Table of Contents
Installing an ODROID computer in the Bolidozor network
An installation guide for a Bolidozor network station computer. In case of a purchased station you do not need to pay attention to this guide.
The guide presumes a RMDS02D hardware version of the station with an Odroid-u3 computer.
Installed operating system is Lubuntu 14.04 LTS.
In order to connect a new station to the network, following adjustments has to be made.
- Changing the computer’s hostname to a following form: radio-{observatory name}
- Setting the path for saving recorded data
- Register the station in Bolidozor network
- Check if the station is functioning properly
OS image
The downloaded image has to be decompressed and copied onto an eMMC card. The path to the card can be found out after pushing it in the reader and seeing the dmesg listing.
xz -d lubuntu_odroid.img.xz sudo dd if=lubuntu_odroid.img of=/dev/sdb bs=1M sync
After copying the image to eMMC card, boot the card and do the other settings directly in the OS running on ODROID. Default login are as follows:
- Username: odroid
- Password: odroid
Odroid user is sudoer. Change the password as soon as possible using the passwd command.
Details concerning preparing the Bolidozor image on a clean Ubuntu installation.
Image configuration
Run the odroid-utility.sh (shortcut can be found on desktop), change the computer name and expand the system partition to a full size of the eMMC card. Reboot the station.
Remote access to the station
In case the station will need a service intervention, it is advantageous to activate a reverse ssh tunnel that can serve as a way for remote maintenance of the station.
It can be done by running the following commands:
wget http://space.astro.cz/bolidozor/support/scripts/setup_reverse_tunnel.sh chmod +x ./setup_reverse_tunnel.sh sudo ./setup_reverse_tunnel.sh
The script will eventually list the set parameters, e.g.:
Host radio-test.tunnel Port 4958 HostName space.astro.cz User testak1
These have to be copied and sent to the same address as in case of registration of the station.
Launching the meteor detection on the station
There is an already prepared folder ~/Bolidozor/TEST in the directory structure of the station’s image. In the folder, you can find a test configuration that records the data directly to the system eMMC card. However, such solution is not suitable for permanent operation. It is better to add an microSD card to Odroid, which will only serve for recording the data.
Format this SD card to file system EXT4 so you can use the system rights. Next, put the card into the microSD card slot on Odroid. After a restart, the system should mount the card by itself. Next, create a symbolic link from ~Bolidozor/ directory and create folder according to our name convention.
Directories that will contain saved data about meteors and that the configuration file refer to, have to exist. If they do not exist yet, create them.
Copy the sample files form TEST observatory into the new folder ~/Bolidozor/observatory_name/station_name. Go through the copied scripts and config files and correct the paths so they contain the new names of observatory and station.
Run the detection using a script:
~/Bolidozor/start.sh
The script will start jackd audio system, detection programme radio-observer, tuning utility frequency-guard.py and uploading scripts.
Monitoring of detected meteors
When the meteor detection is running, it is possible to run spectrum monitoring and reflection sound generation. All you have to do is to run the following script:
/git/station-supervisor/visualisation.sh
The script will run PySDR and Whistle programmes and connect them to the jack audio system. It will also start a xgps programme (showing an auxiliary information about the signal from GPS satellites) that enables the time synchronisation on stations.