meshing-around BBS/utility BOT

[gentle kestrel]

Looks like you got it now? @heady raven

[heady raven]

Yeah, every time I do this, I learn a little bit more about things.
It’s a combination sometimes doing the same thing more than once. Or realizing the problem is something completely different and you’re just seeing the result of it. I must’ve tried every variation on the config file. And yet it the node was hung on another app and a few other things I won’t go into length about. Mahalo 🥔 gunman

[heady raven]

Aloha- I'm getting an error on this url- yet when i try it - works... any thoughts people

`# NOAA Coastal Data Enable NOAA Coastal Waters Forecasts and Tide
coastalEnabled = True

Find the correct costal weather directory at https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/marine/coastal/

pz = Puget Sound, ph = Honolulu HI, gm = Florida Keys, pk = Alaska

this map can help https://www.weather.gov/marine select location and then look at the 'Forecast-by-Zone Map'

myCoastalZone is the .txt file with the forecast data

myCoastalZone = https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/marine/coastal/hi/hiz026.txt

number of data points to return, default is 3

coastalForecastDays = 3`

[mortal shale]

spud, have you interfaced with i2c at all from mesh_bot?

I was thinking about seeing if I could have it include current 12V and 5V current and voltage measurements in the sysinfo

or sitrep

or something

... specifically on a FemtoFox, in my case

[mortal shale]

You want a block code section for that kind of copypasta. It uses 3x ` (grave/backtick) at the start and end and looks like this:

#look at this comment
lines: 3
a_third_line: true

[stone lance]

You can put c or cpp at the front, too

Doh

[mortal shale]

Oh, sure. I was using yaml as the language spec in my example. I should've mentioned that.

Discord supports a bunch, like py, js, cs, and probably some others that I don't use 😛

[stone lance]

There's a news text file that it monitors and broadcasts

[heady raven]

so inset this at the bottom - `https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/marine/coastal/hi/hiz026.txt

number of data points to return, default is 3

coastalForecastDays = 3
#look at this comment
lines: 3
a_third_line: true`

[stone lance]

Hard part would be if the Meshtasticd is reading the i2c itself, and something else tries to as well.

[mortal shale]

The perfect version of this would have meshtasticd reading out the 12V voltage and transmitting battery state like it's supposed to, but that seems ambitiously hopeful

[stone lance]

It can read 3x voltages and broadcast them.

What 2 of them are is up to you.

[mortal shale]

My hope is to run 5V and 12V through the INA3221 to see why the FemtoFox keeps boot cycling

Low voltage is my best guess, hence these

But a 20W panel should be plenty for it.

In any case, it sounds like I don't need to involve mesh_bot. I assumed meshtastic doing it would be harder.

[stone lance]

Ina3221 has 3 channels 🙂

Idk what battery you're using, but that can either be scaled in, or just read battery % ignored

[gentle kestrel]

not all products are alive any more this specific example is COASTAL HAZARD MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HONOLULU HI 337 PM HST TUE MAR 1 2016

so its reporting no data

the bot will check date to validate record a little before sending it over the air

[gentle kestrel]

just patched a few things and added a alert to the sentry channel (default is node 1 channel 2) for a low battery alarm 25% will go out as a text message

[mortal shale]

Look at you with your functional battery management

My next major to do is have any idea that batteries exist on two of my big nodes

Currently they just think they're on mains power all the time

[gentle kestrel]

Most of my stuff is, I didn’t test the three meter power but if node telemetry indicates primary is low (25%) it will send a 🚨( it should also prior have been in the log)

[stone lance]

Battery chemistry needs to be a yaml defined thing

or maybe the % curve needs adding

[heady raven]

found a working link. ph- instead of hi- up'd the output to 10 days-- good stuff.
https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/marine/coastal/ph/phz122.txt

[heady raven]

I'm getting this error starting the browser...
sudo journalctl -u mesh_bot.service
System: LLM failure: HTTPConnectionPool(host='172.27.0.19', port=11434): Max retries exceeded with url: /api/generate (Caused by Ne
if it's localhost instead of the ip address I get -
System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404

do i need this?
[Service] Environment="OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434"
in /etc/systemd/system/ollama.service?

[gentle kestrel]

Yes it will enable the ollama HTTP API

[heady raven]

Then i did this
sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/ollama.service

`[Unit]
Description=Ollama Service
After=network-online.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ollama serve
User=ollama
Group=ollama
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
Environment="PATH=/opt/meshing-around/venv/bin:/home/wh6gxz/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/l>

[Service]
Environment="OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434"

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target`

[gentle kestrel]

Move all service items under one heading if it didn’t work

[heady raven]

Here's what I did...

/etc/systemd/system/mesh_bot.service:23: Failed to parse service type, ignoring:

[Service] ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ollama serve User=ollama Group=ollama Restart=always RestartSec=3 Environment="PATH=/opt/meshing-around/venv/bin:/home/wh6gxz/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/l> Environment="OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434"

info:
For each environment variable, add a line Environment under section [Service]:
[Service]
Environment="OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434"

[gentle kestrel]

It works now?

