FAQ

Ntripcaster FAQ
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** General Questions **
Q1. What is ntripcaster?
Q4. What platforms are supported?
Q5: What do I need to setup and run an ntripcaster server?

** Questions about listening **
Q7. How can I listen to ntripcaster streams?

** Questions about streaming **
Q8. How can I broadcast ntripcaster streams?

** Server related questions **
Q13. What's the story with crypted passwords?
Q14. What's libwrap (tcp_wrappers), and how do I use them?

** Remote administration **
Q15. What's the remote admin console for?
Q16. What's an ntripcaster Operator?
Q19. How do I renice ntripcaster and shout to improve performance?

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Q1: What is ntripcaster?
A1: ntripcaster is a DGPS data broadcasting system.

Q4: What platforms are supported?
A4: Depends on what part of the ntripcaster system you want to use.
    Ntripcaster should on Windows 95/98/NT, and sane unix systems with support for Posix Threads. 
    Notably, Linux glibc 2.0 and above, FreeBSD, Solaris, newer versions of Irix and HP-UX.

Q5: What do I need to setup and run an ntripcaster server?
A5: First of all you need a box to run the server. Download and compile
    ntripcaster on this box, and start it up.
    Next, you will need to send your server an DGPS data stream from a source.

Q7: How can I listen to ntripcaster streams?
A8: You need an Ntrip client and the rights to access the Ntripcaster server (username and
    password).

Q8: How can I broadcast ntripcaster streams?
A8: Use one of the ntripcaster, see Q5.

Q13: What's the story with crypted passwords?
A13: Normally, ntripcaster servers keep the passwords uncrypted,
     either in a configfile, or specified on the command line. This is pretty
     poor security. Newer versions of ntripcaster provide a configuration option
     (--with-crypt). With this option, then the passwords in the configuration
     file (ntripcaster.conf) and the ones specified on the command line, should
     be crypted. To produce these crypted passwords, use the mkpasswd program
     distributed with ntripcaster. Be careful in the configuration file not to
     leave any junk chars after the passwords.

Q14: What's libwrap (tcp_wrappers), and how do I use it?
A14: Sometimes you want to restrict access for clients, admins, and encoders,
     not only on a password basis, but on a hostname basis. You want to
     be able to specify which hosts should be allowed to listen to your
     server. Newer versions of ntripcaster (when configured with the --with-libwrap
     option), make use of the tcp_wrappers package by Wietse Venema, which
     means that you can use the files /etc/hosts.deny and /etc/hosts.allow,
     to do host based access control. The tcp_wrappers package does not come
     with ntripcaster, you need to download and compile it yourself. It does
     work with all sane versions of unix, and you can download it from
     most security related ftp sites (like ftp.cert.org).
     For instance, if you want to restrict ntripcaster access on your server
     to the 130.236.235.* network, then add the line to /etc/hosts.deny
     ntripcaster: ALL
     And this to /etc/hosts.allow
     ntripcaster: 130.236.235.

Q15: What's the remote admin console for?
A15: The only way of controlling the server (when not using the remote admin
     console), is from the window where you started the ntripcaster server process.
     This is really limited, so we suggest you make use of the remote admin
     console. You simply fire up a telnet client, and connect it to the
     remote admin port (8000 unless otherwize specified). Now type the 
     remote admin password, and you're in. There are some commands available
     right away, but most of the goodies require a second password; the
     operator password. Type 'oper <password>', and if you're in luck then
     the server replies with "You are now an ntripcaster operator". The current
     list of commands (you can get it by typing help) is available under
     Remote Admin Console in the README.

Q16: What's an ntripcaster Operator?
A16: Simply a remote admin that has used the oper command with the correct
     password. Similar to an IRC operator.

Q19: How do I renice ntripcaster to improve performance?
A19: You don't need to renice ntripcaster except when you are serving a large
     number of clients (and even then it's not really necessary unless you
     notice performance problems).  In any case, you can run renice (niceness)
     -p (pid), where niceness is something negative, like -5 or -10, and (pid)
     is the pid of the ntripcaster process.  You have to be root to renice to a
     negative niceness