meshchat v0.7b1 released

29 posts / 0 new

Fri, 03/04/2016 - 18:10

K7FPV

Detailed information and installation instructions can be found here:

http://www.trevorsbench.com/meshchat-messaging-for-mesh-networks/

Installation is the same for v0.7b1 as in the blog post link above. Doc and blog post will be updated when beta is finished. Just change the files for these ones:

AREDN Node: https://s3.amazonaws.com/aredn/meshchat_0.7b1_all.ipk
Raspberry Pi: https://s3.amazonaws.com/aredn/meshchat_0.7b1_all.deb

This is a BETA version. Bugs guaranteed. Please try it and let me know what you find. This will place nicely with v0.6. v0.6 will display all messages regardless of channel from v0.7.

**** Raspberry Pi / Debian / Linux Users ****

After you install the package you need to edit this file:

/usr/lib/cgi-bin/meshchatconfig.pm

These 2 lines at the bottom:

our $pi_zone                    = 'MeshChat';
our $local_meshchat_node        = 'k7fpv';

$pi_zone is the zone that mesh chat should sync with. Zones are described in the release notes below.
$local_meshchat_node is a AREDN node on your mesh running mesh chat v0.7. The Pi queries this node to get the node list it should poll for the zone it belongs too.

Once those config file changes are made, restart the daemon:

sudo /etc/init.d/meshchatsync stop
sudo /etc/init.d/meshchatsync start

So to run mesh chat on a Pi you need to have the same version of mesh chat installed on a AREDN node somewhere on your mesh.

Release Notes:

Zones: You can now have segmented mesh chat databases on a single mesh. Mesh chat looks up the service name it has been given in OLSR. The default is MeshChat. It will only sync with other nodes / pi's that share the same service name. Now you can setup SoCalMeshChat, UtahMeshChat, etc and only the nodes with the same service name will sync with each other. Now when you tunnel into another mesh you won't dump your whole message db into their mesh chat, unless of course you share the same service name.

Change max message db size from bytes to 500 max messages: There was some issues when the db would get full, the whole db would get sent over every sync since the version did not match. To make things simple and robust all message db's are limited to 500 messages so when it is full, the quick version check works properly. Message db's are now stored in sorted order as part of this change too.

Added channels: You select or create a new channel when you send a message. You can select the drop down filter at the top of the message pane to select which messages to display. All message db's contain messages from all channels. They are filtered client side with the display filter.

Action scripts: Action scripts are only supported on the Pi version. This is pretty much done but needs more testing. If you feel adventurous you can add a line in /etc/meshchat_actions.conf You can read the comments in that file on what kind of matches you can do. I have a SMS gateway and archive working. More details and code to come.

Fixed + in messages

Added version, node, call sign, and zone to top of every page

Cleaned up interface

Added config option on Pi for mesh chat node - see above

Added config option for zone name on Pi - see above

Fri, 03/04/2016 - 18:40

K5DLQ

minor rendering issue on the

minor rendering issue on the files page...
(Using the IPK file on AirRouter HP)

Image Attachments:

Fri, 03/04/2016 - 19:48

(Reply to #2) #3

K7FPV

Good catch. Fixed in next

Good catch. Fixed in next release.

Fri, 03/04/2016 - 19:20

k1ky

Install over top or remove old first?

Do we install this straight even if an old MESHCHAT is installed on the node or do we remove the old one first?

Fri, 03/04/2016 - 19:49

(Reply to #4) #5

K7FPV

Yes you can just install

Yes you can just install right over the top of the old one.

Fri, 03/04/2016 - 20:55

K5DLQ

another wierd css issue.

another wierd css issue. Looks normal on Chrome (OSX) and Safari (OSX), but, Firefox is cutting off the dropdown text:

Image Attachments:

Fri, 03/04/2016 - 22:18

KE2N

7b1

I have one instance on an M2 node and one on the PI which is plugged into a different node (another M2 on the same mesh)
I have the PI zone as 'MeshChat' and the node that the Pi uses as the M2 unit mentioned above.
On the STATUS page I am seeing a different collection of stations between the two meshchat windows even though I have "everything" selected in both.
The M2 nodes has all lower case lettering whereas the PI has a mixture of upper case and lower case.
But the set of stations really is different between the two...and that is kind of reflected in the chat window.
Nothing I send in the PI new-message window comes out anywhere. I show up as a user only in the PI window. But I do not even see my own messages.
I note that the "Updated" number in the Status window always says 0 seconds.