Might need a service recycle

[heady raven]

yeah hit recycle - and
WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404
doooh...
...at lest the error Failed to parse service type, ignoring: went away on recycle...

[gentle kestrel]

So good now?

[heady raven]

WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404
doooh...

[gentle kestrel]

This from meshbot make sure the url is accessible (try curl or browser should get ollama ready)

[heady raven]

Device:1 Channel:1 ReceivedChannel: askai kiaua volcano From: w> Aug 28 12:03:23 VolcanoAI bash[1923]: 2025-08-28 12:03:23,660 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: Please wait, response could > Aug 28 12:03:25 VolcanoAI bash[1923]: 2025-08-28 12:03:25,864 | WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404 Aug 28 12:03:28 VolcanoAI bash[1923]: 2025-08-28 12:03:28,064 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having trouble proces

I restart ollama and i get this output
/etc/systemd/system/mesh_bot.service:23: Failed to parse service type, ignoring: notify #try simple
🙃

config the file this way parsing error is gone...

`Service]
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/ollama serve
User=ollama
Group=ollama
Restart=always
RestartSec=3
Environment="PATH=/opt/meshing-around/venv/bin:/home/wh6gxz/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/l>

[Service]
Environment="OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434"`

so i kept the same as above ran the url... and ok then

...and
Device:1 Channel:1 ReceivedChannel: askai kiaua volcano From: w> Aug 28 12:24:28 VolcanoAI bash[1023]: 2025-08-28 12:24:28,602 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: Please wait, response could > Aug 28 12:24:30 VolcanoAI bash[1023]: 2025-08-28 12:24:30,806 | WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404 Aug 28 12:24:33 VolcanoAI bash[1023]: 2025-08-28 12:24:33,006 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having trouble proc

ok... step back - i'm going circular

2025-08-28 12:34:21,188 | WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404 Aug 28 12:34:23 VolcanoAI bash[1023]: 2025-08-28 12:34:23,388 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having trouble proces> Aug 28 12:34:49 VolcanoAI systemd[1]: /etc/systemd/system/mesh_bot.service:23: Failed to parse service type, ignoring:

[gentle kestrel]

Ollama is its own service and it runs with the http web enabled when it has the environment variable in its [service] record

[heady raven]

so it explians the url working and the bot out being other

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/ollama/ollama/blob/main/docs/faq.md#how-do-i-configure-ollama-server

[heady raven]

yeah I followed that earlier.
I took out

Environment="OLLAMA_HOST=0.0.0.0:11434"
and--

System: LLM failure: HTTPConnectionPool(host='192.168.86.24', port=11434): Max retries exceeded with url: /api/generate

[gentle kestrel]

It will need ollama host to auto enable the server

Is there any security of the OS stopping it

So if the meshbot is running and fails on LLM HTML that’s fine just leave it for now - focus on getting ollama web api online

It should pop up in a browser

In a generic Debian OS there is no security to stop this

Check the journal on ollama service is it a bind fail?

Are the interfaces real or all hosted cloud space?

Can you use loop back if hosted?

Or set the IP to the interface IP not 0.0.0.0

[heady raven]

yeah it try's to run on a ip choke with this...

: Aug 28 12:49:51 VolcanoAI bash[2116]: 2025-08-28 12:49:51,535 | INFO | System: Autoresponder Started for Device1 VolcanoAI,Vail. NodeI> Aug 28 12:49:51 VolcanoAI bash[2116]: 2025-08-28 12:49:51,535 | WARNING | System: These LLM models lack a traditional system prompt, they> Aug 28 12:49:51 VolcanoAI bash[2116]: 2025-08-28 12:49:51,537 | WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTPConnectionPool(host='172.27.0.19', por> Aug 28 12:50:25 VolcanoAI systemd[1]: /etc/systemd/system/mesh_bot.service:23: Failed to parse service type, ignoring: notify #try simple > Aug 28 12:51:27 VolcanoAI systemd[1]: Stopping mesh_bot.service - MESH-BOT... Aug 28 12:51:27 VolcanoAI systemd[1]: mesh_bot.service: Deactivated successfully. Aug 28 12:51:27 VolcanoAI systemd[1]: Stopped mesh_bot.service - MESH-BOT. Aug 28 12:51:33 VolcanoAI systemd[1]: Started mesh_bot.service - MESH-BOT. Aug 28 12:51:34 VolcanoAI bash[2172]: Aug 28 12:51:34 VolcanoAI bash[2172]: Meshtastic Autoresponder Bot CTL+C to exit Aug 28 12:51:34 VolcanoAI bash[2172]: Aug 28 12:51:34 VolcanoAI bash[2172]: 2025-08-28 12:51:34,154 | INFO | System: Autoresponder Started for Device1 VolcanoAI,Vail. NodeI> Aug 28 12:51:34 VolcanoAI bash[2172]: 2025-08-28 12:51:34,154 | WARNING | System: These LLM models lack a traditional system prompt, they> Aug 28 12:51:34 VolcanoAI bash[2172]: 2025-08-28 12:51:34,156 | WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTPConnectionPool(host='172.27.0

[gentle kestrel]

Yes this looks fine; just need the ollama API online

Web browse to the http://localhost:11434

When you see ollama api ready or whatever it says it’s good to cook

[heady raven]

mahalo - I'll install the API- Here's to nurse dude

[heady raven]

ok did all that re-inserted the path in the service file. url works despite bot output...
bot output on channel
circle of errors...

