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HBLink3 Installation

Having done this in times past using Vultr as the server, and the original HBLink years ago, I figured a new good ole college try with HBLink3 would be interesting. Seeing how everyone is now moving things over to Docker, and I absolutely hate Docker (again, save the comments for another time please), I stumbled across an installation guide/script on GitHub from K7ILO and figured I'd use this. Of course, right off the bat I had screwed up: I spun up a Debian 12 LXC, whereas his repository states 10 or 11 work - so I figured eff it, lets see what happens. Running the install script, it borked saying OS not supported. So, I trashed the LXC and redid it with Debian 11. 

  • Debian 11
  • Disk 10G
  • CPU 2
  • RAM 2G

Something else to note, The instructions from the repo talk about disabling the firewall and all that. As this is simply a test environment, I have no firewall implemented on my LXC (Yes, I do have one for the PVE, calm down). I skipped including that information on this as it didn't pertain to me. Further, after the installation, the developer provides info on establishing a FW, so if you are interested in that, I suggest you read the how-to on the repo page.

Update Your Distro

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Install GIT

apt install git -y

Clone It, Run It

The following commands are run one by one - I've updated my stuff below as caps matter and the guide posted by the developer caused issues (files have Caps, his commands didn't and my server didn't like that)

cd /opt
# Run These One By One!
git clone https://github.com/k7ilo/HBLink3_Install.git
#
cd /opt/HBLink3_Install
# cAPS MATTER! I've updated my stuff here to reflect this
chmod +x HBLink3_install.sh
#
./HBLink3_install.sh

After the script executes (it will download and install all the dependencies, etc. Then it will install HBLink3 itself. You should get a message in your console that reads something like this:

All finished .... 

-------------------------------------------------------------------
 If using a firewall configuration (Highly recommended), 
 open the needed network port #'s listed below .... 
 A script is OTW to install and setup UFW with these parameters. 
 80/tcp 
 443/tcp 
 4321/tcp 
 9000/tcp 
 62030-62050/udp 
 Current SSH port/tcp 
-------------------------------------------------------------------


 Now check to see if the parrot service is running by: systemctl status parrot 
 Manually start and test hblink by typing: python3 /opt/hblink3/bridge.py 
 The installed configuration has 1 working Talk Group (TG11) and a working PARROT (Echotest, TG 9999) service 
 After confirming a good test, stop the test (control c) and start the hblink service: systemctl start hblink 
 or just reboot since PARROT and HBlink3 were enabled to start on system boot earlier. 
 73 de K7ILO

So that's that. Quite simple, and I wish to give my thanks to the developer for creating this - much appreciated!

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