Good Morning,
Not even sure how to begin with a thought I have on my current BPQ32 implementation. I am new to BPQ and picked up the torch for our area, an older Ham was running our RMS gateway on 2m packet and had an equipment failure (was running BPQ), he is wanting to slow down on some items so I took up the RMS gateway (Had to rebuild from scratch) and have added BPQChat, BBS Relay for RMS, I am about to implement VARA HF (Have the configs done/tested), and I have one last item (Below) I want to sort if possible. Being an ARES member and the only station in our area with a 24/7 Battery/Solar station it made sense for me to pick it up the gateway as an EmComm resource... I hope its never needed as such, but its ready, tested, and available. My Qth also makes it prime along with the station towers (crank downs to get it out of the weather when it hits and quickly back up) and location since it is reachable by almost all the surrounding areas.

The last item I want to attempt is an additional application on the node, but I do NOT want to put this within the BBS information, most connections are not going to bother digging into the BBS. The Application (and SSID associated to it) would simply dump a text file to the connected station. In the case of a connection to the SSID directly (e.g., N3BYR-3), it would connect, dump the text file to the station, and disconnect. In the case of application selection from the primary node (in this case N3BYR-7), if the user selected by typing the option "NodeDoc" like they would with CHAT or BBS or CMS, it would run that application line to drop the text, and return to node (STAY) if the S option was used.

The drive behind the idea of having a Text file that BPQ can essentially dump to a connecting station, is having a quick way to pull a few items I plan to list on the text file. These would include important ARES stations to reach, any upcoming nets or exercises on recurring basis, associated frequency lists for the area, and a weather report/condition (I'd write my own code to pull WX data and add into the text doc at intervals). I think having this would be good for quick glance information, and more "Up Front available" to the local area packet stations instead of digging into the BBS looking for a bulletin or message.

Is there already a method in BPQ to do this, or has someone else done this? Most the other settings in BPQ are easy to google and configure, not even sure where to start with querying google or the BPQ site to approach this... thanks ahead of time!

Greg - N3BYR

Added thought: When I say dump the text file - I mean just literally it sends the text from file, not a file transfer - just display/send the text from that specific file.

Greg - N3BYR

If you ran linBPQ rather than (i am presuming windows) you could make use of this:



If you want a demo, find my node PE1RRR-7 and then connect to PE1RRR-10. It’ll be able to display anything you want in text of HTML format (as formatted text).





Windows does not have the services that this requires. You could convert to a Linux system with VARA as well:




73
Red

I am actually running linBPQ on a Pi 4 - I guess it would have helped to state that. I grew up on *nix, I had to learn Windows later and hate it (Work in IT/CyberSec). This right here appears as though it may solve what I am looking for *and* a little more. Much appreciated sir!

Greg - N3BYR

Hi Bruce,

This is super to hear, if you get stuck getting it going, let me know so I can update the docs accordingly.

Thanks!
73
Red

After diving through some of the information, this coupled with a local install of apache on the Pi to serve up web pages will be a great solution. The local install of a web service would resolve the issue of not having internet service but still providing the local information (Home WX station data, local net info, and the local internet status too). Pretty much sets the sky as the limit on this solution, couple probably be coupled with PHP scripted pages that could be used to trigger other items within the OS or station if I wanted to go that far also. Again thanks!

Greg - N3BYR

On 4/25/23 10:06, Bruce Colburn via groups.io wrote:

I do NOT want to put this within the BBS information

Hi, Bruce:

How about within the NODE information?

See: bpq32.cfg near "INFOMSG:".

73, Chuck

On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 12:02 PM, Chuck Gelm wrote:

On 4/25/23 10:06, Bruce Colburn via groups.io wrote:

I do NOT want to put this within the BBS information

Hi, Bruce:

How about within the NODE information?

See: bpq32.cfg near "INFOMSG:".

73, Chuck

Hi Chuck/Bruce

Just gonna chip, good suggestion for regular static info, but that NODEINFO isn’t easily updated without restarting the node and is limited in size, it has a max length before it will break the config processor.