Device:1 Channel:1 ReceivedChannel: askai kiaua volcano From: wh6gxz-ecom NFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: Please wait, response could take 30+ seconds. Fund the SysOp's GPU budget! ING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404 NFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having trouble processing your request, please try again later.

[gentle kestrel]

Is there connectivity from the bot to the url?

Can you see ollama api in a browser

http://localhost:11434/

[heady raven]

yes the bot config file has the url

INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 ReceivedChannel: askai From: wh6gxz-ecom Aug 28 13:46:22 VolcanoAI bash[1952]: 2025-08-28 13:46:22,045 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: Please ask a question Aug 28 13:46:51 VolcanoAI bash[1952]: 2025-08-28 13:46:51,630 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 ReceivedChannel: askai what is the big islan> Aug 28 13:46:51 VolcanoAI bash[1952]: 2025-08-28 13:46:51,630 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: Please wait, response could > Aug 28 13:46:53 VolcanoAI bash[1952]: 2025-08-28 13:46:53,835 | WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404 Aug 28 13:46:56 VolcanoAI bash[1952]: 2025-08-28 13:46:56,035 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having trouble proce

[heady raven]

have ollama running - 2 models downloaded

`ollama run gemma3:270m

who is spudgunman?
Spudgunman is a fictional character from the popular video game "Minecraft". He is a powerful and cunning character who is a powerful
fighter and a skilled strategist.`

wiki: is COOL

also:
wh6gxz@VolcanoAI:~ $ ollama list NAME ID SIZE MODIFIED deepseek-r1:1.5b e0979632db5a 1.1 GB 15 minutes ago gemma3:270m e7d36fb2c3b3 291 MB 2 days ago

haha

who is tom hanks?
Tom Hanks is a fictional character from the popular video game "Minecraft."

ohhh AI -- you LOLO!

reboot- then or - /bye - then run again can make ai happy for the time LOL
ollama run gemma3:270m

who is tom hanks?
Tom Hanks is an American actor, known for his roles in films like "A Streetcar Named Desire," "The Shawshank Redemption," and "The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Lads."
wiki: works better for info...

[gentle kestrel]

Haha you just joined in on gemma3:270

It’s the latest in Gemma code, if you want an AI with a prompt let’s say 2024 version it can use context from google and have some legitimacy ( I didn’t delete old way yet just flip off raw mode and use Gemma2)

If you have a full GPU you can scale up Gemma3:latest

Or go larger

Latest is only 4b or about 4gb ram, more ram “more smarts”

The default meshbot is the smallest model at 300mb

It’s dumb but funny why I holding there at the moment while I goof myself with newest model and I wanna try and use it possibly for more tooling or direct code interactions

I want it potato easy turnkey, like perfect hash browns it’s not ready yet

[heady raven]

Yeah, fun stuff. I still don’t have the bot picking up AI. I am running it on the command line.

I get this output on the bot

bot log
System: LLM failure: HTTPConnectionPool(host='172.27.0.1', port=11434): Max retries exceeded with url: /api/generate (Caused by NewC> NFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having trouble processing your request, please try again later
journalctl -e -u ollama

[GIN] 2025/08/28 - 19:47:01 | 404 | 6.537µs | 192.168.86.42 | GET "/favicon.ico"

yeah, can't get the bot to output ai--

i get the above output once after restarting the bot then this

restart bot then output returns to
System: LLM failure: HTTPConnectionPool(host='172.27.0.1', port=11434): Max retries exceeded with url: /api/generate (Caused by NewC> NFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having trouble processing your request, please try again later

I'm going to try gemma2 with the bot-
same errors - play with the command line a bit-

[gentle kestrel]

Do you have tcp connectivity from the bot to ollama

Looks like no

[heady raven]

no it fails how ever i config- it -
otherwise the two alone are good- ... -- put some time into it... it's all good

WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTPConnectionPool | System: LLM failure: HTTPConnectionPool(host='172.27.0.1', port=11434): Max retries exceeded with url: /api/generate (Caused by NewonnectionError('<urllib3.connection.HTTP Connection object at 0x7fffab69fe90>: Failed to establish a new connection:=11434): Max retries exceeded with url: /api/generate (Caused by NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.HTTPConnection object at 0x7fffab>

[gentle kestrel]

Are you hosting it may need a firewall rule

Try using 127 network the loop back

[heady raven]

yes- tried the 172- and variety of url variables - have a port open in firewall 11434

[gentle kestrel]

I see 172?

