 28, 2014 at 3:11 PM, kc2oon@... [d-rats_group] <d-rats_group@...> wrote:
?
Well. I'm not really having much luck here. I can set up the ratflector on my Pi (only unconfigured, no port assigned) and access it through any computer in the house when I point it to the same port and IP address. When I add network port to the repeater app, the other computers refuse to connect to it. If I clear out all the settings on the repeater program and simply hit?"on" it works. I cannot connect to it from outside the house. I have port forwarded 9000 and 9001 in my router and allowed whats called "allow server hosting" which unblocks incoming traffic for hosting web, email, ftp etc...? I have given my Raspberry a static ip address. I can only assume with others having success it has got to be my router settings or something like that.
I guess I'll keep plugging at it.
Keith kc2oon?
-- 73 de N4VIP (SFARES EC, Santa Fe and San Miguel Counties DEC),?Don
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Hi Keith,
You don't need to add another network port. If you can connect from any other pc on your LAN then the network port is working. All you should need now is to "port forward" port 9000 and 9001 (if you're using port 9001 too) to the Raspberry Pi on your home router.
Mike, N0SO
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On Dec 28, 2014, at 4:11 PM, kc2oon@... [d-rats_group] < d-rats_group@...> wrote:
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Well. I'm not really having much luck here. I can set up the ratflector on my Pi (only unconfigured, no port assigned) and access it through any computer in the house when I point it to the same port and IP address. When I add network port to the repeater app, the other computers refuse to connect to it. If I clear out all the settings on the repeater program and simply hit?"on" it works. I cannot connect to it from outside the house. I have port forwarded 9000 and 9001 in my router and allowed whats called "allow server hosting" which unblocks incoming traffic for hosting web, email, ftp etc...? I have given my Raspberry a static ip address. I can only assume with others having success it has got to be my router settings or something like that.
I guess I'll keep plugging at it.
Keith kc2oon?
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It's my router. Has to be. It's a Motorola Netopia 2247-62-100t Iv'e forwarded TCP ports 9000 and 9001 in the NAT settings area, under custom services under my laptops static ip address running the repeater. The laptops ip address shows in the list of computers to foreward to so I know thats correct. I had the option of setting it as a service or a game. I did both. I enabled "allow server hosting" and "block access from internet".
The only thing I didn't do was set a UDP. If I tried it said it overlapped a TCP setting using the same ports.
I'm pretty much at my wits end for tonight. It's got to be my router somehow.
Keith kc2oon
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Keith, I checked my router, and I only have TCP/9000 forwarded to my ratflector. ? No need to forward UDP. ?Setting it as a service should be fine. ?Is the option to "block access from the internet" related to the port forwarding rule our could it be for remote management of the router? ?If it is related to the forwarding rule (if you can check it or uncheck it for different rules) it definitely needs to be unchecked.
Dan
Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S? 5, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
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-------- Original message -------- From: "kc2oon@... [d-rats_group]" <d-rats_group@...> Date:12/29/2014 18:07 (GMT-05:00) To: d-rats_group@... Cc: Subject: Re: [d-rats_group] Re: The process of setting up a Ratflector, help.
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It's my router. Has to be. It's a Motorola Netopia 2247-62-100t Iv'e forwarded TCP ports 9000 and 9001 in the NAT settings area, under custom services under my laptops static ip address running the repeater. The laptops ip address shows in the list of computers to foreward to so I know thats correct. I had the option of setting it as a service or a game. I did both. I enabled "allow server hosting" and "block access from internet".
The only thing I didn't do was set a UDP. If I tried it said it overlapped a TCP setting using the same ports.
I'm pretty much at my wits end for tonight. It's got to be my router somehow.
Keith kc2oon
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I GOT IT!
Thanks for all of your help guys. I made a rookie mistake, but my router didn't make it easy at all either. After changing from a dynamic to a static IP address on my laptop, the router was showing the laptop name, and an IP address. Having several computers and wireless devices in the house, I was trying to configure port forwarding on the one I recognized, the computer name. Once I reset everything, ported to the new IP address, it worked.? Now why my router would display the name and then the IP as if they are two seperate machines I have no idea.
I just need to write everything down now and set it up on the Raspberry Pi this time.
Again thanks for the patience and help.
Keith
Call : kc2oon
Ocean County Skywarn Asst. Coordinator
National Weather Service Skywarn Program
http://www.qsl.net/kc2elg/
Ocean County ARES www.WA2RES.com
Emergency Management Communications
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I'm glad you got it working. Now, are you going to give us the IP address so we can try it out? HI. I can understand if you want to keep it private. Good luck and 73! Patrick N3TSZ
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Once the Raspberry is up and running I have no problem with sharing that. I have it up on my laptop which is only temporary for now and not up nearly 24/7, but easier to try to get the settings right than on the Pi for my first time. It's also linked to our D-STAR repeater which is in a temporary location at our EOC for now until the water tower we have the spot for gets painted.
Again thanks guys. Getting the help you gave was worth joining this group alone. Not to mention the tons of other info on the group page.?
Keith kc2oon
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Glad you got it running Keith. Let me know if you need a remote tester.
73 and Happy New Year! Mike, N0SO?
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On Dec 30, 2014, at 7:36 PM, kc2oon@... [d-rats_group] < d-rats_group@...> wrote:
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Once the Raspberry is up and running I have no problem with sharing that. I have it up on my laptop which is only temporary for now and not up nearly 24/7, but easier to try to get the settings right than on the Pi for my first time. It's also linked to our D-STAR repeater which is in a temporary location at our EOC for now until the water tower we have the spot for gets painted.
Again thanks guys. Getting the help you gave was worth joining this group alone. Not to mention the tons of other info on the group page.?
Keith kc2oon
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OK. I now have the ratflector working on the Raspberry Pi. I have yet to connect it to my 880H like I had it connected with on my laptop. From what I read you have to add the user "pi" somewhere in the code to enable to the Pi to access the serial converter. I'm not quite sure where to ad that user though. I'll have to search around unless someone has done this on here already.
Keith kc2oon
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Keith, ASEC SNJ Section.
Patrick Connor
Dan Ozment