Remote Device Control
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Remote Device Control

KStars provides a simple yet powerful layer for remote device control. A detailed description of the layer is described in the INDI white paper.

You need to configure both the server and client machines for remote control:

  1. Server: To prepare a device for remote control, follow the same steps in the local/server setup. When you start a device service in the Device Manager, a port number is displayed under the Listening port column. In addition to the port number, you also need the hostname or IP address of your server.

  2. Client: Select the Device Manager from the Device menu and click on the Client tab. You can add, modify, or delete hosts under the Client tab. Add a host by clicking on the Add button. Enter the hostname/IP address of the server in the Host field, and enter the port number obtained from the server machine in step 1.



After you add a host, right click on the host to Connect or Disconnect. If a connection is established, you can control the telescope from the Sky map or INDI Control Panel exactly as described in the local/server section. It is as easy at that.

Running an INDI server from the command line

While KStars allows you to easily deploy an INDI server; you can launch an INDI server from the command line.

Since INDI is an independent backend component, you can run an INDI server on a host without KStars. INDI can be compiled separately to run on remote hosts. Furthermore, device drivers log messages to stderr and that can be helpful in a debugging situation. The syntax for INDI server is as following:

$ indiserver [options] [driver ...]

Options:

-p p : alternate IP port, default 7624

-r n : max restart attempts, default 2

-v : more verbose to stderr

For example, if you want to start an INDI server running an LX200 GPS driver and listening to connections on port 8000, you would run the following command:

$ indiserver -p 8000 lx200gps

Secure Remote Operation

Suppose we want to run an indiserver with INDI drivers on a remote host, remote_host, and connect them to KStars running on the local machine.

From the local machine log onto the remote host, remote_host, by typing:

$ ssh -L local_port:remote_host:remote_port

This binds the local_port on the local machine to the remote_port on the remote_host. After logging in, run indiserver on the remote host:

$ indiserver -p remote_port [driver...]

Back on the local machine, start KStars then open the Device Manager and add a host under the Client tab. The host should be the local host (usually 127.0.0.1) and the port number should be the local_port used in the steps above. Right-click on the host and select Connect from the popup menu. KStars will connect to the remote INDI server securely. The host information will be saved for future sessions.

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