[heady raven]

let me try that again-- i've tried so many variables hhi
BOT output:

``WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404
Aug 29 07:58:53 VolcanoAI bash[2454]: 2025-08-29 07:58:53,351 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 ReceivedChannel: askai hawaii From: hitchike>
Aug 29 07:58:53 VolcanoAI bash[2454]: 2025-08-29 07:58:53,988 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: Please wait, response could >
Aug 29 07:58:56 VolcanoAI bash[2454]: 2025-08-29 07:58:56,191 | WARNING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404`

VoilcanoAI node output

`Aug 29 07:58:58 VolcanoAI bash[2454]: 2025-08-29 07:58:58,391
| INFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having``

ollama output...

VolcanoAI ollama[973]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 07:58:15 | 404 | 2.694251ms | 127.0.0.1 | POST "/api/generate" Aug 29 07:58:56 VolcanoAI ollama[973]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 07:58:56 | 404 | 359.224µs | 127.0.0.1 | POST "/api/generate"

command line works...
Ollama log
GIN] 2025/08/29 - 08:02:43 | 200 | 4.017066046s | 127.0.0.1 | POST "/api/generate" Aug 29 08:03:00 VolcanoAI ollama[973]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 08:03:00 | 200 | 1.151286535s | 127.0.0.1 | POST "/api/chat" Aug 29 08:04:52 VolcanoAI ollama[973]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 08:04:52 | 200 | 40.204µs | 127.0.0.1 | HEAD "/" Aug 29 08:04:52 VolcanoAI ollama[973]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 08:04:52 | 200 | 35.278µs | 127.0.0.1 | GET "/api/ps"

[gentle kestrel]

Gotta be close, or there is specifically security stopping it

Try a curl?

Is it the meshbot user

No access

[heady raven]

something is making making this happen

`System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404``

[gentle kestrel]

The inability to access via http

[heady raven]

if i put the real ip - ollama will output on a browser
I tried curl- how ru suggesting using it?

[gentle kestrel]

curl http://localhost:11434

[heady raven]

wh6gxz@VolcanoAI:~ $ curl http://localhost:11434/
Ollama is running

[gentle kestrel]

Just gotta solve it for the meshbot service now

If you stop meshbot

And run it from command line it is failing to find ollama

[heady raven]

no - it outputs...
curl http://localhost:11434/
Ollama is running

[gentle kestrel]

Yea that’s good so the bot can’t seem to do the same thing

I suspect permissions but it’s finding what they are

The specific code is if a return of 200 use data any other error with http alert to screen

The 404 is either a typo or something causing a hiccup

(It’s outside my ability to fix localized issue)

[heady raven]

yeah - the bot is not loading LLM api HTML fails... - mahalo for working with me... otherwise - I've been playing with a few models on the pi5 16gb...

[gentle kestrel]

Fun! Worst case you can try a new pi image

I just added a line to install.sh to automate ollama more the other day

I will test a new install this evening if I can get time

[heady raven]

I've learned alot BRO! Having fun... I'll fool around with it on and off until - well - we will see about that- 73 and aloha - I'll be your tester hihi love the BOT!

[heady raven]

this is running behind a arden hap- the gateway address is 404

journalctl -e -u ollama

2025/08/29 - 09:18:51 | 404 | 4.171185ms | 172.27.0.1 | POST "/api/generate" Aug 29 09:18:51 VolcanoAI ollama[973]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 09:18:51 | 200 | 290.185µs | 192.168.86.42 | GET "/" Aug 29 09:19:07 VolcanoAI ollama[973]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 09:19:07 | 404 | 381.111µs | 172.27.0.1 | P

i think this is why i'm foof-

[heady raven]

journalctl -e -u ollama

[GIN] 2025/08/29 - 09:51:42 | 200 | 8.612µs | 192.168.86.42 | GET "/" Aug 29 09:52:15 VolcanoAI ollama[978]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 09:52:15 | 404 | 377.276µs | 172.27.0.19 | POST "/api/generate"

if i do the 192.x. in the config file - I get a 172.27.0.1 gateway ip- 404-

[gentle kestrel]

404 isn’t a valid IP address but it is a response in failure

If this is all on one raspberry pi I’m not sure how it got so tangled up

Try a reboot haha

[heady raven]

yeah done a few of those hihi.

[heady raven]

i moved it to another part of my network just to make sure routing was not the issue...
pretty much reproduced the same stuff. 🤪 💯 👀

[gentle kestrel]

Is everything on one pi? The bot and ollama?

[heady raven]

pi5 16gb -- everything else is cool 🙃 ...

ollama run gemma3:270m

who is spudgunman
Spudgunman is a fictional character in the video game "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild." He is a character from the game.

