Ubuntu - Client Installation

This guide will enable you to install SatNOGS client on an Ubuntu 20.04 environment. It has been tested on PC, laptop, and Virtual Machines, all with success. Information is currently being added and announcement will be made when complete. It has been broken down into logical steps that will help allow for any troubleshooting should it be required.

Don't let the long contents fool you. It's not a complicated process and in fact be a great way for new SatNOGS users to experience SatNOGS from their own PC or laptop.

Installing SatNOGS on Ubuntu 20.04 - PC

Information is currently being added to this page. This warning will be removed when completed.

This guide is incomplete.

Installation information for gr-satnogs on Ubuntu 20.04

Do not add any repo for GNU Radio. It is not the required version and will cause errors.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

sudo apt-get --purge remove snapd -y

Install required software packages

sudo apt install -y \
      libboost-dev \
      libitpp-dev \
      libboost-date-time-dev \
      libboost-filesystem-dev \
      libboost-program-options-dev \
      libboost-system-dev \
      libboost-thread-dev \
      libboost-regex-dev \
      libboost-test-dev \
      swig \
      cmake \
      build-essential \
      pkg-config \
      gnuradio-dev \
      libconfig++-dev \
      libgmp-dev \
      liborc-0.4-0 \
      liborc-0.4-dev \
      liborc-0.4-dev-bin \
      nlohmann-json3-dev \
      libpng++-dev \
      libvorbis-dev \
      git \
      libusb-1.0-0

Install from source

cd ~
git clone https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/satnogs/gr-satnogs.git
cd gr-satnogs
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
cd ~

If you get an error stating: server certificate verification failed. CAfile: none CRLfile: none, then use this git command instead to skip verification.

GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY=true git clone https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/satnogs/gr-satnogs.git

If this is the first time you are building the gr-satnogs module, run:

sudo ldconfig

Installation information for Soapy SDR and Device on Ubuntu 20.04

Install required software packages

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtl-sdr librtlsdr-dev -y

sudo apt-get install soapysdr-tools python3-soapysdr libsoapysdr-dev -y

Installation information for gr-soapy on Ubuntu 20.04

Install from source

cd ~
git clone https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/gr-soapy
cd gr-soapy
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig
cd ~

Installation information for satnogs-flowgraphs on Ubuntu 20.04

Set & configure PYTHONPATH environment setting

Edit bashrc

sudo nano ~/.bashrc

Add the following to your .bashrc. This will make sure that every time you login the variable will be set.

export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages

If you do not re-login after adding to .bashrc then run the following (same) command in the current session.

export PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages

Installation from source

cd ~
git clone https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/satnogs/satnogs-flowgraphs.git
cd satnogs-flowgraphs
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install

Configuration information for SatNOGS user on Ubuntu 20.04

Add SatNOGS user

sudo useradd -c "SatNOGS-client" -d /var/lib/satnogs -G plugdev,dialout -m -s /bin/false satnogs

Create the satnogs python virtual environent

Install the required packages.

sudo apt-get install python3.8-venv virtualenv python3-pip -y

Next

sudo -H -u satnogs virtualenv --system-site-packages --python python3 /var/lib/satnogs

Start a SatNOGS user bash and activate the virual environment

sudo -H -u satnogs bash
source /var/lib/satnogs/bin/activate
pip install satnogs-client
pip install gps

Exit the bash

exit

cd /tmp
sudo mkdir -p .satnogs/data/incomplete 
sudo chown -R satnogs:satnogs .satnogs

Configure SatNOGS Client (yes, it's a little different) on Ubuntu 20.04

Create the satnogs-client environment file, make sure the PYTHONPATH is also in there (this is not normally done).

We're using nano (installed on Ubuntu 20.04 by default, though you can also use vi)

sudo nano /etc/default/satnogs-client

Here you will need to add your station information. The setup command does not run to configure this through an interface.

PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python3/dist-packages
SATNOGS_API_TOKEN=""
SATNOGS_STATION_ID=""
SATNOGS_STATION_LAT=""
SATNOGS_STATION_LON=""
SATNOGS_STATION_ELEV=""
SATNOGS_SOAPY_RX_DEVICE="driver=""
SATNOGS_RF_GAIN=""
SATNOGS_RX_SAMP_RATE=""
SATNOGS_ANTENNA=""
UDP_DUMP_HOST="127.0.0.1"

Configure System Services

Create systemd service file on Ubuntu 20.04

Create file using nano (you can use vi)

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/satnogs-client.service

Now add the following:

[Unit]
Description=SatNOGS client
[Service]
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/satnogs-client
ExecStart=/var/lib/satnogs/bin/satnogs-client
Restart=on-failure
User=satnogs
Group=satnogs
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

hamlib, rigctld and rotctld

There is also a dependency with hamlib, rigctld and rotctld, so we also need to add its environment file and the systemd services file.

Install hamlib-utils

sudo apt-get install python3-libhamlib2 libhamlib-utils

Edit hamlib-utils

sudo nano /etc/default/hamlib-utils

Add the following:

ROT_OPTS=""
RIG_OPTS="-T 127.0.0.1 -m 1"

Edit rigctld.service

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/rigctld.service

Add the following:

[Unit]
Description=rigctld server

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/hamlib-utils
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rigctld $RIG_OPTS
Restart=on-failure
User=satnogs
Group=satnogs

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Edit rotctld.service

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/rotctld.service

Edit rotctld.service

[Unit]
Description=rotctld server
[Service]
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/hamlib-utils
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rotctld $ROT_OPTS
Restart=on-failure
User=satnogs
Group=satnogs
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Reload systemd daemon

After the above is complete, you must reload the systemd daemon so it will use the newly created services.

Execute the following:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Now we can enable and start rigctld, rotctld and finally when all the /etc/default/satnogs-client variables are set, the satnogs-client.

sudo systemctl enable rigctld.service
sudo systemctl start rigctld.service
sudo systemctl status rigctld.service
sudo systemctl enable rotctld.service
sudo systemctl start rotctld.service
sudo systemctl status rotctld.service
sudo systemctl enable satnogs-client.service
sudo systemctl start satnogs-client.service
sudo systemctl status satnogs-client.service

If you want to see log information you can use the following commands:

sudo journalctl -f -u rigctld -n 512
sudo journalctl -f -u rotctld -n 512
sudo journalctl -f -u satnogs-client -n 512

Device Blacklisting

code goes here