Fri, 03/04/2016 - 23:48

(Reply to #7) #8

K7FPV

What OS version are you

What OS version are you running on your Pi? Do you know what user apache is running under?

ps aux | grep apache

That should tell you. If it is not www-data you will need to change the permission on the /var/www/htm/meshchat dir to that user like this:

chown -R <user> /var/www/html/meshchat

You can also check the apache error log in /var/log/apache2/error.log. Let me know if you see anything in there. Also try clearing your browser cache.

Sat, 03/05/2016 - 07:06

(Reply to #8) #9

K5DLQ

yes. I had a similar issue

yes. I had a similar issue running on my Pi (Raspbx distro with FreePBX on it).
I had to: chown -R asterisk:asterisk /var/www/html/meshchat

Works great now!

Sat, 03/05/2016 - 09:35

(Reply to #9) #10

KE2N

update

I did the "chown" per K5LDQ and now things I send from the PI do appear. (I had done this on the previous version, but I guess the new install wiped that out).

I am running the standard FreePBX distro. http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/

Reading the instructions for version 0.7 (duh) I see that the service name has to be the same for stations to talk to each other. So I fixed that and made both "MeshChat". I would note that the service name has two capital letters whereas the directory where the web page sits (what you have to use in the link) has all lower case. And, of course, case matters.

So that is a big improvement over last night.

Please note that the situation on the status page is the same: different sets of stations on the PI vs M2. PI is (nearly all capital letters).
and
"Updated:" is always zero (on both versions).

73

root@ke2n-raspbx:~# ps aux | grep apache
asterisk 3523 0.0 0.8 116492 8036 ? S 06:25 0:03 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
asterisk 3524 0.0 0.8 116492 8120 ? S 06:25 0:03 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
asterisk 3525 0.0 0.8 116516 8052 ? S 06:25 0:03 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
asterisk 3526 0.0 0.8 116508 8128 ? S 06:25 0:03 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
asterisk 3527 0.0 2.5 122364 24516 ? S 06:25 0:04 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
root 25252 0.0 2.5 116292 24324 ? Ss Mar04 0:03 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
root 30986 0.0 0.1 4832 1816 pts/0 S+ 09:27 0:00 grep apache

Sat, 03/05/2016 - 13:34

(Reply to #10) #11

K7FPV

The different poll lists on

The different poll lists on Pi vs Node is fixed in b2. Also the updated secs on the file and status page is fixed b2.

I also made b2 detect what the apache user is and do the permissions correctly.

Sat, 03/05/2016 - 15:35

(Reply to #11) #12

KE2N

excellent

let us know when b2 condenses out of the amazon cloud ....

Wed, 03/09/2016 - 19:53

(Reply to #12) #13

KE2N

towel

I am about ready to give up on the PI. It did manage to send one message after reboot but nothing since. Another reboot did not help. I re-installed b2 and set the config again.I managed to send one message. Eventually I found if I repeated the:

"chown -R asterisk:asterisk /var/www/html/meshchat" instruction, I *might* be able to send one more message.

Then if I repeat the command again, maybe I can send send another message.
So Darryl is probably right about this being a permissions thing. But what is going on?

FWIW - from watching "top" asterisk runs as asterisk in FreePBX.
meshchat (when I can catch it) runs as asterisk.
meshchatsync runs as root.

Wed, 03/09/2016 - 21:13

(Reply to #13) #14

K7FPV

Can you post the output of

Can you post the output of this?

ls -l /var/www/html/meshchat/db

Wed, 03/09/2016 - 23:19

(Reply to #14) #15

KE2N

here it is

root@ke2n-raspbx:~# ls -l /var/www/html/meshchat/db
total 64
-rw-r--r-- 1 asterisk asterisk     0 Mar  5 17:28 messages
-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root     62161 Mar  9 23:16 messages.MeshChat
root@ke2n-raspbx:~#

Thu, 03/10/2016 - 12:55

(Reply to #15) #16

K7FPV

Now we are getting somewhere.

