thx benalexau.. i was very well aware of ibc as i am using it for years, just for starting up the TWS on windows and linux..
as the "normal" IBCAlpha release also manages the GUI part i thought your package does the same. which it obviously doesnt as it "only" manages the headless part (which is great nonetheless, but just provides no use for my use case)
so, i appreciate the verbose response but will use the "normal way" of using IBC via cronjob to provide the functionality i would need.
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benalexau commented on 2020-05-16 02:20
This package is intended to assist users in operating an IB API socket interface for their automated trading systems. Stepping back a little, there are 3 main ways that an Arch Linux user can operate an IB API socket interface:
Install Trader Workstation, as provided by IB. The issues with this include Trader Workstation is a Java application that requires a desktop environment (making it difficult to deploy on servers, virtual machines, containers etc), there is no way to script configure important parameters such as the IB API socket to bind, no way to automate login, and there is no Arch Linux package.
Install the AUR ib-tws package. This packages Trader Workstation as a proper Arch Linux package (with associated pacman-based file tracking, easy discovery and deployment of new package versions etc) but does not solve any of the other issues mentioned earlier.
Install the AUR ibc package. This solves all the remaining issues listed in point 1, as it will provide a virtual framebuffer (so you have a headless execution environment), it will configure important parameters (such as the socket address), and it will automate login.
As mentioned earlier, this package is aimed at those needing a headless IB API socket interface for their automated trading systems to connect to. As such it depends on packages that enable a virtual framebuffer and provides Systemd configuration files to start IB Gateway (rather than Trader Workstation). IB Gateway is another "flavour" of Trader Workstation. Both are distributed by IB in the same package as Trader Workstation, and accordingly it is installed by the same AUR package, ib-tws. Please note the ibc AUR package depends on the ib-tws AUR package and will need to be installed for ibc to operate.
Given the specific intent of this ibc AUR package is for continuous unattended operation of IB API endpoints through IB Gateway, no attempt is made to provide IBC capabilities for Trader Workstation itself. As such this package does not ship any of the usual IBC startup scripts, as all the process management is encapsulated by the Systemd configuration files that this AUR package ships instead.
Using this package is quite simple. Once installed you make a new configuration file in /etc/ibc. These are the standard IBC INI files. Then you "systemctl start edemo@ibc.service" (replacing edemo with whatever INI profile name you made; the edemo ships with the IBC AUR package). You can verify it worked with "systemctl status edemo@ibc.service" and it will display standard IBC messages about dialogs being detected, opened, activated etc. As is the usual case, "systemctl enable edemo@ibc.service" will enable the service on startup.
If you have questions about this AUR package please use the IBC mailing list at https://groups.io/g/ibcalpha, as it offers a searchable archive for others and the IBC project lead (Richard King) is also active there and extremely helpful.