[Xastir] Automated Xastir

[Ray Wells]

On 18/06/13 08:50, Tom Russo wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 02:44:53PM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <esarfl at gmail.com> flavor, containing:
>> On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 8:19 PM, Chip G. <n1mie at mac.com> wrote:
>>> Can I script Xastir to send an APRS message/bulletin?
>>>
>>> I run Xastir on my base station at home. I'm putting together a remote setup to relay some data into the network. I'm trying to determine the best method of getting the data onto RF. I have a Raspberry Pi (actually many) and a TNC-Pi (http://tnc-x.com/tncpi.htm). The TNC-Pi is reported compatible with Xastir, so that seems to be one possible solution. But I need something automated. Something that can either send a message upon trigger (i.e., temperature hits a certain high or low value) or on some frequency (i.e., send battery voltage every 15 minutes).
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
>>>
>>> 73,
>>> --de Chip (N1MIE) FN41bn
>> You can configure cron to run a script that sends a beacon via
>> Xastir's server port. This is convenient if you are already running
>> Xastir.
> But remember that Xastir's server port does NOT normally allow you to gate
> anything from the server port to the TNC.  It only forwards that information
> to the APRS-IS if you're connected to that.
>
> There are tricks to make it forward posits (such as objects) to RF (i.e. by
> having them use the same FROM call sign/ssid as Xastir is using), but then
> Xastir takes ownership of them and will beacon them itself on schedule.
>
> I'm not sure it'll always do the expected thing for messages.
>
>> If you want to run it headless, just do the same but have the
>> script send the beacon direction to the TNC.
> I would probably script this to use AX.25 networking on the Pi, and use
> the "beacon" command to generate the data upon the trigger, and use the
> "one time only" option for that program.  For the "send battery voltage
> every 15 mins" I'd make it so that the appropriate beacon command was
> constructed in a cron job every 15 mins.
>
> Xastir's really not the right tool for a remote setup.  It's forte is
> applications where the user needs to interact with APRS, not unattended,
> remote services.  It's also overkill for your needs --- all of the things
> you've given as examples are easily done with a cron job and the "beacon"
> program, with a little scripting.
>
When I was going to set up a RPi running headless as an Igate I was 
advised that xastir was perhaps not the right tool for the job. Taking 
that advice, I found Dixprs which I ran with kernel ax25 to talk to the 
TNC's. Dixprs has a facility to inject beacons and I use this feature to 
inject wx beacons as a cron job. A suitably formatted file sent to the 
dixprs base directory is sent immediately and then the file is deleted. 
Check out the dixprs yahoo group for more info.

Ray vk2tv