aprsc/doc/HOME.md

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aprsc - an APRS-IS server in C

aprsc (pronounced a-purrs-c) is a plain APRS-IS server intended to be used on the core and Tier2 APRS-IS servers. It is written in the C language, and it runs on Linux and Unix servers.

If you need igate or other radio-interfacing features, aprsc is not for you.

If you need to run a server on Windows, aprsc is not for you. Sorry!

A word of caution

The aprsc software is brand new, under active development, and release cycles are currently very quick - be ready to upgrade on a short notice when new versions are announced. Like any new software, aprsc is likely to contain new bugs, and some upgrades might have a high priority.

If you're not prepared to upgrade often, please wait for a few months, it should be more peaceful then. Documentation is not there yet, either, but if you're an experienced APRS-IS server operator, there should be no big surprises around.

Features (and lack of)

aprsc has been designed strictly for use within the APRS-IS core, hub and Tier2 servers. It includes only the basic functionality required by those servers.

It does not, and will not, have any additional functions such as igating, digipeating, interfacing to radios, D-PRS or other gateway functions, or object generation. It will not work on Windows. The idea is to keep aprsc relatively simple and lean, and leave the more specialized features for more specialized software.

If you need a nice, compact igate software for Linux, please take a look at either aprsg, aprx, or aprs4r. If you need to run an APRS-IS server on Windows or some other platform not supported by aprsc, or if you need the features existing in javAPRSSrvr which are missing from aprsc, javAPRSSrvr is the right choice for you - it's got a lot of good features that many of you need, and it works on virtually all operating systems. If you need an igate for Windows, APRSIS32 should be good.

Licensing, environments and requirements

aprsc is open source, licensed under the BSD license. It has about 11000 lines of relatively clean C code, built using the usual ./configure && make && make install method. The embedded HTTP status server is powered by the libevent2 library, no other extra libraries are needed.

Linux and OS X are the main development environments and will receive premium support, but FreeBSD and Solaris 11 are known to work too. Packaged binaries for Debian and Ubuntu are available for super-easy installations and automatic upgrades using APT.

Discussion group

aprsc has it's own discussion group which also functions as a mailing list. If you run aprsc, please subscribe to the group to keep updated on new versions.

Getting and installing aprsc

aprsc is currently best supported on Debian and Ubuntu. Please refer to the INSTALLING document for instructions.

After the software is installed, please go through the CONFIGURATION document.

Other documentation

Contributing to aprsc

aprsc is an open source project, so you're welcome to contribute bug fixes and improvements. Please see CONTRIBUTING for details!