ACARS is a complex system which consists of several software mod ules which cooperate. Depending on whether you want to simulate an airplane or a dispatch/ATC station, you need another module.
In most cases, you really want to use the normal ACARS server, reachable at the internet. But in some cases it comes in handy to run a mini server yourselves. This is the program you need for it.Take care that nice features such as METAR and TAF retrieval will not work with the mini server, as it does not at all go out onto the internet for data. It also does not support file uploads and downloads (though this can all be added, if need really be).
Project Progress
2023-11-20 Somewhere in November 2023, Hoppie's ACARS quietly passed the 10 million message milestone! Since its inception in the very early 2000s, tens of thousands of users have together exchanged over ten million messages. Quite something to celebrate.
2023-11-04 A more specific gap detector is now operational. Users that poll more than once per 20 seconds simply get "no new messages for you" returned for 20 seconds. This does not impact anybody really but reduces the system load as no further database searches or traffic is required.
If your software still has issues with this server fix, please contact me and we will attempt to find a workaround.
Many clients have set their poll rate at 5 seconds and this is simply never needed, please SET IT TO A MINUTE.
more info
see all previous progress messages
Installation
Fetch the install file and run it. It
will create a start icon for you.The program comes up with a single window and needs zero configuration. If you want, you can change the TCP port number via File/Setup, but then you must also include this port number in all your ACARS stations.
Typically, you use "localhost" in your stations to point at the ACARS mini server if it runs on the same machine as the stations. You may use "localhost:5000" if you changed the TCP port to 5000. All normal URL syntax is allowed, such as "http://192.168.0.1:5000" or host names if you have them.
By making the port number empty, the default 80 returns.