How-to Feed Plane Plotter Site directly from Raspberry Pi

[abcd567]

This method is applicable to:

• PI24 image
• Raspbian image with dump1090-mutability ver 1.15~dev
• Raspbian image with dump1090-fa
• Piaware SD Card image

CREDITS:
David Taylor

http://www.satsignal.eu/raspberry-pi/dump1090.html

STEP-BY-STEP METHOD

NOTE:
The PI24 image sometimes refuses to install packages, or save edited files, and gives following error:

"read-only file system"

This problem is often solved by rebooting the Pi.

sudo reboot

If rebooting does not solve the problem, then give following command

sudo mount -o remount,rw /

(1) Install packages necessary to build and necessary to fulfil dependencies.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install git
sudo apt-get install librtlsdr-dev

sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev 
sudo apt-get install pkg-config

(2) Build the Planeplotter uploader `ppup1090` from source code of dump1090 (Malcolm Robb)

2.1 - Clone/download the dump1090 source code from Github.

cd ~
git clone git://github.com/MalcolmRobb/dump1090.git

2.2 - The downloaded directory's name is `dump1090`. To make it clear that this is not dump1090 mut or fa, but is PlanePlotter Uploader, change it's name to "ppup"

sudo mv dump1090 ppup

2.3 - Enter folder ppup

cd ppup

2.4 - Obtain Planeplotter Configuration/user key
Go to http://www.coaa.co.uk/rpi-request.htm and enter your details, and your co-ordinates. You will then be e-mailed your own personal copy of a file called `coaa.h`.

2.5 - Add Planeplotter Configuration/user key
In directory `ppup`, you will find dummy file `coaa.h`. Replace it with the `coaa.h` you have received by email. Use any one of following 2 options.

Option-1:
Use FileZilla or WinSCP or similar program to copy file `coaa.h` from your Desktop/Laptop to RPi in folder `ppup`.

The file `coaa.h` cannot be directly copied to folder `ppup` due to permissions problem. To overcome this problem, copy it to folder `/home/pi` which has permission for copying files using SCP or FTP.

Once you have a copy of file `coaa.h` in folder `home/pi`, SSH to Pi, and issue following command to copy it to folder `ppup`:

cd ~/
sudo cp coaa.h  ppup/

Option-2:
Open file coaa.h received by email using MS Word or Wordpad
It's content will be like this:

//coaa.h configuration file for ab cd 2018-07-11 05:58:29
#define USER_REGNO xxxxxxx
#define USER_AUTHCODE xxxxxxxxxx
#define USER_LATITUDE xx.xxx
#define USER_LONGITUDE xx.xxx

open file coaa.h in RPi's folder ppup for editing

cd ~/ppup
sudo nano coaa.h

following will be displayed

// coaa.h configuration file for Plane Plotter Uploader
//
// You MUST apply via the COAA website for your own personal version of this fi$
// Do not disclose the contents of this file to anyone thereafter as it uniquely
// identifies you to the PlanePlotter system
//

Press (Ctrl+k) to delete all these lines and make this file empty.
Copy-Paste all lines from the file coaa.h which you received by email) in the file coaa.h in RPi.
After pasting, it will become like this

//coaa.h configuration file for ab cd 2018-07-11 05:58:29
#define USER_REGNO xxxxxx
#define USER_AUTHCODE xxxxxxxxx
#define USER_LATITUDE xx.xxx
#define USER_LONGITUDE xx.xxx

Save (Ctrl+o) and close (Ctrl+x)

2.6 - Compile the ppup1090 (plane plotter uploader) from source code

NOTE: Only the "ppup1090" component of cloned source code needs to be compiled for uploading to Planeplotter. You don't have to compile dump1090 itself because:
- In PI24 image dump1090-mutability is pre installed.
- In Raspbian image, you have already installed dump1090-mutability ver 1.15~dev or dump1090-fa.
- In Piaware SD card image, dump1090-fa is pre installed.

cd ~/ppup
make -f makeppup1090

2.7 - For Pi24 IMAGE ONLY
Open browser and go to settings page:

IP-OF-PI:8754/settings.html

In this page in field "Process Arguments" add following, if already not there:

[COLOR="#FF0000"] --net [/COLOR]

Click Save button, then Restart button. Both these buttons are at bottom-right corner of settings page.

2.8 - TEST

cd ~/ppup
./ppup1090

The above command generates following output if installation is working OK.

ppup-test.png


(3) Make ppup1090 to auto-start at boot

3.1 - Create a blank file ppup-maint.sh

cd ppup
sudo touch ppup-maint.sh
sudo chmod +x ppup-maint.sh
sudo nano ppup-maint.sh

3.2 - Copy-paste this code
Then Save (Ctrl+o) and Close (Ctrl+x)

#! /bin/sh
while true
  do
    sleep 30
    /home/pi/ppup/./ppup1090  > /tmp/ppup.log 2>&1
  done

NOTE:
The log file /tmp/ppup.log grows in size very fast.
After initial testing, you should stop logging by deleting above code from file ppup-maint.sh, and in it's place copy-pasting following code

! /bin/sh
while true
  do
    sleep 30
    /home/pi/ppup/./ppup1090  --quiet
  done

Save (Ctrl+o) and Close (Ctrl+x)

3.3 - Open file rc.local to edit

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

In the file opened, copy-paste following line just above last line (i.e. above exit 0 )

/home/pi/ppup/ppup-maint.sh &

Save (Ctrl+o) and Close (Ctrl+x)

Now Reboot to start the system

sudo reboot

(4) CHECKS

4.1 - Check log

cat /tmp/ppup.log

ppup-log.png


4.2 - Check ppup1090 is running

top

ppup-top.png