UI - feedback requested

[jvde-github]

Experimental GUI for AIS-catcher

I've developed an experimental version of a GUI for AIS-catcher that includes a setup wizard. After further testing, this will be integrated into the main branch.

Notes before you start:

• The program remains backward compatible with existing usage.
• GUI mode uses a separate JSON configuration file, created automatically on first start. The idea is that you don't edit it by hand: all configuration is done via the GUI (setup wizard, Input/Output panels).

Installation

Install AIS-catcher as per usual method, but start with -E newconfig.json 0.0.0.0:8118

Opening the GUI

Open your browser and go to http://localhost:8118 (or http://<device address>:8118 for remote access). The GUI runs on port 8118 and the built-in viewer on port 8119 — allow both through a firewall if needed.

Screenshots

Main interface

Setup wizard

[jvde-github]

The UI is essentially the familiar webviewer with an additional control section at the bottom similar to AIS-catcher-for-Android:

[flygfantast]

Trying to download the Windows version (option 2), but I only get an error 404 :(

[jvde-github]

Apologies, should be restored now. Note that start.bat will also open a web viewer.

[flygfantast]

Installed and running now. At first glance I can't actually find any bugs and it was very simple to get started. Looking very good.

Only thing missing is the ability to restart instead och pressing "Stop" and then "Start". :)

Nice work.

[flygfantast]

Some comments:

• The log is at the moment hard to see as it is to small, maybe make the system page like the Control dashboard
• Data flow, would be a nice feature to add
• Control only available on localhost? I mainly use another computer in my network as a client than the one that has AIS catcher.
• I have 3 instances of AIS catcher running, 2 aggregators (local, local+external+adsb) and 1 RTL-SDR, will that be a problem? ports?

[jvde-github]

Thank you. I have added the dataflow summary as per original Control tool and increased the size of the window to have more space for the log.

The new feature is now in the main distribution. If you want to view on another PC you can use:

AIS-catcher -E config.json 0.0.0.0:8112

This will then require setting a password though to avoid external parties changing or reading the settings. You can run multiple instances on different ports so your 3 instances should not be an issue.

I don't have a Windows system running at the moment, so appreciate your feedback/ideas and testing!

[flygfantast]

Great :)

Some more comments:

• Running it on the second instance now, which is just an aggregator (ie. only UDP inputs). Despite having no RTL-SDR input I always get an access denied error upon start.

AIS-catcher.exe -E config.json 8112
RTLSDR: cannot read USB strings for device 0 (error -3: access denied).

• Since changing into "Restart" button, now there is no way top "stop" (other then doing ctrl-c on the command window).

[jvde-github]

Both should be fixed now. The Restart button has been changed to a Stop button unless there are changes to the config and the program is running, this button will become a stop button. Also added option to minimize the bottom bar.

Finally, created a quickstart guide with a few simple steps to install AIS-catcher:

https://www.aiscatcher.org/quickstart

[flygfantast]

Thanks, up and running on my main aggregator instance now!

[jvde-github]

That looks great!

[doc-nl]

The pictures on step 5 are not working. Will test the flow when new raspberry for daisycatcher has arrived

[jvde-github]

Hi, sorry, not sure what picture this is but maybe resolved in the mean time. Keep me posted.

[doc-nl]

yes it's working now

[doc-nl]

I did an upgrade from the latest unmanaged version to the new managed version, but all my config was lost. Can I import it again?

[doc-nl]

Did a manual copy paste of my settings now, but this should be tested more

[jvde-github]

That should work. For now unfortunately, you have to recreate the settings. Not sure if we can add an automatic conversion (investment vs one time benefit)

[doc-nl]

True, maybe a warning then if you upgrade to managed mode you will lose your current settings, maybe its there but then I missed it :)
reconfigure was not that hard, could help if you show the current json so people can easily copy it to a temp location or something like that?

