Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[David Ranch]

Hello Everyone and Happy Fathers Day,

I'm curious, are any of you aware of any packet radio crawlers.. ideally 
written in Perl or Python?  I've emailed the author of this one which 
looks very nice and maps things out via GoogleMaps:

    http://db0fhn.efi.fh-nuernberg.de/doku.php?id=projects:prcrawler

and we'll see if he/she responds and see if the code is available.


I also found this other website and the author had responded to me
some time ago but it's Windows only:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hammap.de%2Findex.html&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate

Porting this over to Linux would probably be beyond my skills but
if it comes to it, I might try.


Any other thoughts?  I started trying to map this out manually but it 
takes a LOT of effort:

  http://www.trinityos.com/HAM/CentosDigitalModes/misc/145.050-051011.kmz

--David

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[Gordon JC Pearce]

On Sun, 2011-06-19 at 18:09 -0700, David Ranch wrote:
> Hello Everyone and Happy Fathers Day,
> 
> I'm curious, are any of you aware of any packet radio crawlers.. ideally 
> written in Perl or Python?  I've emailed the author of this one which 
> looks very nice and maps things out via GoogleMaps:

What does a packet radio crawler do?  Just map where stations are?

Because of the lack of APRS software for Linux (yes, there's xastir but
it's old and doesn't work) I started this:

http://gordonjcp.github.com/aprsmap/

Feel free to poke at it and let me know how you get on.  Either email me
questions about it, or come and bug me in irc.freenode.net #hamradio.

Gordon MM0YEQ

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[Ray Wells]

Xastir is probably "newer" than almost any other aprs application, being 
that it is constantly being developed and supported by a very active 
mailing list. It works perfectly.

Ray vk2tv


On 20/06/11 16:45, Gordon JC Pearce wrote:
> On Sun, 2011-06-19 at 18:09 -0700, David Ranch wrote:
>> Hello Everyone and Happy Fathers Day,
>>
>> I'm curious, are any of you aware of any packet radio crawlers.. ideally
>> written in Perl or Python?  I've emailed the author of this one which
>> looks very nice and maps things out via GoogleMaps:
>
> What does a packet radio crawler do?  Just map where stations are?
>
> Because of the lack of APRS software for Linux (yes, there's xastir but
> it's old and doesn't work) I started this:
>
> http://gordonjcp.github.com/aprsmap/
>
> Feel free to poke at it and let me know how you get on.  Either email me
> questions about it, or come and bug me in irc.freenode.net #hamradio.
>
> Gordon MM0YEQ
>
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[Curt, WE7U]

On Mon, 20 Jun 2011, Ray Wells wrote:

> Xastir is probably "newer" than almost any other aprs application, being that 
> it is constantly being developed and supported by a very active mailing list. 
> It works perfectly.

Many people see the Xastir versions that come out in official Linux distributions and assume they are the newest available.  Some distributions are a bit slow at including newer packages for apps.  Sometimes two years or more before they get around to it.  From that viewpoint, everything looks pretty old.

Curt...  One of those Xastir guys.

-- 
Curt, WE7U.        http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
APRS Client Capabilities:  http://www.eskimo.com/~archer/aprs_capabilities.html

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[Gordon JC Pearce]

On Mon, 2011-06-20 at 09:05 -0700, Curt, WE7U wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2011, Ray Wells wrote:
> 
> > Xastir is probably "newer" than almost any other aprs application, being that 
> > it is constantly being developed and supported by a very active mailing list. 
> > It works perfectly.
> 
> Many people see the Xastir versions that come out in official Linux distributions and assume they are the newest available.  Some distributions are a bit slow at including newer packages for apps.  Sometimes two years or more before they get around to it.  From that viewpoint, everything looks pretty old.
> 
> Curt...  One of those Xastir guys.
> 

I actually package Xastir for Arch Linux.  I've filed a couple of bugs
and submitted a couple of patches, but never heard anything back.

One of the bugs is particularly nasty and relates to "make install"
refusing to honour an install prefix - which prevents Xastir 2.0.0 from
being packaged without a sneaky wee patch to repair it.  I *did* get a
response to that, namely "it's fixed in SVN".  Great, so roll a 2.0.1
bugfix release, maybe?