`# Enable ollama LLM see more at https://ollama.com
ollama = True

Ollama model to use (defaults to gemma3:270m)

ollamaModel = gemma3:latest

server instance to use (defaults to local machine install)

ollamaHostName = http://localhost:11434

Produce LLM replies to messages that aren't commands?

If False, the LLM only replies to the "ask:" and "askai" commands.

llmReplyToNonCommands = True

if True, the input is sent raw to the LLM, if False uses legacy template query

rawLLMQuery = True
`

config.ini

[gentle kestrel]

Looks good

[lapis topaz]

So what are the requirements for a Ollama server ?

Like if I was to spin up a dedicated VM to just be a Ollama server for this project..

[gentle kestrel]

The new default is gemma3 @ 300mb ram 🐏 the more the cpu the faster it is and if you have a GPU it blazes

I dev the bot on a pi5 4GB

Lab is pi5 8gb

And my production is a gpu system

You can put ollama on gpu and low power bot

HTTP call

[lapis topaz]

I have a colo in a datacenter, with virtual systems running. So I could give it like 4 CPUs, 16GB RAM, and 100GB HDD w/o any issues..

[gentle kestrel]

Ollama is fun if you never goofed with it

[lapis topaz]

I've never heard of it till this project..

[heady raven]

I haven't heard of Ollama as well before meshing-around...
Other than not getting ollama output on the bot it's all good-
i've have meshing-around on a pi4, femtofox, pi5 - oh yeah

[lapis topaz]

That's kinda my plan.. I'm trying to build out the mesh in my area, I am completely cut off from all meshes..

[heady raven]

VolcanoAI 12:45 PMAug 29, 2025, 12:45 PM MOTD: Thanks for using Nurse Dude BOT! Mesh ON!

i should say mahalo--

VolcanoAI 12:47 PMAug 29, 2025, 12:47 PM MOTD: Mahalo for using Nurse Dude BOT! Mesh ON!

haha there ya GO brah!

askai

[lapis topaz]

Why is wxalert listed twice at the end ?

[heady raven]

yeah- just noticed that myself... ran cmd again and yep it be 2 hihi

[gentle kestrel]

Just noticed it myself

I know why

Shouldn’t be that way

Also looks like you got it working? @heady raven

[heady raven]

No unfortunately

cmd askai hawaii

BOT LOG
System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404 NFO | Device:1 Channel:1 ReceivedChannel: askai hawaii From: hitchiker-udp NFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: Please wait, response could take 30+ seconds. Fund the SysOp's GPU budget! ING | System: LLM failure: HTTP Error: 404 NFO | Device:1 Channel:1 SendingChannel: ⛔️I am having trouble processing your request, please try again later.

Ollama LOG

Aug 29 13:07:41 VolcanoAI ollama[1359]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 13:07:41 | 404 | 379.021µs | ::1 | POST "/api/generate" Aug 29 13:08:44 VolcanoAI ollama[1359]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 13:08:44 | 404 | 357.298µs | ::1 | POST "/api/generate"

[heady raven]

yeah if I trigger the askai without a question I get output -

[gentle kestrel]

Oh shoot the LLM says something like that as well

I will try a new install this evening

I haven’t had any issues with it lately like this

[heady raven]

this is ollama via- cmd line log output... got to like 200..

ollama[1359]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 13:13:55 | 200 | 3.987420186s | 127.0.0.1 | POST "/api/generate" Aug 29 13:14:07 VolcanoAI ollama[1359]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 13:14:07 | 200 | 1.684952089s | 127.0.0.1 | POST "/api/chat" Aug 29 13:15:09 VolcanoAI ollama[1359]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 13:15:09 | 200 | 1.651722282s | 127.0.0.1 | POST "/api/chat" Aug 29 13:15:35 VolcanoAI ollama[1359]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 13:15:35 | 200 | 2.095934593s | 127.0.0.1 | POST "/api/chat"

[heady raven]

I'm happy to recreate the mesh-wheel hihi

[gentle kestrel]

I did just grab a new pi SD card and it everything worked in a new build. Installing with moving to /opt no to embedded yes to mesh service and meshbot account creation yes yes yes and reboots into a working bot

[lapis topaz]

@gentle kestrel What kinda GPU you using ? I have an old 1050Ti I might be able to use..

2 actually.. LOL

[gentle kestrel]

They work great

[lapis topaz]

Those would have to be a home setup tho..

Can both be used at the same time for the 1 Ollama server ?

[gentle kestrel]

Yes ollama should detect them

[lapis topaz]

Interesting..

Imma have to dig them out and find a desktop setup to put them in..

Oh.. I think I have a 1070Ti also.. I don't remember what I have in my other older desktops I have laying around..

[gentle kestrel]

If you go that far OpenWebUI is another cool project to look at with ollama stacking models and images

All uses the API so can all use the one machine

[exotic ledge]

Question - do I use the scheduler module to facilitate bbslinking between nodes? I'm struggling to get things connected and maybe I'm just not quite grasping it.

