Tracing feeder failure

FlightAware ADS-B Flight Tracking
1

have RTL SDR on RPi with piaware since about 1 year, working well, no real issues

yesterday received a fail email from fr24 around 7pm local time, though, I didn’t notice it till around midnight, tried to ping rpi, it failed
went to look at rpi (hmm, should’ve taken screen and keyboard, didn’t), rpi ‘looked OK’, LAN leds blinking etc.
as it was getting late, unplugged RPI’s PoE LAN cable, re plugged, now, can ping, can ssh, all good

looking at logs can see this:

Sep 29 17:54:31 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server
0.6kB/s UDP to server
Sep 29 17:54:31 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Results: 19.7 positions/minute
Sep 29 17:54:31 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Aircraft: 1 of 3 Mode S, 14 of 18 ADS-B used
Sep 29 17:59:19 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: 304090 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (974 in last 5m); 302816 msgs sent to FlightAware
Sep 29 18:04:19 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: 305094 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (1004 in last 5m); 303820 msgs sent to FlightAware
Sep 29 18:09:19 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: 306023 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (929 in last 5m); 304749 msgs sent to FlightAware
Sep 29 18:09:32 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Receiver status: connected
Sep 29 18:09:32 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Server status: synchronized with 170 nearby receivers
Sep 29 18:09:32 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Receiver: 217.5 msg/s received 52.5 msg/s processed
(24%)
Sep 29 18:09:32 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Server: 0.0 kB/s from server 0.0kB/s TCP to server
0.7kB/s UDP to server
Sep 29 18:09:32 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Results: 18.3 positions/minute
Sep 29 18:09:32 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Aircraft: 7 of 9 Mode S, 13 of 16 ADS-B used
Sep 29 18:14:19 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: 307003 msgs recv’d from dump1090-fa (980 in last 5m); 305729 msgs sent to FlightAware
Sep 29 18:16:14 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: timed out waiting for alive message from FlightAware, reconnecting…
Sep 29 18:16:14 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: multilateration data no longer required, disabling mlat client
Sep 29 18:16:15 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: fa-mlat-client exited normally
Sep 29 18:16:15 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: reconnecting in 4 seconds…
Sep 29 18:16:15 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Disconnecting from localhost:30005: Lost connection to multilateration server, no need for input data
Sep 29 18:16:15 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: mlat-client(2662060): Exiting on connection loss
Sep 29 18:16:19 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: Connecting to FlightAware adept server at piaware.flightaware.com/1200
Sep 29 18:16:24 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: Connection to adept server at piaware.flightaware.com/1200 failed: couldn’t open
socket: network is unreachable
Sep 29 18:16:24 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: reconnecting in 6 seconds…
Sep 29 18:16:30 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: Connecting to FlightAware adept server at piaware.flightaware.com/1200
Sep 29 18:16:35 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: Connection to adept server at piaware.flightaware.com/1200 failed: couldn’t open
socket: network is unreachable
Sep 29 18:16:35 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: reconnecting in 6 seconds…
Sep 29 18:16:41 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: Connecting to FlightAware adept server at 206.253.80.199/1200
Sep 29 18:16:41 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: Connection to adept server at 206.253.80.199/1200 failed: couldn’t open socket: network is unreachable
Sep 29 18:16:41 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: reconnecting in 5 seconds…
Sep 29 18:16:46 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: Connecting to FlightAware adept server at 206.253.84.196/1200
Sep 29 18:16:46 rpi2 piaware[2651843]: Connection to adept server at 206.253.84.196/1200 failed: couldn’t open socket: n

“Our monitoring shows that your feed T-YSSY391 has been offline since 2024-09-29 08:15:15 UTC.”

looking at graphs:
power off/on around midnight

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image1258×327 24.2 KB

black line failed around 18: as per fr24 email
image

I guess I’m asking can I reach any conclusion what failed ? did my networking fail ? hence no ping/failed feed ?
in the interest of full disclosure, I have pi-hole on another rpi as dns server - and, I pulled the other rpi down to upgrade it’s os, that rpi was down for several hours - though, nothing else complained pihole was not present

anyhow, if anyone can suggest something, I’m happy to learn

2

My guess would be a routing error due to the fact that the pi hole wasn’t available?
Does the pi hole act as a gateway?

3

no, it’s only for dns
router is 192.168.1.254
rpi1 is pi.hole and wireguard
rpi2 is flightaware
rpi2 also used to have pi.hole running as a second dns, though, recently uninstalled and installed AdGuard, was curious to see ‘how it works’

I took down rpi1 to install/migrate to Debian 12 - but then got distracted…
but, verything seemed OK, PC, phone, etc,
though, the time frame matches

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Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
default 192.168.1.254 0.0.0.0 UG 202 0 0 eth0
192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 202 0 0 eth0

4

Does Wireguard have to be on a dedicated Pi?

I’m running PiAware on a Pi 3.
I was using a router that had WireGuard built in, but my new router doesn’t have that.
From work, various VPNs are blocked, but WireGuard works.

Can I install WireGuard server on my FlightAware Pi 3?

5

I would imagine so, that’s what I would do.
I had two rpi4 here, the one on my desk has 8gb, so that’s the one I choose. I’ve used a write up from a rpi web, don’t recall which one.

oops, actually, I have it on both RPI units…

voyteke@rpi2:~ $ pivpn
::: Control all PiVPN specific functions!
:::
::: Usage: pivpn [option]
:::
::: Commands:
::: -a, add Create a client conf profile
::: -c, clients List any connected clients to the server
::: -d, debug Start a debugging session if having trouble
::: -l, list List all clients
::: -qr, qrcode Show the qrcode of a client for use with the mobile app
::: -r, remove Remove a client
::: -off, off Disable a client
::: -on, on Enable a client
::: -h, help Show this help dialog
::: -u, uninstall Uninstall pivpn from your system!
::: -up, update Updates PiVPN Scripts
::: -bk, backup Backup VPN configs and user profiles

curl -L https://install.pivpn.io | bash

https://pivpn.io

PiVPN
The simplest way to setup and manage a VPN, designed for Raspberry Pi™.

::: INSTALLATION :::
curl -L https://install.pivpn.io | bash

::: Test (unstable) Branch :::
curl -L https://test.pivpn.io | TESTING= bash

SIMPLE ::: Yes, that’s it! It is almost that simple.
To elaborate a little more, you will want to install Raspberry Pi OS Lite on a Raspberry pi, we strongly recommend using the latest Raspberry Pi OS Lite image but the normal Raspberry Pi OS image will work as well, preferably enable ssh access and then begin.
After install, you may need to open a port on your router.
There is a (now slightly outdated) guided walkthrough of the install available here.

More information is also available on the PiVPN GitHub

1 Like
7

That was easy. I had looked at the WireGuard manual installation. So many files to fuss with. PiVPN handled all of that.

FlightAware seems to be working fine.