[jvde-github]

Yes indeed, let me have a think how to easily do this. Thanks for the suggestion

[doc-nl]

We now have two wrench icon's, one for the NMEA decoder and one for system. I would suggest to change the decoder one, a wrench is less applicable there

[jvde-github]

Fixed

[doc-nl]

Where in the managed interface can you update your release or do maintenance? (Will this be a new location or stay on 8110?)

I have two stations at the moment

• one raspberry 5 installed this weekend with the new quickstart, does not have the control site on port 8110 it looks like ais-catcher-control is not installed using the new quickstart
• one hp desktop running ubuntu, updated from the unmanged to the managed version, does have the control site on port 8110 where i can do maintenance

[jvde-github]

The control tool (for start/stop the service and manage updates) is not auto installed (as not everyone wants it).

I have reflected that now in updated docs: https://jvde-github.github.io/AIS-catcher-docs/getting-started/overview/

You can install via:

sudo bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jvde-github/AIS-catcher-control/main/install_ais_catcher_control.sh)"

The control tool is now recognized whether we are running the managed or manual version. If it is managed it will leave the decoding settings to the AIS-catcher tool.

[doc-nl]

Install worked, but it didn't directly ask for a password, had to enter it (think it's the default password we used to have in the unmanaged, but not stated in the updated docs)

Maybe it's good to show on the status page if an update is available? with a option for release version or latest version or something like that? And in the manual a section about the way to update? Either via cli or via ais-catcher-control

[jvde-github]

I have added a Link property for most output channels:

The description and a link to an external station page in this way can be shown in the Statistics tab and the Data flow visual under System.

[jvde-github]

[flygfantast]

• I have a problem were the position sometimes is decoded incorrectly (or is incorrectly sent by boat).
  Is it possible to invalidate (ignore) impossible position data? Or set a value (configurable) what distance is valid?

• I also had my config wiped out, a waring would have been nice :-)
• As said by other poster, How do you update to new version without old Control Dashboard?
• going to managed mode (RPi) from Control panel, created a weird problem. Webviewer and System (managed) seem to use different backup instances.

System:

Webviewer:

[flygfantast]

One option would be to require two independent vessels with validated positions before accepting a new maximum range — that would filter out single-vessel outliers while still allowing genuine tropo receptions to count.

Could work, but should maybe only be used on far distances, since I live an area where I rarely got much traffic and require two ships may see the max distance to never move. Tricky...

[hughfe]

I agree that we should be very careful about automatic filtering. I occasionally see one ship at a fairly extreme range, and checking its course generally reveals it is genuine. If there's a SAR situation these position reports might be critical.
Possibly flagging a vessel in the list as "ignore for x hours" or something might work (I assume invalid checksums are dropped already).

[flygfantast]

Looking at it now, the biggest problem I got with the range is ships that suddenly jumps hundreds of kilometers for a few positions and then goes back to it's "real" position. So a sanity check too see if the position is "valid" against previous position maybe?

[jvde-github]

yes, but it can happen that all points we ever see are off because of spoofing (so no jumps). Maybe we need to take more data into account (long period of no funnies) and perhaps even make the confirmation check tougher the further away from the station. In theory, a high signal strength and far away is a warning sign as well.

[hughfe]

Trying to counter serious spoofing would be a whole different game involving some sort of intelligent appraisal of past tracks and possibly getting data from other sources.
The signal strength sanity check is not a bad idea, although (for example) the RaspAIS device does not seem to provide that data.

[hughfe]

A bit late to this party, but I have gone with the automatic upgrade to managed mode. Very slick. The only settings that did not seem to follow were:
Station location. I had to hunt for this, under system settings labelled Map

and then the client needs new settings for the new instance on :8118. So a very neat process. :)

So at the moment I seem to have 2 webviewer instances at :8100 and :8118, and 2 control panels :8110 and :8119
I guess I could keep one of the webviewers in kiosk mode and the other in full webviewer mode that could be useful. I'd want to setup tls and use https if I was going to expose it to the internet.

[jvde-github]

Thank you!