I've got two nodes with a shared channel, I've got the node IDs whitelisted on each, but can't seem to get a post on one to propagate to the other.

[heady raven]

yeah - still can't get ai to output to the bot-

[GIN] 2025/08/29 - 15:54:14 | 404 | 8.087556ms | ::1 | POST "/api/generate" Aug 29 15:56:56 VolcanoAI ollama[1115]: [GIN] 2025/08/29 - 15:56:56 | 404 | 373.417µs | ::1 | POST "/api/generate"

[gentle kestrel]

Correct using the schedule to set up a synch like 2am or something the message having the keyword like

bbslink MeshBot looking for peers

You can put that in config.ini vs the current hello

[exotic ledge]

Thanks. I'll give it a go

[gentle kestrel]

So you formatted a new pi and can’t make it work

I tried it like a hour ago and it was fine

Worked perfect loaded the bot and no errors on LLM load

If you say yes to the ollama API it will also now set config.ini truly turn key on a pi

[heady raven]

I didn't reformat the pi- re-installed meshing-around. - the api installed runs. something in path-- got to break away for a bit- mahalo for staying with me... yeah i'm reproducing the same errors hihi

[gentle kestrel]

Yea no worries; something is funky in the pi there do you have a spare SD card you can flash new test and see if you can locate the difference?

[heady raven]

yeah i do have a spar-- the thing is everything else works. ai doesn't load on the bot - bummer

[gentle kestrel]

There is some likely typo or security issue at play

[heady raven]

yeah - true- i moved to another part of the network- nada hmmm

[gentle kestrel]

If it’s all on a single pi it won’t matter

I really don’t know what could have happened here it looks like you got everything set up

[heady raven]

yeah it is- with meshadv hat--

[gentle kestrel]

Nice it should all work, a pi is a pi

[heady raven]

Doooh! During
git clone curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

`curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

Cleaning up old version at /usr/local/lib/ollama

Installing ollama to /usr/local
Downloading Linux arm64 bundle
########################## 36.7%curl: (92) HTTP/2 stream 1 was not closed cleanly: PROTOCOL_ERROR (err 1)

gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Unexpected EOF in archive
tar: Error is not recoverable: exiting now`

Played with this and that configuration-
It took a few times to get Ollama downloaded configured
Didn't real do anything DIFF- did the whole thing over - got better faster - geekier @ the install haha
This Meshtasticd installed better than last one- I had to use the CLI to config the node- and it kept going back to default. So yeah- happy happy

Dude Bot has AI aloha only on VolcanoAI channel...
Mahalo SpudGunMan!
You ROCK

[heady raven]

wh6gxz mini mesh
11:34 PMAug 29, 2025, 11:34 PM
Askai hawaii

sweet- piled up the cmd's while the ai did it's things all the output worked!

[gentle kestrel]

Wahoo!

[broken fossil]

Nice work Shawn next you could build a document upload and Hawai specific training via http for offline use than when someone at a school, shelter or site with no internet access could have detailed information on events or forms the AI could answer questions about may take a bit of OCR work and training

[plush ibex]

Anyone noticed in the last week or so rlist has started to repsond with "No Data for your Region"?

Had a guy on our local mesh mention it. Sure enough when I tried it noticed the same response from several nodes making the request.

All else seems fine. Wasn't sure if it was just me or there might be a known issue. Was going to look into maybe today or tomorrow if I get time.

[gentle kestrel]

Could be cloudflair preventing stuff - can you browse to https://www.repeaterbook.com from the bot?

[plush ibex]

I'll give it a try when I can get back to it.

[gentle kestrel]

If you get hit with a captive portal from the hosting provider cloudflair

I’m curious if it works fine after for a bit

[plush ibex]

Wasn't sure if maybe repeaterbook may have made a change as well.

[gentle kestrel]

Possibly; it’s not an official api I’m scraping

[plush ibex]

Been consistent now for several days apparently. Just haven't had time to look at it much. Thanks for the suggestion.

[gentle kestrel]

Yea thanks for alert on it, I will look more into it this evening

[plush ibex]

Hey that would be awesome. Could just be us.

I'm no python god but I had started to glace though the code and was getting an idea of how it was making calls to repeaterbook.

[gentle kestrel]

Using BeautifulSoup to parse the html

[plush ibex]

It's been working amazing for our small mesh running on a FEMTO. Really appreciate all the work that has been put into it.

[gentle kestrel]

Awesome, Glad it’s fun!

[gentle kestrel]

This is for sure looking like a webAppFirewall which is looking for human

I may need to retire this command 🙁 if I can’t find some good data elsewhere artsci has much less

[plush ibex]

Darn. I was somewhat afraid of that.

