How to set up the SARTrack Database system

How it fits together

• The Internet Server keeps your organisation's data on the internet. SARTrack Terminals at home or in the office, the SARTrack web site and the SARTrack App connect to it.
• A Local Database Server runs on one laptop in the field (and, recommended, at a permanent base). All SARTrack laptops and phones on the local network or WiFi connect to it, with or without internet.
• When there is internet, even now and then, the Local Server and the Internet Server synchronise in the background, so everyone sees the same Operation.

The Internet Server

Your organisation needs an Internet Server. There are three ways:

New Zealand

New Zealand Search and Rescue groups use the New Zealand Server, dtb-nz.sartrack.nz. E-mail info@sartrack.nz with your organisation's name: you get your GroupID and a callsign range, and a first Supervisor login.

Elsewhere in the world

Use the SARTrack Server in Europe, dtb-eu.sartrack.net (in Germany, for its strong privacy laws). A shared Server costs far less than one of your own. Ask us for the pricing; then e-mail info@sartrack.nz the name of your organisation, the GroupID you would like, and the name and e-mail address of your first Supervisor.

Your own Internet Server

See Your own Internet Server below. Set it up before anything else.

The GroupID is your organisation's number, between 100 and 25000 (5000 to 7000 are for New Zealand). Every SARTrack computer of your organisation must use the same GroupID.

A Local Database Server

Install it on one laptop for the field, and (recommended) one at your permanent base. It can run on a laptop that also runs SARTrack, but that laptop must be the first one switched on, and must never be switched off during an Operation.

1. Download and install the SARTrack Database Server.
2. Start it. At the first start its Setup window opens.
3. This Server: give it a unique callsign and SSID. No two SARTrack computers, Servers or Terminals, may ever have the same callsign and SSID (for example ABCDE-1 for the Server, ABCDE-2, ABCDE-3 ... for the laptops).
4. Passwords: set the "ServerAdmin" password. You need it for the first login.
5. Starting and updates: tick Start automatically (at the Windows login) and Run in the background (tray icon).
6. Server type and link: leave This is the Internet Master Server unticked: only an Internet Server has it. The link to your Internet Server comes later (Linking the Servers).

The Server runs as a normal Windows program: it starts when someone logs in to Windows, and stops at a Windows log-out. The SARTrack Server Monitor keeps an eye on it and restarts it if needed.

Logins

Everyone logs in with their own login. A Supervisor manages the logins in SARTrack's Database Users window (Main Menu: DTB Access). Every login belongs to a person in SARTrack's Personnel: the e-mail address is required, and SARTrack finds the person by it, or makes them a new person.

• The first login on a new Local Server: log in with the login name ServerAdmin and the password you set in its Setup. Then make your own Supervisor login in Database Users, and use that from then on.
• App users: SARTrack e-mails them an invitation with a one-time code (Personnel window, or Database Users). See the Android App page.
• The web site: the same logins work on the SARTrack web site (Read-only and up). Supervisors log in there with their password and a code from the SARTrack App.
• The logins are synchronised between the Local Server and the Internet Server: set them up once.

Linking the Local Server to the Internet Server

The Local Server synchronises the Operation with your Internet Server whenever it has internet, also over a satellite or mobile link that comes and goes. It logs in to the Internet Server with a special login of the access level Database Server, never with a person's login.

1. In SARTrack, connect to your Internet Server (dtb-nz.sartrack.nz, dtb-eu.sartrack.net or your own) with your Supervisor login. Check the GroupID.
2. In Database Users, click New login: a login name for your Local Server, a password, and the access level Database Server. (Two Local Servers, at the base and in the field, may each have their own, or share one.)
3. On the Local Server, open its Setup, Remote Server Setup...: enter the name of your Internet Server, and that same login and password.
4. Restart the Local Server. It now links up with the Internet Server by itself whenever there is internet.

Start an Operation on one Server. If two Servers each have a different Operation with the same name, SARTrack notices it and holds that Operation's synchronisation until a Supervisor decides: the same Operation (merge), or not (keep them apart).

The SARTrack Terminals

1. Install the SARTrack Terminal on every laptop. All must run the same, latest version, with the same GroupID.
2. In Connections, Database: choose the Database Server (or Automatic, which finds the Local Server on the local network or WiFi), and Connect.
3. Log in with your own login. SARTrack loads the Operation; a Supervisor can start a new Operation.

• A Terminal on the same laptop as the Local Server always connects to that Server (localhost). To connect it to another Server, shut the local one down first.
• Connect only one Terminal to the APRS-IS network, or to a radio or satellite tracking feed: what it receives goes to every connected Terminal through the Server.
• The organisation's e-mail is checked by the Server: see the SARTrack E-mail system (PDF).

Advanced: your own Internet Server

Use a real VPS (a Virtual Private Server, leased from a hosting company), never a PC at home or in an office on an ordinary internet connection: for real Operations it must always be there. A small Windows Server VPS is enough. There can be only one Internet Server for your organisation.

1. Install the SARTrack Database Server as for a Local Server, but tick This is the Internet Master Server in its Setup. This changes how the Server works with everything that connects to it.
2. Allow the SARTrack Server through the Windows firewall, and open the ports below.
3. Log in from SARTrack with ServerAdmin (check the GroupID first), make your own Supervisor login, the other logins, and the Database Server logins for your Local Servers.
4. For the SARTrack web site and the App on it, the Server needs a Server Licence from SARTrack (Setup, Group web site): contact us.

Going out, the Server sends e-mail (SMTP, normally port 587) and checks the organisation's e-mail (IMAP, port 993); the Server Monitor downloads updates (FTP, port 21).

Problems?

Please report every problem, in detail. In SARTrack: click the bottom button of the Main Menu (the About box), then Debug window, and send a bug report: it includes the debug file. Sometimes the debug files of all the computers involved are needed, the Server's too, to compare them. Or e-mail support@sartrack.nz.