Instructions for installing NCDC on Debian. Should hold for Debian derivatives as well.
Installation
Since NCDC 1.9, local compilation is no longer necessary on Debian. The APT alternative will also keep the package up to date, and should thus be preferred. I keep the compilation instructions for corner cases.
Alternative 1: Compile
Install required libraries:
sudo aptitude install libbz2-dev libxml2-dev libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev libsqlite3-dev libglib2.0-dev libgdbm-dev
Get the latest NCDC source from http://dev.yorhel.nl/ncdc. The filename is assumed to be ncdc-1.7.tar.gz
in this section.
Unpack source and configure:
tar zxvf ncdc-1.7.tar.gz
cd ncdc-1.7
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
Here you might find more libraries that are needed that I already had installed on my system. An example of an error message:
checking for ncurses.h... no
configure: error: Could not find a header files for ncurses.
which means that you should install libncurses5-dev
, re-run ./configure
and so on.
Compile and install:
make
sudo make install
Alternative 2: APT and Open Build Service
New releases are continuously uploaded to the Open Build Service which generates .deb
-packages and publishes them on a custom repository. To enable, follow the instructions at Open Build Service which are short and repeated here:
Add an
/etc/apt/sources-list.d/
entry:echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:yorhel/Debian_6.0/ /' | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ncdc.list
Add the repository key:
wget http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:yorhel/Debian_6.0/Release.key sudo apt-key add - < Release.key && rm Release.key
Update package lists and install:
sudo aptitude update sudo aptitude install ncdc
and NCDC will be kept up to date during regular package upgrades.
I uninstalled my existing NCDC install by going to the source directory from where I compiled it and running:
sudo make uninstall
just to clean out potential residue in the system.
Configuration
Run NCDC:
ncdc
To configure NCDC you run specific /set
(global parameters) or /hset
(hub specific parameters) commands in the program interface. Some parameters are currently only available in global form.
Running only /set
presents a list of current configuration options.
/help set option
shows a help text of the configuration option option
.
Nb: The setting names change quite often. There have been at least three changes of fundamental setting names in just a couple of months, so refer to your current version for exact names. The ones below are given for NCDC 1.9. Special note can be taken to the TLS port settings which have changed in newer versions.
Define some global settings:
/set active_ip 12.34.56.78
/set active_port 54000
With this setting, NCDC will use TCP 54000–54001 and UDP 54000. These incoming ports must be reachable through FW/router/etc.
/set active true
/set slots 3
/set autorefresh 0s
Addition in 1.13:
/set share_symlinks true
since this defaults to false
, and I used this functionality.
Now, create a hub profile:
/open -n myhub dc.domain.com
This will open and place you on a hub tab. Alt+#
where #
is the tab number switches between the tabs listed in the bottom row.
Define some hub settings:
/hset encoding CP1252
/hset nick [mytag]mynick
/hset autoconnect true
Share data:
/share "My stuff" /media/my_stuff
Go live
/connect
This should get things running. man ncdc
has more info. Let's hope NCDC development continues; it is much nicer than microdc2 in its current state.