Installing aprsc on Windows

This is a beta-level version of aprsc for Windows. It appears to mostly work, but it's likely that something "interesting" will pop up.

This build has been done using Cygwin, a collection of tools which enable you to compile and run Linux and Unix applications on Windows.

The aprsc for Windows package contains all the necessary Cygwin bits needed to run aprsc, so you don't need to install Cygwin first.

Only one exact version of Cygwin must be used on a single Windows box at a time. If you do install cygwin for some reason, you need to manually update the Cygwin files in the aprsc directory with copies from your own cygwin installation to make sure both your cygwin and aprsc run the same version.

aprsc for Windows requires an i686 (Pentium 2 class) CPU, or anything newer than that. It has been (briefly) tested on Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8. It typically uses about 30-40 megabytes of RAM and very little CPU.

A word of caution for Windows users

The Windows version of aprsc is new, and it has only been tested on a few servers, so it is more likely to contain interesting "features" than the Linux / Unix builds.

If you are considering to run aprsc on Windows, please drop a note on the mailing list, just so that we know someone is actually using it.

Download aprsc

Grab the latest version from the Windows installers download directory.

Extract it

Extract the contents of the zip file to C:\aprsc. You should end up with a small set of .cmd files to start up and shutdown aprsc, a couple of .exe files and a number of .dll files in C:\aprsc\, and a few subdirectories. \aprsc\web\ contains the status display web content served by aprsc's internal HTTP server, \aprsc\logs\ will contain log files, \aprsc\data\ is empty at first but might contain aprsc's data files at some point. \aprsc\doc\ contains copies of aprsc documentation.

Configure it

Before starting aprsc edit the configuration file, which can be found in c:\aprsc\aprsc.conf. Please see the CONFIGURATION document for instructions.

Run it

aprsc runs as a Windows service. When the service is set up, it will also start up automatically at boot. The windows installer .zip file comes with five CMD files to manage the service. They need to be executed as an user with Administrator privileges, so you need to either log in as an administrator user, or open a command promt as admin. One way to do this is right-clicking cmd.exe (or a Shortcut pointing to it), and selecting "Run as Administrator".

  • aprsc-enable.cmd

    Configures aprsc as a Windows service. Does not start it up, but makes it start up after a reboot. Run this first!

  • aprsc-start.cmd

    Starts up the aprsc service after it has been set up using aprsc-enable. Won't do anything if aprsc-enable.cmd has not been executed first.

  • aprsc-stop.cmd

    Stops the aprsc service. It'll start up again on the next reboot, though.

  • aprsc-disable.cmd

    Removes the aprsc service configuration from Service Manager.

  • aprsc-status.cmd

    Queries the status of the aprsc service from Service Manager.

As usual, you don't need to type the .cmd file extension:

C:\aprsc> aprsc-enable
C:\aprsc> aprsc-start

After running aprsc-enable you can also control the service using the Windows Services tool.

Check the log file

aprsc writes a log file to C:\aprsc\logs\aprsc.log. Be sure to check it for any ERRORs and WARNINGs after installation and after every upgrade.

Check the status page

http://localhost:14501/ should open up aprsc's status web page.

Join the Group

New versions of aprsc come out rather frequently, since it's a pretty new application. Remember to upgrade in a timely manner.

Please join the aprsc discussion group to keep posted about new versions. Send any questions you may have to the group.