For a few days the Send Commands option in my FlightAware screen has been broken – the Command Sent message no longer appears and no command is sent. When I update the log I don’t see any indication that a command has been received, it just continues to show the usual Messages received/Messages sent data. Otherwise, the program seems to be working normally. I’ve tried reburning the image to a micro SD card but that didn’t resolve the problem. This leaves me no way to make an orderly shut down if I need to power off the Pi 2. I hope someone has some advice on this issue.
Thanks,
Alan, ahr10023 (ahr10023@gmail.com)
Are you talking about a shutdown from a remote location, or what exactly? The first problem here seems to be that you’d ever depend on FlightAware’s site as your method of shutting down your Pi in the first place. Their options of remotely sending commands is handy and all, but I’ve never even thought about actually using it. Using a mouse to admin a Pi through a remote web site isn’t exactly a great option. 
Not sure why you wouldn’t just SSH in to the Pi to shut it down? That can be done from the local network or through the outside internet, and is the commonly accepted way of accessing a headless Linux/BSD/Unix box. I SSH in to one of my Pi feeders from my phone all the time… Nothing to it.
Matt
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Hi, Thanks for your reply. By “remote” I mean using the PiAware’s Send Commands option on a Windows computer which is on the same local network as the Pi running the PiAware image. It’s a convenient way of controlling the Pi. It used to work fine and I’m trying to figure out why it’s stopped working. I can always install Microsoft Remote Desktop on the Pi as I did before I reburned the image or VNC and use the VNC Viewer app to control the Pi as I do with the Pi’s I use for ham radio operation but, as I said, the built in Commands option is convenient and it’s suddenly not working has me puzzled. Otherwise, all communication between the PiAware Windows desktop and the Pi itself seem normal.
Thanks,
Alan, ahr10023
You are making this 10x more difficult than it needs to be, bud. Just install the Putty SSH client on your Windows machine and connect to the Pi through SSH like 99.5% of the world. You can easily type a shutdown command at the prompt and accomplish the same thing.
Based on everything you just wrote, I’m going to assume that you’re not terribly familiar with using a Linux-based operating system from the command line? I’m pretty sure that this is the first time I’ve seen someone mention using Microsoft RDC or VNC to access a Pi for trivial command line work.
What is this “PiAware Windows desktop” that you mentioned?
Matt
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There is a problem on our side that we’re working on, thanks.
Fixed.
Thanks, the Command option works fine now.
Microsoft Remote Desktop, BTW, is a neat, simple, and headless way of displaying a Pi GUI screen on a Windows machine, or with the iPhone or iPad app, with just a few lines added to the Pi OS and of course the program download. And from the GUI screen you can always go to terminal mode for the command line. By the PiAware Windows desktop screen I simply mean the browser screen using Chrome for example, which displays when going to My FlightAware/My ADS-B.
Thanks again for your help.
Alan, ahr10023
I’m aware of how it works, I just don’t know anyone that actually uses the GUI on their Pi - especially a Pi that is running as a dedicated ADS-B server. I’ve got full-blown computers for such things…and Android devices. No fruit products here.
Oh, ok. You meant the FlightAware web site. Threw me off when you called is a ‘PiAware Windows desktop screen’ earlier.
Either way, it appears that your mouse click shutdown option is working again. Carry on.
Matt
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That remote command deal is very nice for the sites where the Pi is behind a WISP and getting a port forward requires cooperation and willingness from the WISP. Since the constant TLS connection to FA is made from the remote end, this is an awesome feature which means I don’t have to make a VPN tunnel just to talk to the Pi.
Makes perfect sense for the few tasks FlightAware provides access to, although I do like tunnels as I’ve never been a fan of having a box located at a remote location that I can’t gain command line access to whenever I may need to. After seeing how LiveATC.Net is using Hamachi tunnels to handle remote access to the countless Pi units they’ve got running audio feeds around the world, I was sold.
Matt
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