[gentle kestrel]

More digging hope isn’t lost; looks like they might have changed the website

[plush ibex]

It's a whirlwind of emotion! 😂

[gentle kestrel]

Try git pull

[plush ibex]

Device:1 Channel:1 ReceivedChannel: rlist From: KB0SDY SCAP2
2025-08-31 20:57:28,065 | DEBUG | System: Bot detected Commands:[{'cmd': 'rlist', 'index': 0}] From: KB0SDY SCAP2
2025-08-31 20:57:28,065 | DEBUG | System: location data for 3297246898 is 34.99878,-86.7078466
2025-08-31 20:57:30,610 | INFO | Device:1 Sending DM: KB4CRG📶442.775+5.0 MHz,107.2.FM KB4CRG📶444.575+5.0 MHz,100.0.FM EchoLink IRLP W4BV📶147.03+0.6 MHz,114.8.FM W4LCS📶442.3+5.0 MHz,127.3.FM To: KB0SDY SCAP2

That looks like a go.

[gentle kestrel]

Woo-Hoo!

[plush ibex]

Nice!!

[gentle kestrel]

Thanks dude

[plush ibex]

Really appreciate the fix.

We have quite a collection of ham guys deploying our local mesh at lincolnmesh.us and they love to show off stuff lke rlist. LOL

[gentle kestrel]

BBS had a minor change to give the last 4 of the hexID who posted the message (so you can use your mobile to search)

[broken fossil]

does the bot/system do DM to email or txt message?

[gentle kestrel]

Yes you can set up a email/sms alert system the bbsmail is just RF node

[broken fossil]

Thanks I may try and get an image up running how does it run in a VM

[gentle kestrel]

As long as it has access to a meshtastic node somewhere it will be fine, I may have some time soon gonna rework docker into a better configuration but I know it’s been deployed in lots of methods

[broken fossil]

Was not sure with the New UDP stuff I was thinking the VM and bot could simulate a node and send it to other nodes on the network by UDP than out to the RF land through a base station.

[dusky abyss]

Just install meshtastic for your distro here https://meshtastic.org/docs/hardware/devices/linux-native-hardware/#installation

Then, use cli or Android client to configure it's region and anything else you need like channels, name and linking. After that, you can run the bot and It will be a "radioless" node that is able to communicate with other nodes via UDP or MQTT

[gentle kestrel]

I wanna bundle the docker this way

[broken fossil]

Thanks will give that a try for now

[stone lance]

I made a tiny BBS to travel with, but I think the wago connectors I used to connect the battery have slipped, and it's too #notabomb for me to fix on the train.

So here I sit, bereft of dad jokes.

Oh, I see what happend.

I unplugged my laptop and it drained the battery.

Oops

Easily fixed.

[gray igloo]

Oop

[heady raven]

Cool

[heady raven]

I've got an interesting one maybe.
I've running meshing-around without issue and then I started getting these errors.

System: communicating with interface1, trying to reconnect: Timed out waiting for an acknowledgment
this config.ini has been working for me - and then...

`[interface]
type = tcp

port = /dev/ttyAMA10

port = /dev/ttyUSB0

hostname = localhost

mac = 00:11:22:33:44:55`

This runs on a pi5 16gb - with a MeshAdv hat - good att- until recently it's been all good - BTW it run's meshtasticd alpha- without issue - Mahalo for reading this...

[gentle kestrel]

Is it reconnecting fine?

[heady raven]

yes and no - i play with the config file do a few reboots - then wola - time passes then the error reappears. hmmm

ERROR | System: communicating with interface1, trying to reconnect: Timed out waiting for an acknowledgment

not working. yet meshtasticd sees the hat-

[gentle kestrel]

Yea it’s tcp I have seen it have connection issues but it should just reconnect and go on

It’s somewhat expected with tcp and ble

[heady raven]

yeah i've tried via- tcp/ip address and a few other variables

[gentle kestrel]

Sure but it’s reconnecting fine?

[heady raven]

no - not anymore

[gentle kestrel]

What’s the full log for failure?

You just show my one line eventually the API will crash why is it crashing

[heady raven]

turned on debug---

the config for femtofox- currently offline because i'm running meshing-around on another device
`[interface]
type = tcp
port = /dev/ttyACM0

port = /dev/ttyUSB0

hostname = localhost`
no issues....

[gentle kestrel]

I just see it’s last message of retrying and that is it

Did it all hang up or did it reconnect

I can’t replicate this, did a update and all

[heady raven]

no - i'm a little stuck- i'm thinking the hat- yet I moved it to a diff- part of the network- got the same errors. then tried hostname 0.0.0.0 it worked- moved it back to the part of the network and bummer...

