pcproxy - A masquerading proxy for flight simulation networks

pcproxy

Using PCProxy, flight simulation clients can share a single network connection to a flight simulation network, allowing multiple clients to transparantly share data and appear as one. This is particulary useful for players who wish to have multiple network clients active at the same time. In tech-terms, PCProxy is a multi-connect masquerading proxy for fsd traffic over TCP/IP.

PCProxy currently only supports networks, such as VATSIM and IVAO, which operate using the fsd protocol.

A manual of PCProxy is maintained at http://www.leune.org/pcproxy/. It is also shipped with the package and can be found in /usr/share/doc/pcproxy/Manual.html

To use PCProxy, a flight simulation program would connect to PCProxy as if it were a network server. PCProxy will then establish the actual connection to the flight simulation network server, which may be specified in the configuration file (see: CONFIGURATION FILE). By default, PCProxy listens on at least one TCP port (default: 6809).

In addition to its basic functionality, PCProxy is able to provide its own web server (default port: 8000) which can be used to retrieve flight plans.

Another service provided by PCProxy is the ability to push a technical stream of flight plans to external applications. To do this, PCProxy can open an additional port (default port: 2688) to which it will push the information.

The PCProxy configuration file follows a simple .ini-style format. Empty lines, line containing whitespace and lines starting with ; (semicolon) are ignored. The remaining lines are attribute-value pairs, using an = literal to separate value from attribute.

PCProxy will look for a configuration file in the user's home directory which is called $HOME/.pcproxyrc. If this file exists, the contents of the system-wide configuration file /etc/pcproxy/pcproxy.ini will be ignored. If no configuration file is found, a new configuration file called pcproxy.ini will be created in the current directory.

The following configuration directives are recognized:

my_port = 6809

Port number on which PCProxy listens for regular clients.

remote_ip = 137.56.42.18

IP address (or hostname) of VATSIM/IVAO server.

remote_port = 6809

Port number on remote server to which PCProxy will connect. (usually 6809)

modec = 0

Force transponder mode C below this alt in feet.

chat = 0

Forward private messages to secondary clients. (1 = yes, 0 = no)

debug = 1

Show debug output. (1 = yes, 0 = no)

connected = 1

Show connection status every 150 sec (1=yes, 0=no)

wwwserver = 1

Run flightplan webserver. (1 = yes, 0 = no)

fpserver = 1

Enable PCProxy's flight plan stream. (1 = yes, 0 = no)

wwwport = 8000

Port number on which PCProxy's web server listens for HTTP requests.

fpport = 2688

Port number on which PCProxy feeds flightplans. (default: 2688)

fpinterval = 5000

Interval between subsequent flightplan feeds on fpport. (default: 5000)

Unknown configuration directives will be ignored.

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If connections are made with ProController and Squawkbox for MS Flightsimulator, the lag indicator in ProController will go up considerably. This is due to the fact to MS Flightsimulator puts a very heavy load on the computer.

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It is good practice NOT to use the same callsign on more than one client. Although the proxy could not care less if you do so, ProController will get upset rather quickly. For example, all private messages sent will pop up on all client connections.

$HOME/.pcproxyrc PCProxy initialisation file /etc/pcproxy/pcproxy.ini

Kees Leune <kees@leune.org>