Now we are getting somewhere. Do this command:

chmod 666 /var/www/html/meshchat/db/messages.MeshChat

Let me know if that solves it.

Thu, 03/10/2016 - 15:19

(Reply to #16) #17

KE2N

nope

no effect. Actually, at some point, I had tried making the entire directory mod 777.
Anyway - still not able to send after the "chmod 666 /var/www/html/meshchat/db/messages.MeshChat"
as before, if I execute chown -R asterisk:asterisk /var/www/html/meshchat
then I can send ONE message.

Thu, 03/10/2016 - 16:55

(Reply to #17) #18

K7FPV

What does ls -l show now?

Thu, 03/10/2016 - 18:05

(Reply to #18) #19

KE2N

What "ls -l ..." shows now

root@ke2n-raspbx:~# ls -l /var/www/html/meshchat/db
total 64
-rw-r--r-- 1 asterisk asterisk     0 Mar  5 17:28 messages
-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root     62229 Mar 10 18:03 messages.MeshChat
root@ke2n-raspbx:~#

Thu, 03/10/2016 - 18:16

(Reply to #19) #20

KE2N

What "ls -l ..." shows now

so THAT did not look right. Perhaps I needed sudo (?) Anyway I made the change using WinSCP.  
Here I verified that it got changed.  then I tried to send a message and checked again.  
You can see that messages.meshChat gets changed to 644

root@ke2n-raspbx:~# ls -l /var/www/html/meshchat/db
total 64
-rw-rw-rw- 1 asterisk asterisk     0 Mar  5 17:28 messages
-rw-rw-rw- 1 root     root     62229 Mar 10 18:12 messages.MeshChat
root@ke2n-raspbx:~# ls -l /var/www/html/meshchat/db

(sent message here)

total 64
-rw-rw-rw- 1 asterisk asterisk     0 Mar  5 17:28 messages
-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root     62229 Mar 10 18:13 messages.MeshChat
root@ke2n-raspbx:~#

Fri, 03/11/2016 - 11:47

(Reply to #20) #21

K7FPV

Ok thanks for sticking with

Ok thanks for sticking with this. I found the bug and it is fixed in b3.

Fri, 03/11/2016 - 12:17

(Reply to #21) #22

K7FPV

@KE2N would you try this v0

@KE2N would you try this v0.7b3 build to make sure it solves your issue before I release it?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/aredn/meshchat_0.7b3_all.deb

Fri, 03/11/2016 - 15:05

(Reply to #22) #23

KE2N

ta da

good job.
And before you ask

root@ke2n-raspbx:/var/www/html/meshchat/db# ls -l
total 64
-rw-r--r-- 1 asterisk asterisk     0 Mar 11 12:12 messages
-rw-rw-rw- 1 asterisk asterisk 62407 Mar 11 15:02 messages.MeshChat

Sat, 03/05/2016 - 17:30

#24

K7FPV

v0.7b2 released:http://www

v0.7b2 released:

http://www.aredn.org/content/meshchat-v07b2-released

Sun, 03/06/2016 - 12:10

#25

w6bi

Question/suggestion

Is there a keyboard command to initiate a Send? If not, I nominate Ctl-Enter.
Thanks.

Sun, 03/06/2016 - 14:05

(Reply to #25) #26

K7FPV

Good idea. Done in b3.

Sun, 03/06/2016 - 16:07

#27

w6bi

Fri, 03/11/2016 - 15:27

#28

K7FPV

v0.7b3 released:http://www

v0.7b3 released:

http://www.aredn.org/content/meshchat-v07b3-released

Mon, 03/14/2016 - 16:41

#29

K7FPV

v0.7b4 released:http://www

v0.7b4 released:

http://www.aredn.org/content/meshchat-v07b4-released-feature-complete

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