Stratux Europe Edition 1.6r1-eu026

[b3nn0]

Bug fixes

• Serialout devices are now fixed to /dev/serialout0 and /dev/serialout_nmea0, which fixes issues that the device was not recognized sometimes
• improved compatibility with mbtiles that have more exotic metadata
• Reduced gain for 1090ES receiver to fix cases where very close aircraft were sometimes not received any more (slightly reduces 1090ES reception range)
• Fixed a memory leak that would cause the Stratux service to crash when running for multiple days

Features

• the mapdata directory is now writable by the user pi, so that it's easier to put custom map tile archives in there for novice linux users
• the Map page now remembers your last layer configuration and re-enables the selected layers when revisiting the page
• sdr-tool can now also be used to configure 868Mhz SDRs
• Stratux is now using overlayfs and a read-only root partition to make it even more resistant to filesystem corruption. See below.
• Added $RPYL NMEA message to provide AHRS data to EFBs that connect via NMEA (Sky-Map, XCSoar, ...?)
• Stratux will now try to auto-detect baud rate of GPSes connected via prolific Serial/USB converters
• Image size has been reduced by shrinking the partition after image creation and running zerofree to make it more compressible
• You can now also download the US-settings image here, which is the same as the EU image except that "Developer Mode" and "OGN" are disabled and "UAT" is enabled by default.

Overlayfs details

By default, the root ext4 partition is now mounted read-only to /overlay/robase and overlayfs is used to create a 250MB in-memory file system overlay, which is then mounted as /.

This means, that any changes made to the root partition will be lost on reboot. No writing to the Micro SD card will happen by default.

To make this possible, the stratux.conf file was moved to /boot so it will remain editable. In case more low-level settings are changed (e.g. network), the /overlay/robase partition will be automatically remounted rw, then the settings will be written, then sync and back to read-only.

If you do not want all of this, you can disable all of this completely by enabling this toggle:

After a reboot, the partitions will be mounted as in earlier versions.
To temporarily remount /overlay/robase as read-write, you can use overlayctl unlock and overlayctl lock commands.

---

This discussion was created from the release Stratux Europe Edition 1.6r1-eu026.

[b3nn0]

If somebody wants to help with testing and is interested in a "Wifi client mode", you might want to install this update file:
https://abatzill.de/stratux/update-stratux-v1.6r1-eu026-0a09f053c1.sh
It will add a new wifi mode called "AP+Client", which will additionally connect the Stratux to an existing WPA2 encrypted Wifi network and will be featured in the next version. Feedback is appreciated.

[javedrahman]

Hi Adrian. Thank you very much. The routing works now. The wifi roam issue is also solved.

[b3nn0]

Here is one last version:

• New toggle in settings "Internet Passthrough" to enable/disable the routing function (can be useful for iOS users. e.g. when you want to have AP+Client mode to connect the Stratux to your home-network, but when flying, you are actually using an iOS device with a sim card and you don't want to reconfigure the wifi settings for that. With this disabled, the Stratux will not advertise as a router.)
• Removed "WiFi Smart" toggle, we now always behave as if WiFi Smart is enabled since it doesn't seem to have any drawback, but is "more correct".
• Allow space (0x20) and . in ssid name
• some minor cleanups

This will be the last update.sh with this feature. I will now switch over to dnsmasq. However, since this requires some debian package changes, I will not be able to provide that via update.sh. So next version will require a reflash.

Link: https://abatzill.de/stratux/update-stratux-v1.6r1-eu026-ef072273ae.sh

[b3nn0]

I've now pushed the dnsmasq port to master.
If you want to test it by compiling from git manually, you have to run these commands:

cd /root
git clone --recursive  https://github.com/b3nn0/stratux.git
cd stratux
make
make install
apt remove isc-dhcp-server
apt install dnsmasq
systemctl disable dnsmasq # we start it manually on respective interfaces
gen_gdl90 -write-network-config
reboot

And hope for the best :-)

[rvt]

Instead of typing the IP address, would mDNS be routed when connected through an mobile device?
Then you can do just http://stratux instead of http://<random IP>

[b3nn0]

Stratux already comes with avahi-daemon. I now changed the image creation process so it sets stratux as a hostname instead of the default (raspberrypi). You can access it with http://stratux.local if the client supports it (Android doesn't).
We could also add a static host to dnsmasq, but that would result in quite inconsistent behavior, because it would only work in AP+Client mode and not in the others, since we don't set a DNS server via DHCP in the other cases. And even then, it would only work when connecting to Stratux's AP, and not in the network that Stratux connects to, which kinda defeats the purpose.

[rvt]

Would it be something to have an option for multiple WIFI client usernames/passwords? One at home.. one at aeroclub for example?

[b3nn0]

In theory it's simple. Simply add multiple networks to wpa_supplicant.conf and it will roam freely.
The more complex part is the UI and storage mechanism. I didn't really want to bother with complex UI design, so I skipped that. If you have a great idea how to integrate it properly, feel free to give it a shot.