73
Red

On 4/25/23 14:54, Bruce Colburn via groups.io wrote:

After diving through some of the information, this coupled with a local install of apache on the Pi to serve up web pages will be a great solution. The local install of a web service would resolve the issue of not having internet service but still providing the local information (Home WX station data, local net info, and the local internet status too). Pretty much sets the sky as the limit on this solution, couple probably be coupled with PHP scripted pages that could be used to trigger other items within the OS or station if I wanted to go that far also. Again thanks!

Greg - N3BYR

Hi, Greg:

I thought BPQ32 already had a web server with working directory:
pi@nc8q-bpq:~/linbpq $ locate favicon1.ico
/home/pi/linbpq/HTML/favicon1.ico

73, Chuck

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On Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 12:02 PM, Chuck Gelm wrote:

On 4/25/23 10:06, Bruce Colburn via groups.io wrote:

I do NOT want to put this within the BBS information

Hi, Bruce:

How about within the NODE information?

See: bpq32.cfg near "INFOMSG:".

73, Chuck

Hi Chuck/Bruce

Just gonna chip, good suggestion for regular static info, but that NODEINFO isn’t easily updated without restarting the node and is limited in size, it has a max length before it will break the config processor.

73
Red

Hi, Red:

Oh!
Then maybe back to Bruce's suggestion.
Setting a CALLSIGN-SSID::APP that will send a .txt file.
I am leery, though. I would not want to unknowingly connect to the node-SSID via a 300/1200 baud circuit
and be sent a 10kB+ file.?
My Node/BBS also has an AREDN port which, just tested, is getting 12.8 Mbits/sec to a remote network switch.

73, Chuck

Good evening Chuck and Red:

Chuck... VERY VALID POINT... yep there is already something running to serve pages - Not sure why the heck I was thinking I needed another program running. I can just leverage that which I will work on shortly! Since that is already running why would I eat up more memory (definately a "Derp" moment for me LOL). On your point of AREDN Chuck I need to lock that in as well. The problem is all our stations are too spread out for RF connection - I walked away from AREDN after I was talked into a bullet and hAP and then started looking at the stations and said even before it arrived - its not going to work. I will be making another node to sit at another stations QTH that has all that and pipe it through Packet - I am not touching AREDN right now until a redress of the area plans are made. As for the large file size - Negative - the file size will be as short as possible, but definately bigger than CTEXT or INFOTEXT and needs to update fairly easily without a reboot.

Red: You are correct and understood exactly what I was looking for - I need something that is fluid and easily updated (will also update from other programs I will craft).

Thanks again!
Greg - N3BYR

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Is there already a method in BPQ

Yes, but you do not want to use the BBS.

Else:
READ?Name?-?Read?File

File can be updated remotely without restarting NODE nor BBS nor Chat.

Then again, it would still be nice to put the NODE/BBS into 'Alert' mode, wherein
a station connecting would be informed to read a file (from a NODE command) or
read a file (from a BBS command).

$0.02

73, Chuck

Red,
?Its up and running sort of - I'll suspend for the evening though. I may or may not have found 2 issues with the script. I'm too tired to edit and trace the code right now. But food for thought:

1 - Permissions with the logging files. Running the script straight as it is - My username is not pi on the Pi4, I used my nickname greg. When the script runs initially it tried to execute a touch (to create the log file) which failed. I needed to go in and do a touch manually - problem solved - logging started with no errors after that (note that chown was also changed to reflect user name in the script for the WebLogFile= areas) This appears to have corrected, you may need to recommend the users edit that to reflect and do a manual instance of touch, otherwise the first chance it gets to attempt to log it errors out. First error just tells you touch failed, second time it attempts to write to log it boots you back to node.

2 - It seems like its not cleanly exiting the script on quit. If i quit from the home page, everything is good, I can go back in multiple times without any problems and navigate again... as long as I put it back on the home page. If I quit on any other pages and come back I get Error: Not Text. and have to exit again... re-entry locks up and inetd needs a reboot at that point. There are a few routines within the script looking for referrer string, perhaps its in another sub-routine and does not quite exit cleanly from the script at that point? Or its back to hanging on logging?

