# Feeding Plane.watch Plane.watch is the end product of a ***Wouldn't it be cool if?*** statement. It is an ADS-B aggregation project by members of SDR-Enthusiasts. It is currently completely non-commercial, run by members of the community as a passion project, and backed by an Australian-based Not-for-Profit association. The docker image [`ghcr.io/plane-watch/docker-plane-watch`](https://github.com/plane-watch/docker-plane-watch) contains the plane.watch feeder software and all of its required prerequisites and libraries. This needs to run in conjunction with `ultrafeeder` (or another Beast provider). ## plane.watch Feeder Registration ### Register for a plane.watch feeder account Head over to and sign up for an account. ### Create your feeder Login to , click on **Feeders**, **+ New Feeder**. Fill out your details. When you save your feeder, an **API Key** will be generated. Take note of this, as it will be required below. ## Update `.env` file Inside your application directory (`/opt/adsb`), edit the `.env` file using your favourite text editor. Beginners may find the editor `nano` easy to use: ```shell nano /opt/adsb/.env ``` This file holds all of the commonly used variables (such as our latitude, longitude and altitude). We're going to add our plane.watch variables to this file. Add the following lines to the file: ```shell PLANEWATCH_KEY=YOURAPIKEY ``` * Replace `YOURAPIKEY` with the API KEY that was provided the previous step. For example: ```shell PLANEWATCH_KEY=4e8413e6-52eb-11ea-8681-1c1b0d925d3g ``` ## Deploying plane.watch feeder Open the `docker-compose.yml` file that was created when deploying `ultrafeeder`. Append the following lines to the end of the file (inside the `services:` section): ```yaml planewatch: image: ghcr.io/plane-watch/docker-plane-watch:latest container_name: planewatch restart: unless-stopped environment: - BEASTHOST=ultrafeeder - LAT=${FEEDER_LAT} - LONG=${FEEDER_LONG} - ALT=${FEEDER_ALT_M}m - TZ=${FEEDER_TZ} - API_KEY=${PLANEWATCH_KEY} tmpfs: - /run:exec,size=64M - /var/log ``` To explain what's going on in this addition: * We're creating a container called `planewatch`, from the image `ghcr.io/plane-watch/docker-plane-watch:latest`. * We're passing several environment variables to the container: * `BEASTHOST=ultrafeeder` to inform the feeder to get its ADSB data from the container `ultrafeeder` over our private `adsbnet` network. * `LAT` will use the `FEEDER_LAT` variable from your `.env` file. * `LONG` will use the `FEEDER_LONG` variable from your `.env` file. * `ALT` will use the `FEEDER_ALT_M` variable from your `.env` file. * `TZ` will use the `FEEDER_TZ` variable from your `.env` file. * `API_KEY` will use the `PLANEWATCH_KEY` variable from your `.env` file. * We're using `tmpfs` for volumes that have regular I/O. Any files stored in a `tmpfs` mount are temporarily stored outside the container's writable layer. This helps to reduce: * The size of the container, by not writing changes to the underlying container; and * SD Card or SSD wear Before running `docker compose`, we also want to update the configuration of the `ultrafeeder` container, so that it pulls MLAT results from plane-watch Open the `docker-compose.yml` and make / uncomment the following as part of the `ULTRAFEEDER_CONFIG` variable to the `ultrafeeder` service: ```yaml mlathub,planewatch,30105,beast_in; ``` To explain this addition, the `ultrafeeder` container will connect to the `planewatch` container on port `30105` and receive MLAT data. This data will then be included in any outbound data streams from `ultrafeeder`. Once the file has been updated, issue the command `docker compose up -d` in the application directory to apply the changes and bring up the `planewatch` container. You should see the following output: ``` ✔ Container ultrafeeder Running ✔ Container planewatch Started ``` You can see from the output above that the `ultrafeeder` container was left alone (as the configuration for this container did not change), and a new container `planewatch` was created. We can view the logs for the environment with the command `docker compose logs`, or continually "tail" them with `docker compose logs -f`. We should now see logs from our newly created `planewatch` container: ``` [s6-init] making user provided files available at /var/run/s6/etc...exited 0. [s6-init] ensuring user provided files have correct perms...exited 0. [fix-attrs.d] applying ownership & permissions fixes... [fix-attrs.d] done. [cont-init.d] executing container initialization scripts... [cont-init.d] 01-timezone: executing... [cont-init.d] 01-timezone: exited 0. [cont-init.d] 02-sanity_check: executing... [cont-init.d] 02-sanity_check: exited 0. [cont-init.d] done. [services.d] starting services 2023-05-27T09:09:49+08:00 INF plane.watch feeder started version=20230526 2023-05-27T09:09:49+08:00 INF listening for incoming connections dst=feed.push.plane.watch:12346 listen=127.0.0.1:12346 proto=MLAT 2023-05-27T09:09:49+08:00 INF starting tunnel dst=feed.push.plane.watch:12345 proto=BEAST src=readsb:30005 [services.d] done. 2023-05-27T09:09:49+08:00 INF connection established dst=feed.push.plane.watch:12345 proto=BEAST src=readsb:30005 [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:54 2023 mlat-client 0.2.11 starting up [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:54 2023 Listening for Beast-format results connection on port 30105 2023-05-27T09:09:54+08:00 INF connection established dst=feed.push.plane.watch:12346 listen=127.0.0.1:12346 proto=MLAT src=127.0.0.1:35492 [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:54 2023 Connected to multilateration server at 127.0.0.1:12346, handshaking [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:59 2023 Server says: [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:59 2023 Handshake complete. [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:59 2023 Compression: zlib2 [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:59 2023 UDP transport: disabled [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:59 2023 Split sync: disabled [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:59 2023 Input connected to readsb:30005 [mlat-client] Sat May 27 09:09:59 2023 Input format changed to BEAST, 12MHz clock 2023-05-27T09:14:49+08:00 INF statistics bytesRxLocal=247548 bytesRxRemote=0 bytesTxLocal=0 bytesTxRemote=247548 proto=BEAST 2023-05-27T09:14:49+08:00 INF statistics bytesRxLocal=38354 bytesRxRemote=785 bytesTxLocal=785 bytesTxRemote=38354 proto=MLAT ``` After a few minutes, browse to . Your feeder should be listed as "online". It can take up to 10 minutes for the status to update. ## Advanced If you want to look at more options and examples for the `plane.watch` container, you can find the repository [here](https://github.com/plane-watch/docker-plane-watch).