Feeding Multiple sites with a Pi or other single board computer

[Spotter with No Name]

Like many enthusiasts I use aircraft tracking sites as an aid for this hobby and a few years back I started 'feeding' a number of the sites with data via one of the cheap single board raspberry pi computers. The advantage of feeding these sites with data, is that you normally get free premium access to the data and historical data, as well as no ads on your screen.

The thing about feeding multiple sites is that it was quite a complex affair of downloading the basic program, such as the flightaware piaware program and then adding each extra feeder clients, such as Planefinder, FR24, Radarbox, flightaware, ADSB-Ex etc.

Normally the best part of a day but the time you had entered all your details for each client and checked it was all working correctly.

So what is the point of this post you may be thinking? Well, there is a new feeder image site that has been set-up, with the aim of making it pretty simple to feed multiple sites, without any need to delve into programming, all by downloading just their one image from the site. I've been using the image for a couple of months now and have found it to be very stable and everything on my raspberry pi is working well, with it feeding 15 different tracking sites at the same time without any problems [You can select what sites you choose to feed]

It is very easy to set up and I reckon, I had it all up and running in less than an hour.

If you are interested in doing this then head over to their site and have a look, there are details about how to set the whole thing up.

Note, I have no connection with this site other than being a user of their image. 

https://adsb.im/home

[Anmer]

Thank you for posting this message.  I was unaware of ADSB.im.

I'vee just visited the site and am impressed, especially the layout and informative content.

As soon as my guests have departed, I'll download and test the RPi image.

If it does what it claims, it will be a very useful option for feeding data sharing sites.

[Anmer]

I've now downloaded an SD card image and installed it in a spare RPi.  The online instructions have a few areas that could be more precise but they're mostly clear and easy to follow.

Once I had the RPI running with an attached ADS-B SDR and antenna, it was very easy to add selected feeders.

I would recommend ADSB.im for those wanting to setup an ADS-B receiver based on SBC (Single Board Computer) such as an RPi and, optionally, feed a wide range of data sharing services, such as FR24, FlightAware, PlaneFnder and ADS-B Exchange.

This is a really useful utility.

[Spotter with No Name]

It definitely does do what it 'says on the tin' I waited until I had used it for a couple of months before posting, to check it was stable and everything worked okay and it does.

There are other advantages as well, in that you can view a whole range of graphs, covering everything from amount of aircraft tracked, CPU usage, CPU temperature, RAM usage etc etc.

It has an 'auto' gain control that take a few days to settle down after first install [but you can also manually change the gain] in you are in an area that gets swamped with lots of aircraft.

It has easy 'one' button back up controls

When you need to update to the latest Flightaware release etc, again that is all handled with a one button download.

Everything is controlled by a web interface, so after the first set up, the pi can be anywhere in range of your wi-fi. Mine is located in the loft next to the antenna.

For those that worry about having a pi or other SBC [single board computer] on 24/7. I plugged a power meter into the pi. Even with supplying all the sites [15 in all] it is drawing just over 4W. I worked out my electricity usage for a year is just less than £12, so much less than even buying one premium membership on any of the well known tracking sites, as a feeder I get premium access to all the data for free.

[Anmer]

It definitely does do what it 'says on the tin'.

Agreed.  Feature rich utility.  Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.  It deserves much wider recognition.

[rikgale]

The online instructions have a few areas that could be more precise but they're mostly clear and easy to follow.

Any area's that you found unclear, the dev (Dirk) is very open to suggestions to make things more easy to use. I've done a little bit of testing for ADSB.im eariler in the year and it should work with a wide range of SDRs, RLT-SDR, airspy, sdrplay rsp1a etc.

[Anmer]

Maybe I've missed something?

I've used ADSB.im to setup two new feeds for FR24 and FlightAware.

When I view the feed status for each, the local IP address is not within my address range.  Consequently I can't access the PiAware local map nor the one for FR24.

Has anyone else noticed this anomaly?

[DaveReid]

Maybe I've missed something?

I've used ADSB.im to setup two new feeds for FR24 and FlightAware.

When I view the feed status for each, the local IP address is not within my address range.  Consequently I can't access the PiAware local map nor the one for FR24.

Has anyone else noticed this anomaly?

I may be misunderstanding the problem, but can you not overlay a second IP address/network mask on the client computer's NIC so that it can see the other address range ?

[Anmer]

I may be misunderstanding the problem, but can you not overlay a second IP address/network mask on the client computer's NIC so that it can see the other address range ?

What I'm trying to understand is what's assigning the odd IP address?

I can see what appears to be a virtual device (same MAC address as my RPi) with a local range IP address assigned by the router.  But for the FlightAware and FR24 data feeds, my sharing has a different IP address - 172.18.0.5.  Where does this come from?

[DaveReid]

I may be misunderstanding the problem, but can you not overlay a second IP address/network mask on the client computer's NIC so that it can see the other address range ?

What I'm trying to understand is what's assigning the odd IP address?

I can see what appears to be a virtual device (same MAC address as my RPi) with a local range IP address assigned by the router.  But for the FlightAware and FR24 data feeds, my sharing has a different IP address - 172.18.0.5.  Where does this come from?

Maybe a router/hub setting?  Most routers allocate Class C NAT addresses (192.168.xxx.xxx) to devices on a local network, but it seems yours is allocating Class B addresses (172.xxx.xxx.xxx) under certain circumstances.

Can the router be told not to allocate the latter, via a setting on its web interface, perhaps?

[Anmer]

Thanks Dave.

It's not a router assigned IP address.

I can see the device attached to my local network with a 192.168.1.nnn address.  I'm convinced the IP address 172.18.0.5 is assigned by ADSB.im.  I was hoping those members who have used ADSB.im would respond to this message.

If I replace the SD card in the RPi with one just running PiAware, installed directly and not via ADSB-im, the same 192.168.1.nnn address is assigned and I can see it in my PiAware stats page. I can also access my local PiAware map

Somewhere during the ADSB.im process, a rogue IP address is assigned.  This prevents the local maps being displayed.

When I replace the new PiAware SD card with the one created by ADSB.im, the IP address changes to 172.18.0.2.  And a different MAC address.

Until I can understand what's going on I can't recommend using ADSB.im.

[rikgale]

Hi Anmer

The ADSB.im image runs using a load of docker containers.

172.18.0.5 is an internal IP to the docker network that resides on the machine. IF you replace with the 192.168.1.n address of the pi you are using then it 'should work', hopefully. Why the image is pointing you to an internal IP address I have 0 idea.

[rikgale]

I asked on discord - pointing at this thread.

[Anmer]

Thanks Rik, but not sure how the suggested solution will work?

Do you have a link to the message thread?

[dirkhh]

I believe what you are experiencing is a result of trying to click on the FlightAware link BACK to your local feeder. And because the feeder image runs several different feeders in separate Docker containers, the FlightAware link points to that FlightAware Docker container, not to the actual feeder.
Simply use the local name or IP address to access your device. That's what Rick meant with http://192.168.1.x (you likely will have used this when setting up the adsb.im Feeder image).
In most home networks http://adsb-feeder.local should work. Additionally, a second name based on the site name that you set up initially will be offered. Something like http://dirksfeeder.local