sdr-enthusiasts/docker-radarbox

Docker container running AirNav RadarBox's rbfeeder. Designed to work in tandem with sdr-enthusiasts/readsb-protobuf. Builds and runs on x86_64, arm64 and arm32v7.

rbfeeder pulls ModeS/BEAST information from a host or container providing ModeS/BEAST data, and sends data to RadarBox.

For more information on what rbfeeder is, see here: sharing-data.

Supported tags and respective Dockerfiles

• latest (main branch, Dockerfile)
• latest_nohealthcheck is the same as the latest version above. However, this version has the docker healthcheck removed. This is done for people running platforms (such as Nomad) that don't support manually disabling healthchecks, where healthchecks are not wanted.
• Version and architecture specific tags available

Multi Architecture Support

Currently, this image should pull and run on the following architectures:

• amd64: Linux x86-64
• arm32v7, armv7l: ARMv7 32-bit (Odroid HC1/HC2/XU4, RPi 2/3)
• arm64, aarch64: ARMv8 64-bit (RPi 4 64-bit OSes)

Obtaining a RadarBox Sharing Key

First-time users should obtain a RadarBox sharing key.

In order to obtain a RadarBox sharing key, on the first run of the container, rbfeeder will generate a sharing key and print this to the container log.

timeout 300s docker run \
    --rm \
    -it \
    -e BEASTHOST=YOURBEASTHOST \
    -e LAT=YOURLATITUDE \
    -e LONG=YOURLONGITUDE \
    -e ALT=YOURALTITUDE \
    ghcr.io/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-radarbox:latest

This will run the container for five minutes, allowing a sharing key to be generated.

You should obviously replace YOURBEASTHOST, YOURLATITUDE, YOURLONGITUDE and YOURALTITUDE with appropriate values.

Shortly after the container launches, you should be presented with:

[2020-04-02 11:36:31]  Empty sharing key. We will try to create a new one for you!
[2020-04-02 11:36:32]  Your new key is g45643ab345af3c5d5g923a99ffc0de9. Please save this key for future use. You will have to know this key to link this receiver to your account in RadarBox24.com. This key is also saved in configuration file (/etc/rbfeeder.ini)

Take a note of the sharing key, as you'll need it when launching the container.

If you're not a first time user and are migrating from another installation, you can retrieve your sharing key using either of the following methods:

• SSH onto your existing receiver and run the command rbfeeder --showkey --no-start
• SSH onto your existing receiver and run the command grep key= /etc/rbfeeder.ini

Up-and-Running with docker run

docker run \
 -d \
 --rm \
 --name rbfeeder \
 -e TZ="YOURTIMEZONE" \
 -e BEASTHOST=YOURBEASTHOST \
 -e LAT=YOURLATITUDE \
 -e LONG=YOURLONGITUDE \
 -e ALT=YOURALTITUDE \
 -e SHARING_KEY=YOURSHARINGKEY \
 ghcr.io/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-radarbox:latest

You should obviously replace YOURBEASTHOST, YOURLATITUDE, YOURLONGITUDE, YOURALTITUDE and YOURSHARINGKEY with appropriate values.

For example:

docker run \
 -d \
 --rm \
 --name rbfeeder \
 -e TZ="Australia/Perth" \
 -e BEASTHOST=readsb \
 -e LAT=-33.33333 \
 -e LONG=111.11111 \
 -e ALT=90 \
 -e SHARING_KEY=g45643ab345af3c5d5g923a99ffc0de9 \
 ghcr.io/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-radarbox:latest

Please note, the altitude figure is given in metres and no units should be specified.

Up-and-Running with Docker Compose

version: '2.0'

services:
  rbfeeder:
    image: ghcr.io/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-radarbox:latest
    tty: true
    container_name: rbfeeder
    restart: always
    environment:
      - TZ=Australia/Perth
      - BEASTHOST=readsb
      - LAT=-33.33333
      - LONG=111.11111
      - ALT=90
      - SHARING_KEY=g45643ab345af3c5d5g923a99ffc0de9

Up-and-Running with Docker Compose, including readsb

version: '2.0'

services:

  readsb:
    image: ghcr.io/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-readsb-protobuf:latest
    tty: true
    container_name: readsb
    restart: always
    devices:
      - /dev/bus/usb/001/007:/dev/bus/usb/001/007
    command:
      - --dcfilter
      - --device-type=rtlsdr
      - --fix
      - --forward-mlat
      - --json-location-accuracy=2
      - --lat=-33.33333
      - --lon=111.11111
      - --metric
      - --mlat
      - --modeac
      - --ppm=0
      - --net
      - --stats-every=3600
      - --quiet
      - --write-json=/var/run/readsb

  rbfeeder:
    image: ghcr.io/sdr-enthusiasts/docker-radarbox:latest
    tty: true
    container_name: rbfeeder
    restart: always
    environment:
      - TZ=Australia/Perth
      - BEASTHOST=readsb
      - LAT=-33.33333
      - LONG=111.11111
      - ALT=90
      - SHARING_KEY=g45643ab345af3c5d5g923a99ffc0de9

Claiming Your Receiver

Once your container is up and running, you should claim your receiver.

1. Go to https://www.radarbox.com/
2. Create an account or sign in
3. Claim your receiver by visiting https://www.radarbox.com/raspberry-pi/claim and following the instructions

Runtime Environment Variables

There are a series of available environment variables:

Ports

The following TCP ports are used by this container:

• 32088 - rbfeeder listens on this port, however I can't find the use for this port...
• 30105 - mlat-client listens on this port to provide MLAT results.

MLAT

You may find that MLAT in your container will often times spit out errors in your logs, such as

[rbfeeder] Disconnecting from mlat1.rb24.com:40900: No data (not even keepalives) received for 60 seconds
[rbfeeder] Connected to multilateration server at mlat1.rb24.com:40900, handshaking

This is likely, but not always, not caused by anything you are doing, but is instead caused by the Radarbox server itself and as such there isn't anything you can do to fix it. You will see in your Radarbox stats very little, if any, MLAT targets from your feeder while it is doing this.

To stop the feeder from spamming your logs you can set ENABLE_MLAT=false in your environment configuration for Radarbox and it will stop the MLAT service, and the log messages. Please note that if you do this, and you use MLAT Hub please remove Radarbox from your READSB_NET_CONNECTOR under MLAT Hub.

Logging

• All processes are logged to the container's stdout, and can be viewed with docker logs [-f] container.

Getting Help

You can log an issue on the project's GitHub.

I also have a Discord channel, feel free to join and converse.

If you're getting continual segmentation faults inside this container, see: #16 (comment)