HAMcast provides a system architecture for a universal multicast service. The concept combines an abstract naming scheme (based on URIs), a common API and a system-centric service-middleware, as well as gateways (IMGs) to cross technological and administrative network borders. The HAMcast network stack is developed at the INET research group, HAW Hamburg. The current software release contains the multicast API (C++ & JAVA libraries) for group application development, the middleware as a userspace systemservice, and several multicast-technology modules. An additional tool set including a hybrid tree monitoring is supplied, as well.

git clone https://github.com/HAMcast/HAMcast.git
cd HAMcast

• Homepage: http://www.realmv6.org/hamcast.html
• Developer Page: http://hamcast.realmv6.org/developers
• Mailing List: hamcast-developers@googlegroups.com.

If you use HAMcast in a scientific context, please use the following citation.

Release directory structure:

hamcast_core/
    -docs               -- documentation
    -libhamcast         -- HAMcast C++ API library
    -middleware         -- HAMcast middleware
    +modules/           -- all multicast technology modules
        -bidirsam       -- BIDIR-SAM ALM
        -ipm            -- IP(v4/v6) multicast
        -loopback       -- dummy module with local loop
        -scribe         -- Scribe ALM
        -void           -- dummy module dropping all data
    +programs/          -- examples software tools
        -hc_chat        -- simple chat client
        -hc_status      -- show state or test of the middleware
        -img            -- a simple IMG daemon
        -monitoring     -- frameworking to monitor hybrid multicast networks
    +testing/           -- performance tests
        -test_receive_performance
        -test_send_performance
    +utils/             -- utils and shared libs
        -chimera        -- pastry-based p2p unicast overlay network

To build and run HAMcast certain tools and libraries must be available.

• General dependencies:

  • C/C++ Compiler (gcc, g++, clang)
  • C/C++ standard Libraries
  • cmake tool chain (v2.6 or higher)
  • make
  • Boost Developers Libraries (v1.42 or higher) Ubuntu shortcut: sudo apt-get install build-essential libboost-all-dev cmake

• IP module dependencies:

  • PCAP Developers Library (optional, for service discovery) Ubuntu shortcut: sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev

• BIDIR-SAM + Scribe module dependencies:

  • OpenSSL Developers Library Ubuntu shortcut: sudo apt-get install libssl-dev

For MacOS-X please check The MacPorts Project http://www.macports.org/, if any library or tool is missing in the standard repositories. The Boost Library (source code) is also available on http://www.boost.org/.

Libhamcast is the core library of the HAMcast prototype and must be build first. Follow these steps to compile libhamcast:

- change to folder libhamcast/, this is where CMakeLists.txt lies
- create a build folder, e.g. libhamcast/build
- change to build folder and run:
    cmake ../
- If no errors occure cmake creates a Makefile, now run in build folder:
    make
- Compiled library is stored in build folder.
- Install library
    make install

Note: you may copy libhamcast.so files to source folder, then you only have to specify HAMCAST_INCLUDE_PATH for other builds that depend on libhamcast and its header files (see below).

All other components of the HAMcast prototype as well as all programs depend on libhamcast, its header files and optional libraries. For further information have a look at the README file in the corresponding source folder. The general build steps are as follows:

- change to <source-dir>/, this is where CMakeLists.txt lies
- create a build folder, e.g. <source-dir>/build
- change to build folder
- if HAMcast library and header are installed to standard folders
  (/usr/lib/, /usr/include), run:
    cmake ../
- otherwise specify header and library location as follows:
    cmake -DHAMCAST_INCLUDE_PATH=<path-to-headers> \
          -DHAMCAST_LIBRARY_PATH=<path-to-libhamcast> ../

- NOTE: <path-to-headers> must point to directory where
  hamcast/hamcast.hpp lies.
- If no errors occure cmake creates a Makefile, now run in build folder:
    make
- Compiled binary or library are stored in build folder

To run the HAMcast middleware you first need to create a valid configuration file named 'middleware.ini'. There is an example file 'middleware/middleware.ini.example', copy/rename it to 'bin/middleware.ini'. Then uncomment the lines for a technology module you want to use by removing preceding ';'. For Linux use the *.so files, and *.dylib for MacOS respectively. You also have to uncomment corresponding section name given in '[]' otherwise the middleware is unable to parse the configuration.

Afterwards, you can start the middleware either by typing './middleware' in 'hamcast_core/bin' folder or run the shell script 'run_hamcast.sh' in 'hamcast_core/'.