I could go into a point-by-point deconstruction of Xastir and explain
all the various things that put me off it.  Many of them are probably
things left over from the very early days of Xastir, when a lot of the
libraries we take for granted weren't available.

It's still the only "current" app I've ever seen that uses Motif,
though ;-)

Gordon MM0YEQ

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[Ray Wells]

On 21/06/11 02:05, Curt, WE7U wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jun 2011, Ray Wells wrote:
>
>> Xastir is probably "newer" than almost any other aprs application,
>> being that it is constantly being developed and supported by a very
>> active mailing list. It works perfectly.
>
> Many people see the Xastir versions that come out in official Linux
> distributions and assume they are the newest available. Some
> distributions are a bit slow at including newer packages for apps.
> Sometimes two years or more before they get around to it. From that
> viewpoint, everything looks pretty old.
>
> Curt... One of those Xastir guys.

One of the good guys!!

Maybe I've been using Debian based systems for too long - about 18 years 
- so I know the packages are often (usually, always?) not the latest.

I do get a bit crabby when someone makes a sweeping statement - it 
doesn't work - without qualifying the statement.

Ray vk2tv

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[Bob Nielsen]

On Jun 20, 2011, at 2:29 PM, Ray Wells wrote:

> On 21/06/11 02:05, Curt, WE7U wrote:
>> On Mon, 20 Jun 2011, Ray Wells wrote:
>> 
>>> Xastir is probably "newer" than almost any other aprs application,
>>> being that it is constantly being developed and supported by a very
>>> active mailing list. It works perfectly.
>> 
>> Many people see the Xastir versions that come out in official Linux
>> distributions and assume they are the newest available. Some
>> distributions are a bit slow at including newer packages for apps.
>> Sometimes two years or more before they get around to it. From that
>> viewpoint, everything looks pretty old.
>> 
>> Curt... One of those Xastir guys.
> 
> One of the good guys!!
> 
> Maybe I've been using Debian based systems for too long - about 18 years - so I know the packages are often (usually, always?) not the latest.
> 
> I do get a bit crabby when someone makes a sweeping statement - it doesn't work - without qualifying the statement.
> 
> Ray vk2tv
> 

We always have CVS/SVN/GIT.  May the Source be with you.

Bob, N7XY

_____
N7XY DX Cluster Node - telnet to n7xy.net, port 7300

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[David Ranch]

I'd like to see this thread not get hijacked over Xastir.  If you have 
issues with Xastir, let's create a new thread but it is under active 
development and works well enough.  See the Xastir mailing list for full 
details, etc.


Back to my question if I may,

> What does a packet radio crawler do?  Just map where stations are?

A crawler would take a seed station [starting point] which can be a 
(packet BBS, TNC mailbox, or node), log into it and get a list of it's 
HEARD stations.  It would then try to connect to each of those second 
level remote stations, and repeat the process.

Ideally, this system would do and record the following in either a 
database, a structured CSV, whatever:

- record the remote Callsign and the path to it

- record quality of the link from where you were connecting from.
I'm not sure if Linux's AX.25 stack can track retries, etc.  At minimum, 
I think the recording of TX vs RX time would help

- link speed of that system (probably will most likely be using 
assumptions which could be misleading)

- There are some systems that also support HF, VHF, UHF, and AMPR ports. 
  These links would also be ideally crawled with specific control

- do duplicate checks for remote stations that can be reached by 
multiple different machines

- maybe record a list of available mailbox messages (to let the crawler 
operator later look and see if there is possibly some location 
information available on the remote machine)

- the crawler would need to support various types of remote packet 
interfaces (AEA, Kantronics, MFJ, TheNode, Linpac, JNOS, FBB, FPAC, etc. 
  Ideally, this would be an extensible system so that people can easily 
add new types of TNCs and their respective prompts.

- Supporting graphical mapping of the nodes would be nice but it's not 
really mandatory as not all of these machines want to be physically found.

- The tool would need to support graceful shutdown but remember where it 
was so the crawl could be resumed later.

- The tool would also need controls on how deep it would crawl (hops per 
node, forbid AMPR crawling, etc).  A quick read on say the "wget" man 
page would give some good ideas.