I kept the control tool on :8110 deliberately — it starts and stops the system service and
handles the update functions. AIS-catcher can't do that for itself, since a program cannot
start itself.

The control panel on :8118 uses the webviewer on :8119 — the managed viewer always sits on
the control port + 1.

I have now also added more configuration options to the Map tab, similar to what the
webviewer offers. That viewer on :8119 is likely sufficient for most people, and additional
webviewers under Output → Webviewer are only needed if you want tailored versions for
external sharing. Those cannot modify the server settings, so they are safer to share, and
they can be placed behind a reverse proxy to expose over https (see e.g.
kx1t.com/ais).

Btw, the extra one under Output → Webviewer can simply be set to inactive if you don't need it.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[flygfantast]

Tried using "Show Last Message", but it gave me the following error "Please enable "-N MSG on" in AIS-catcher settings.".
Either I'm blind or it is missing in the settings.

[jvde-github]

Added just now:

[hughfe]

I was wondering about the AIS messages too. Bit of a long rambling comment here, that doesn't really need an answer.
There are a couple of boats in the local marina that haven't moved for weeks (it is the middle of winter here) but are sending AIS messages, and have numbers beside their icons:

Clicking on the messages icon at the bottom of the ship card shows that they are both sending text messages "text": "ONWAOFF" about every 2 minutes. My guess is that means that they both have an Onwa chartplotter but they are switched off.

So far so good - AIS-catcher is storing and decoding text messages.
But when I right click on Show Last Message I get the same response as Niklas above.
I admit I did not bother to look for this setting before, but after reading the above messages I did, and it took me a little while to find it ;) not under "settings", but under system/output/viewer or system/map.

Strangely it looks as though ship messages are being kept regardless of the new setting, but they are not available to the drop-down menu entry without that setting.

After enabling that setting, the same list of messages is available from the messages icon in the ship card, but at first only an error message was available from the drop down menu (saying there were no messages, but they have now started arriving.

:)

[jvde-github]

yes, true, default is that only a few binary messages are stored (very cheap). To store the last message per ship, initially was very expensive with full decomposition so made that an opt-in. Now it is a factor 15 smaller in memory and only 5-10 MB so we can consider to switch it on by default....

[flygfantast]

Updating to latest build v0.70-3557-g766a22ae introduced some html artifacts.

[Phil353556]

I confirm :-)

[jvde-github]

Should be already fixed :-)

[flygfantast]

One device, 2 engines. Should it look like this?

[jvde-github]

You are right, multiple models is not an edge case. Have fixed. Thank you,.

[ymmengin]

I used to see badges from the binary text messages. They are no longer displayed since upgrading to V70 I believe. I can see the message is still received by right clinking a target and selecting last message.

[jvde-github]

Messages with ONWAOFF are filtered out for the frontend (these and empty text messages) as there are so many and does not add that much (system message). If you want I can undo that. Alternatively, we can show them but do not track individual messages but remove duplicates. Thoughts?

[ymmengin]

It’s certainly not a must have info. I just liked it because I have an Onwa transponder and could see some other boats with the same unit...
Would the alternate display the test badge as before?
In the end, it’s up to you since it’s just nice to have info and not required.

[jvde-github]

I removed it as it used space for other (more interesting) messages, so my idea is that you will see the same badge and just additionally how often we received this message and last time...

[ymmengin]

The alternate sounds good then.
FYI, I updated from an older version installed via abcd567a ’s script. I’m now running V 0.70 in managed mode. The hardware also got changed as I’m now running the dAISy-catcher that replaced a SDR + LNA/Filter.

[hughfe]

The frequent repetition of the ONWAOFF message does seem a bit of a waste of bandwidth!

[flygfantast]

"since hh:mm:ss" , is a bit missleading, what day does it refer too? Either it should incorporate date or maybe say since restart, third option too remove text?

[jvde-github]

Fixed thanks

[flygfantast]

The right click menu is blocked by the "last message" layer. Using version 0.70-3721-gc489c59e

[jvde-github]

Should be fixed, thanks!