[Xastir] aprsd logout/in every 10 minutes?

[Dan Zubey]

That would make a lot of sense and explain a lot of issues I've had.

A exponential back-off timer would probably work best, similar to what
TCP has. It probably should be configurable to adjust for the connection
type.

I have plans to deploy xastir on a GMRS connection, and this would be
kinda important.

My 2 cents.

-Dan N7NMD


-  
Dan Zubey
Indahmar Technology
http://www.indahmar.com


On Sun, 2009-05-24 at 00:36 +0930, Tony Hunt wrote:
> Well Ive solved this one. I am suprised nobody replied or worked this out.
> Trust me to show up with a query just when the group gets frantic and 
> obsessed on some  other subject subject. Seems to happen to me on here.
>  Sorry I am not going to make any comment on the "pos file" thread.
> 
> Ive learned a bit about the Internet servers and clients and the way 
> they intereact.
> The problem was that the client (xastir) was actually initiating the 
> disconnect every 10 mins. I found that other clients like Uiview were 
> worse with the same issues.
> 
> I Telneted into aprsd and found that it did not do any disconnect and 
> would just sit there eternally. I Telnetted into a Javaserver here in VK 
> and watched that also. Interestingly the Javsservers seem to beacon a 
> line of Java blah every 15-30 seconds as a rule. This appears to act as 
> a keep alive mechanism for the clients. Herein lies the key.
> Ive got Aprsd logging into a National Javaserver using the User 
> defianble port. I am not sending a filter command so I dont see any 
> traffic comming back off the server. Thats not a problem as I only want 
> to pass traffic onto the Javaserver from HF via Aprsd. This however 
> creates a severe lack of traffic on the interface especially at night as 
> there are no posits comming in for hours off HF.
> 
> Xastir appears to have some internally set timer at 10 mins. So that 
> after 10 mins of no activity xastir assumes the Internet server 
> connection has failed. This is actually much longer than the Uiview 
> default value (5mins) for the same timer. In fact 10 minutes is a 
> lifetime in real terms. I am suprised that xastir has it set at 10 mins. 
> In reality it seems to realise its lost the socket much quicker than 
> that most of the time when a failure occors.
> 
> The problem was that I had aprsd NetBeacon running at 20 mins. Ive now 
> dropped it to 4 mins and the problem seems to have been resolved. 
> Fortuately Aprsd Netbeacons have a Q construct such that they wont be 
> gated to RF (this version does anyway) .
> 
> A couple of things come out of this.
> 
> 1: An option to vary this timer in xastir say down to a smaller value 
> would be good. 10 mins is a long time to wait to realise you have lost 
> the Internet feed. I just pulled the plug on the router to this machine 
> and it took 10 mins for xastir to notice the interface was missing in 
> action. It went into hard failure and then I reconnected the router. It 
> took yet another 10 mins before getting back onto the server.
> 
> 2: This is probably the most problematic issue. I noticed while testing 
> xastir and repeatedly starting and stopping aprsd alot that if I didnt 
> restart aprsd pretty quickly within a couple of mins then I would end up 
> with a failed interface in error stuck for long periods in xastir. This 
> generally needs manual user intervention if your impatient.
> What appears to happen with xastir is this. After a Internet interface 
> connection failure it retries within some given time frame. Then after 
> that failure it gives up and marks the interface in Error. I hate to get 
> on here and compare xastir with other clients but I am about to do just 
> that. Theres a feature in xastir called "reconnect on net faiure". But 
> why is it soooooo unforgiving throwing the towel in so soon? I looked in 
> the xastir config file and found DEVICE0_RECONN:1 .. If its set to 1 
> then it retries. If its set to 0 then it does not. It would be good if 
> we could set this value to something higher like 10 and then let that 
> govern the number of retry attempts. Or even have a timer value we could 
> set between retry attempts. Uiview just sits there all day retrying 
> every 2 minutes.
> If the Javaserver goes down or is unreachable for a while due to DNS 
> issues on the Internet then the whole interface scrams and sits in La La 
> land for a considerable time. Thats not very robust for a system that 
> should self heal and rectify issues.
> Example : Ive seen folks driving around using UMTS connections with APRS 
> clients allready in VK. Now mobile networks being what they are will 
> give loss of service at times. Driving around trying to use xastir like 
> this would prove frustrating just because you lost the intenet 
> connection once for 2-3 mins till you got back into a coverage area. 
> Xastir would likely toss it in until you interviened and forced it to 
> reconect or waitied 20 mins perahps. Ive seen folks are interested in 
> running xastir on different platforms like Symbian and other mobile 
> devices so its not so crazy.
> 
> Thats my 2 bits worth.
> 
> Tony vk5ah
> 
> 
> >I am playing about with aprsd and xastir. Ive got a single TNC native mode
> >on aprsd using it as a HF gate . Its logged into the IS and seems to keep
> >the connection and pass packets fine.
> >Xastir is vk5ah-10 and aprsd is vk5ah-4 . xasir is displaying the posits
> >from aprsd on the map ok as well.
> 
> >Ive logged xastir into aprsd 127.0.0.1  10151 on the same machine. This
> >seems to work but every 10 minutes and 2 seconds it seems to login to aprsd
> >again. So in the view incomming data window I see the aprsd welcome text pop
> >up.
> 
> >Why is this happening ? Anyone any ideas ? It looks like xastir is
> >disconnecting and reconnecting. I should be able to stop this somehow.
> 
> >The aprsd.log is filling up fast. I can see the login count is also climbing
> >on the http status page for aprsd.
> >Here are some log file extracts.
> 
> >aprsd-log
> >Fri May 22 06:42:38 2009  127.0.0.1 connected on 10151
> >Fri May 22 06:42:38 2009  127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 disconnected  0:10:02
> >Fri May 22 06:42:39 2009  127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 XASTIR 1.9.2 Verified
> >Fri May 22 06:52:40 2009  127.0.0.1 connected on 10151
> >Fri May 22 06:52:40 2009  127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 disconnected  0:10:02
> >Fri May 22 06:52:41 2009  127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 XASTIR 1.9.2 Verified
> >Fri May 22 07:02:42 2009  127.0.0.1 connected on 10151
> >Fri May 22 07:02:42 2009  127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 disconnected  0:10:02
> >Fri May 22 07:02:43 2009  127.0.0.1 VK5AH-10 XASTIR 1.9.2 Verified
> 
>  >Tony Hunt vk5ah
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