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
2023-02-19 I'm tracing a probable bug in an ATC program used by IVAO (only). It seems to attach random binary garbage to CPDLC messages, which often but not always leads to the ACARS server simply discarding the message. It is not just accented letters or so, it really is a couple of dozen binary bytes that look like random memory, previously used to contain various other things such as HTML. As in, a few random stack frames until there was a zero. If anybody can suggest which program this may be and who is its developer then we may be on our way to fix it.
2023-01-28 As most airplane or controller software for Hoppie's ACARS is provided by third parties, I started a list of client software. Please help me out by submitting known client programs to my e-mail address.
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.