To add to that Logs usually help, system logs are showing that its an unclean exit - I had to restart inetd to get it back running as follows:
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: Stopping Internet superserver...
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Succeeded.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Unit process 4039 (browse.sh) remains running after unit stopped.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Unit process 4062 (lynx) remains running after unit stopped.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Unit process 6828 (browse.sh) remains running after unit stopped.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Unit process 6847 (lynx) remains running after unit stopped.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: Stopped Internet superserver.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Consumed 1.415s CPU time.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Found left-over process 4039 (browse.sh) in control group while starting unit. Ignoring.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: This usually indicates unclean termination of a previous run, or service implementation deficiencies.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Found left-over process 4062 (lynx) in control group while starting unit. Ignoring.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: This usually indicates unclean termination of a previous run, or service implementation deficiencies.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Found left-over process 6828 (browse.sh) in control group while starting unit. Ignoring.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: This usually indicates unclean termination of a previous run, or service implementation deficiencies.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: inetd.service: Found left-over process 6847 (lynx) in control group while starting unit. Ignoring.
Apr 25 19:42:38 Winlink systemd[1]: This usually indicates unclean termination of a previous run, or service implementation deficiencies.

Red,
Third though - put a flag to disable logging to /var/log/bpq-browser.log ?

Greg - N3BYR

Re 1:
Its something I missed adding to the git README.md, however it is in the script, I’ll update it.

WebLogFile="/var/log/bpq-browser.log" # sudo touch /var/log/bpq-browser.log; sudo chown pi:pi /var/log/bpq-browser.log


Re 2:

I don’t recommend using the BPQ http server for this kind of thing, it is not 100% compliant with web standards and appears in your case to be corrupting information exchange on re-used sockets or something, so please consider using a proper http daemon such as lighttpd, after all, the script is relying on Lynx doing the work, the script is just a wrapper.?

Re 3:?

Ok I’ll look into it?

73
Red

Greg- it’s updated

Your inetd daemon log doesn’t look like the openbsd one, if it is, then the cause is probably the unsupported use case of the BPQ http daemon. If it’s not the openbsd-inetd packaged one then it probably handles stuff differently and I honestly don’t want to spend time on supporting that.

73
Red

Good Morning Red,
???? I will take a look at the update on git and make notes when time permits today. After I walked away I thought of the webserv that BPQ is utilizing and had the same thought about compliance... plus it was not really meant to handle this aspect anyway, it may be the root of the issues in general also. I'm unfamiliar with lighttpd but I'll look over it and consider an install, I am more familiar with apache and nginx - so there are options available, I'll update you on the choice and outcome for reference. I am not using the proxy at the moment on the test case but will place some serious restrictions on the Pi for web browsing through some firewall settings and some other controls. Its not really a concern of what/where someone decides to surf - but more of a concern of limiting resources on the system and ensuring those resources are focused on needs.

???? The log is from the system, I did install the openbsd-inetd. I only pulled what was in front of me at the time. I'm unsure though which PiOS you may have put your test case on for the original creation, I'm running Bulleye and the image was initially created about 2 weeks ago. After burning an image and setting up BPQ, I created a backup image - which I used again on the test platform. Hopefully the above and this post are relevant to helping you develop the script, your time is appreciated. I'll give more feedback later today or as soon as I am able to make some changes.

73
Greg

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On Wed, Apr 26, 2023 at 10:52 AM, John G8BPQ wrote:

I’m not aware of anyone having written an application like that, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to write.

?

73,

John

?

*cries in bash script*

?

G'Morning John and Red,
I've been debating that - I just have not had time to look at the innards of how a program would function to pull just the text file. I may have time this weekend to really play with something in C or Java, just not sure of the mechanics of how the applications pass information yet. I love what Red has created and that offers a lot more though with triggering PHP scripts on the back end after configuring FastCGI-PHP on Lighttpd as leverage on the OS itself. Pulling my weather station via RTL_433 then parsing that information into something useful via PHP. I'm not an APRS guy - so it would be nice to rather have some data like local wx available along with critical information on a "Cheat Sheet".... maybe I'll have time to actually dust off the programming hat and do something about it.

Red - All is working good now with your script. No issues yet - but I've had limited time to test since making changes.

Greg - N3BYR