--David

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[Thomas Osterried]

Hello,

the packet-radio crawler runs on db0fhn (linux) and we use it to have a
daily view of our packet-radio network.

Author is Jens, DL3SJB (@ qsl.net).

vy 73,
	- Thomas  dl9sau

On 2011-06-19 18:09:22 -0700, David Ranch <linux-hams@trinnet.net>
wrote in <4DFE9DC2.60809@trinnet.net>:
> 
> Hello Everyone and Happy Fathers Day,
> 
> I'm curious, are any of you aware of any packet radio crawlers..
> ideally written in Perl or Python?  I've emailed the author of this
> one which looks very nice and maps things out via GoogleMaps:
> 
>    http://db0fhn.efi.fh-nuernberg.de/doku.php?id=projects:prcrawler
> 
> and we'll see if he/she responds and see if the code is available.
> 
> 
> I also found this other website and the author had responded to me
> some time ago but it's Windows only:
> 
> http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hammap.de%2Findex.html&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate
> 
> Porting this over to Linux would probably be beyond my skills but
> if it comes to it, I might try.
> 
> 
> Any other thoughts?  I started trying to map this out manually but
> it takes a LOT of effort:
> 
>  http://www.trinityos.com/HAM/CentosDigitalModes/misc/145.050-051011.kmz
> 
> --David
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[David Ranch]

Hello Thomas,

Jens did reply to my email so I hope I can contribute to that effort vs. 
re-create the wheel where both efforts slowly evolve vs. everyone unites 
and creates a single stronger solution.

We'll see where it goes but thanks for the response!

--David


Thomas Osterried wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> the packet-radio crawler runs on db0fhn (linux) and we use it to have a
> daily view of our packet-radio network.
> 
> Author is Jens, DL3SJB (@ qsl.net).
> 
> vy 73,
> 	- Thomas  dl9sau
> 
> On 2011-06-19 18:09:22 -0700, David Ranch <linux-hams@trinnet.net>
> wrote in <4DFE9DC2.60809@trinnet.net>:
>> Hello Everyone and Happy Fathers Day,
>>
>> I'm curious, are any of you aware of any packet radio crawlers..
>> ideally written in Perl or Python?  I've emailed the author of this
>> one which looks very nice and maps things out via GoogleMaps:
>>
>>    http://db0fhn.efi.fh-nuernberg.de/doku.php?id=projects:prcrawler
>>
>> and we'll see if he/she responds and see if the code is available.
>>
>>
>> I also found this other website and the author had responded to me
>> some time ago but it's Windows only:
>>
>> http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hammap.de%2Findex.html&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=Translate
>>
>> Porting this over to Linux would probably be beyond my skills but
>> if it comes to it, I might try.
>>
>>
>> Any other thoughts?  I started trying to map this out manually but
>> it takes a LOT of effort:
>>
>>  http://www.trinityos.com/HAM/CentosDigitalModes/misc/145.050-051011.kmz
>>
>> --David
>> --
>> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
>> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[Douglas Cole]

what is the name of the application and where can it be downloaded?

Thanks,
Doug N7BFS


On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 12:08 PM, Thomas Osterried
<thomas@x-berg.in-berlin.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> the packet-radio crawler runs on db0fhn (linux) and we use it to have a
> daily view of our packet-radio network.
>
> Author is Jens, DL3SJB (@ qsl.net).
>
> vy 73,
>        - Thomas  dl9sau
>
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Packet Radio Crawlers for Linux?

[David Ranch]

It's evidently a suite of tools for their respective task (crawl, parse, 
etc) but it's not currently posted for external use.  I've asked if they 
would be willing to post now or have others contribute to it to later be 
posted.

We shall see.  From what I can tell, it's a nice solution and I hope 
they will be willing to share it.

--David


> what is the name of the application and where can it be downloaded?
> 
> Thanks,
> Doug N7BFS
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 12:08 PM, Thomas Osterried
> <thomas@x-berg.in-berlin.de> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> the packet-radio crawler runs on db0fhn (linux) and we use it to have a
>> daily view of our packet-radio network.
>>
>> Author is Jens, DL3SJB (@ qsl.net).
>>
>> vy 73,
>>        - Thomas  dl9sau
>>
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hams" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html