How to upgrade Piaware to 8.2

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

Is there a manual way to update the image of piaware using SSH? I cannot get the "Upgrade and Restart’ command to work. Nothings happens. I’m stuck on v 6.1 and even the download available is 5.0!
What are Linux commands to upgrade and update?

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2

 

The best way is to re-image your microSD card with latest (currently ver 8.2) image

Download PiAware Image ver 8.2 by clicking following link:
https://piaware.flightcdn.com/piaware-sd-card-8.2.img.zip

Guides here:

(1) OFFICIAL FLIGHTAWARE GUIDE:
https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/build/

 

(2) FORUM GUIDE:
How to Install and Configure Piaware 5.0 SD card image - Quickstart Guide

NOTE: Do NOT download piaware image from link in forum guide. It is for old version 5.0. Download piaware image ver 8.2 from the link I have given above OR from the download link on Official Flightaware Guide.

 

 

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3

Thanks very much. I’ll try it out.

4

The bad part of reimaging the SD card, is then you have to reinstall all your other feeders and reconfigure them, There is no way to update without a new .img?

5

That would depend on the version of the operating system you are running. If you are already on Bullseye you could do a sudo apt update and a sudo apt upgrade in order to get to the latest version of the piaware package. If you are running older version then you would first have to update the OS and then start updating all the packages and you might break some dependency in the image.

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6

Thanks I think iam on jessie

7

copying piaware-config file from your existing setup makes updating from a clean image a lot easier
it contains your feeder id, wifi, additional receivers and gain settings, and anything else you’ve added or tweaked

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If you are on Jessie you are 2 versions behind and then I would recommend to start with a new image. Back-up your settings for the feeders first and the burn the new image on a spare card. Boot up, import your settings and then add the other feeders packages. Then import your settings again and you are good to go. Manual upgrading 2 versions wil take you multiple hours, creating the new image and other feeders might be done in 30 minutes depending on the complexity for you as a user

9

Quote from the thread Re-imaging Made Easy:

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10

I don’t like the reimage path since I have many customizations on my PiAware that would be lost, for example cron jobs to make daily backups of everything and uploading them to a ftp server.

11

I always reimage. I also have many customizations and other apps on the same RPi. I backup all customizations and files such as crontab as an easy way to recover an SD for whatever reason.

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@abcd567 are there any separate guidelines for those of us running piaware alongside fr24feed?

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Which image you are using?

 

14

As per your instructions here - Alternatives to RPi? - #4 by abcd567

15

Basicakly it is same as given in post you have linked, but as Flightradar24 has recently upgraded version of their feeder from 1.0.25-3 to 1.0.34-0, I have posted instruction for FR24 new version here:

https://discussions.flightaware.com/t/alternatives-to-rpi/85567/11

 

16

Hi all, my Pi4 is in a difficult to physically access location. I am running Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) and 7.2.

Which gear wheel cog upgrade options, and in what order, should I choose for update to 8.2 please?

Thanks, G

17

Thanks @abcd567 - so it’s a reinstall, rather than an upgrade?

18

Reinstall is when you first completely remove existing version, then install new version.

What I have suggested are following two steps:

  1. download package of latest version 1.0.34-0
  2. install ver 1.0.34-0 over ver 1.0.25-3.

These are exactly the two steps performed by an “upgrade” command if the package was available through apt.

19

Ah OK, I see the distinction now. Thanks for your continued help!

20

The official FA answer is here - “Upgrade and restart PiAware”. The decision if you want to do so remotely with no ready physical access to the Pi is your call.

One thing to keep in the back of your mind is that Buster goes EOL in June 2024 so you will not be able to upgrade Piaware after that. At some point you will want to think on how/when you will upgrade the OS. Bullseye is available now. Not sure when FA plans to have Bookworm ready - maybe later this year?

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