PiAware 1.19-1 released

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

We’ve released PiAware 1.19-1 with the following improvements:

  • New compression techniques reduce upstream bandwidth by 2/3rds without filtering any additional messages.

  • Disconnect from the server after many unrecognized server messages.

  • Report full version when running piaware -v to get version number.

  • Remove raspi-copies-and-fills from dependencies. This makes the piaware Debian package compatible with more systems not based on Raspberry Pi.

The big improvement is the 2/3rds reduction in upstream bandwidth. Although PiAware already went to considerable lengths to reduce the upstream bandwidth used (and often users have considerably less upstream bandwidth than downstream), encoding common fields such as altitude, latitude, longitude, groundspeed, heading and clock in binary and abbreviating and consolidating common field names cuts upstream bandwidth requirements by 3:1. The compression encoding is versioned so some additional compression may be squeezed in in the future.

We’ve upgraded several test units successfully so we think 1.19-1 is solid but you might want to consider it to be slightly beta.

For command line updates / package users:



wget http://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/files/piaware_1.19-1_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i piaware_1.19-1_armhf.deb
sudo apt-get install -fy
sudo /etc/init.d/piaware restart

An SD card will be available shortly. SD card users running 1.17 or above who have not disabled automatic upgrades will be upgraded to 1.19-1 automatically.

2

Possible it broke the backend collector?

3

Something has the Pi sites offline!

4

An unrelated problem that has been solved but not quite resolved… should be pretty soon. Thanks for the report. You too, eaglemark!

5

1.19-1 sounds good – once the other logjam clears!

bob k6rtm

6

Is the flightaware github repo up to date?

Because the code there doesn’t appear to actually compress data forwarded from the FATSV client, it passes it through unmodified. Only messages generated by piaware itself are compressed.

edit:

The github code does appear to be the same as what’s in the released package.
The call path I’m talking about is: faup1090_data_available → send_if_logged_in → send_line → adept send → puts
The compressing call path is via adept send_array → compress_array → send → puts

With -showTraffic I see e.g. log messages being compressed, but not the regular aircraft data lines.

edit2: It may not be wise to apply compression to the handshake message that declares the compression version!

7

Looks like its back.

Thanks Karl and crew.

8

How long before we are automatically upgraded? I built a new setup on Christmas day w/ 1.18. I have it set on my account to allow for automatic updates but it is still showing 1.18 on the website. Sorry for the newb question, I do IT and am very familiar with computers, etc., but Raspberry Pi & Linux, etc., are totally new for me.

Thx!

9

Thanks to Karl and crew!

Updated as per Karl’s instructions and so far no issue!

As per command “cat /tmp/piaware.out”:
12/30/2014 16:54:35 piaware version 1.19 is running, process ID 15543

Cheers Steen

10

Hi, Doug. I should have addressed that question in the announcement. We will start the automated updates today.

11

Ugh! You’re right, and you’re right. All the test cases work splendidly. Sigh. 1.19-2 coming soon to a site near you.

12

Sorry! About half my job involves breaking software, sometimes that leaks into my spare time :wink:

13

LOL, yeah, my job doesn’t involve breaking software but I manage to do it a lot anyway. :slight_smile: Anyway, thanks again for your attention and your help, obj.

14

1.19-3 is now current.

15

Thanks Karl! Any ports I have to open on my firewall for the auto update?

Edit: I just downloaded 1.19-3 and manually updated the SD card. :smiley: