Installation
Currently the complete Sector software suite, including both server and client, only works on Linux. After downloading the tarball or checking the source code out from the SVN, simply use make to build it. After a successful compilation, the server side command can be found in ./server directory, which also contains a configuration file "sector.conf". The client side tools can be found in ./client directory. The compilation will generate multiple dynamic libraries, which can be found in ./lib directory.
We are also working on to support the Windows platform. Currently the port of the client side has been finished. You may start a windows software development project (e.g., in Visual C++) and manually add the C++ source files in ./gmp, ./udt, and ./client into the project.
Sector requires libssl-dev. In addition, GCC version 3.4 or above is required.
Start the Sector server
The Sector server command is "sector", which is located in ./server directory. The Sector system runs in a P2P style. The first node in the system may start as standalone server: ./sector <local_ip>. Once there are already servers running in the system, a new node may join the system by using: ./sector <local_ip> <server_ip> <server_port>. This new node may choose any existing server to connect to.
For example, if you want to set up a Sector network over 10.0.0.x LAN. The first Sector server can be started as standalone server: ./sector 10.0.0.1. The subsequent servers must connect to any existing servers, e.g.: ./sector 10.0.0.2 10.0.0.1 2237.
If you need to stop Sector on any node, simply terminate the "sector" applications. The rest of the Sector network will detect the leaving of this node.
A central server mode (in addition to the P2P mode) will be available in a later Sector version.
Configuration
The Sector server parameters can be configured by modifying sector.conf file in the ./server directory. Users can change the server port, routing port, and data port. Users can specify a list of IP's from which data can be uploaded to this server. In particular, a directory must be specified to store data and the maximum disk space for storing data and cache. A "TAB" must be in front of of all the parameters.
Note that it is possible to start more than one Sector instance on a single node, as long as you specify different port numbers in the configuration file.
Client Tools
We have already developed downloading and uploading tools for the client side. The downloading tool can connect to any running server and specify a list of files to download. The users much know the exact names of the files. In practice, the file list of a particular data set is usually advertised by the publisher via a well known web site. The uploading process, however, must specify a server to which the client node has write access. The access allow list can be configured via the configuration file as described above.