INFO | System: Autoresponder Started for Device1 VolcanoAI,Vail. NodeID: 2651026246, !9e037346 ING | System: These LLM models lack a traditional system prompt, they can be verbose and not very helpful be advised. ERROR | System: communicating with interface1, trying to reconnect: Timed out waiting for an acknowledgment

[gentle kestrel]

0.0.0.0 won’t be good for things, use a 127.0.0.1

[heady raven]

yeah no good- bummer buggy-ness

[heady raven]

I switched back to the femtofox-- all good until i figure out whats up with the other node- very odd- i think it might be the hat-- more experimenting

[gentle kestrel]

If the bot is running on the same pi as meshtasticD 127.0.0.1 always

If you are gonna use a bot on the femtofox and ollama api on the pi5 set the ollama url in config.txt on the femtofox to the pi5 IP

(Separately you might also enjoy flipping back to Gemma2 and set LLM raw query to false. The 2024 LLM is smarter at the moment)

[heady raven]

yeah something up with the hat- going to re-gig the pi5 for ollama and link the fox to it... see how that goes...
cuurious the femtofox doesn't show riverflow in the cmd? did something change?

[gentle kestrel]

If riverList = in settings is empty it won’t show up do you have something configured for a river?

[heady raven]

I've got

# NOAA Hydrology unique identifiers, LID or USGS ID riverListDefault = 16704000

https://hads.ncep.noaa.gov/USGS/HI_USGS-HADS_SITES.txt

[gentle kestrel]

Remove the word Default there

[heady raven]

I've got to dial down the output hihi...
so much air traffic around BI
wh6gxz-fox 7:37 AMSep 12, 2025, 7:37 AM 🚀 High Altitude Detected! NodeID:3276675423 Alt:8,514ft/2,595m

[gentle kestrel]

Like it’s too much airplane return(I just lowered it to 3)

I was debating narrowing to altitude as well

If this is helpful let me know

I didn’t want limit it out the gate

[heady raven]

it's aloha friday - I get this output on the femtofox bot

:rocket: High Altitude Detected! NodeID:3276675423 Alt:8,514ft/2,595m

my config.ini
for femtofox...

`# detect anyone close to the bot
SentryEnabled = True
emailSentryAlerts = False

radius in meters to detect someone close to the bot

SentryRadius = 1000

channel to send a message to when the watchdog is triggered

SentryChannel = 2

holdoff time multiplied by seconds(20) of the watchdog

SentryHoldoff = 9

list of ignored nodes numbers ex: 2813308004,4258675309

sentryIgnoreList =`

I changed the radius....

I don't see- this in my config.ini..

highFlyingAlert = True # HighFlying Node alert highFlyingAlertAltitude = 2000 # Altitude in meters to trigger the alert highflyOpenskynetwork = True # check with OpenSkyNetwork if highfly detected for aircraft

me goofing off... hihi

[gentle kestrel]

Add it in!

If it didn’t find any flights it won’t list them (they need to be in open sky network adsb contributors)

[heady raven]

:rocket: High Altitude Detected! NodeID:3276675423 Alt:8,514ft/2,595m

[gentle kestrel]

Same node over and over could be just bad data add to ignore list

[heady raven]

i just replace the sentry info- with this - looks clean haha

`[sentry]
SentryEnabled = True

detect anyone close to the bot

emailSentryAlerts = False

if SMTP enabled send alert to sysop email list

SentryRadius = 100

radius in meters to detect someone close to the bot

SentryChannel = 9

holdoff time multiplied by seconds(20) of the watchdog

SentryHoldoff = 2

channel to send a message to when the watchdog is triggered

sentryIgnoreList =

list of ignored nodes numbers ex: 2813308004,4258675309

highFlyingAlert = True

HighFlying Node alert

highFlyingAlertAltitude = 2000

Altitude in meters to trigger the alert

highflyOpenskynetwork = True

check with OpenSkyNetwork if highfly detected for aircraft`

I didn't blow up the config.ini so I'll see what the output brings hihi

[heady raven]

no issue there- mahalo 🥔 I set-up an account with opensky-

[gentle kestrel]

I didn’t know this level of accuracy was possible wouldn’t it detect footprints at this resolution

[heady raven]

Hawaii we get our notifications from civil defense 🤙🙃 tsunami alerts
cool stuff 🥔

[gray igloo]

is there someway to make the bot monitor and respond in more than one channel?

nvm

the node did not have the channel 🤣

well

now its seeing it but wont respond 🤣

[gentle kestrel]

It should be fully channel aware zero being the intended default (long fast)

A default config will ignore and treat index 0 like a public channel

[gray igloo]

okay command prefix fucks it

with it disabled it works

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/CJXSaz.png

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/qOG4rX.png

cmdBang = True

if false everything works

i enabled explicitcmd and it detected ping in the middle of the sentence

mhmm

just ping???

interesting

if u type test ping it respomds to it

[gentle kestrel]

Do a git pull I hopefully fixed now

Thanks for pointing out, fixed two bugs!

[gray igloo]

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/NHAmao.png

when me know how to write

[gray igloo]

haha np

works now

now i just need to figure out meshtasticd and mqtt lol

https://zipline.valzzu.xyz/u/nlRTFN.png

only one node shows up 🤣

[stone lance]

Do you hand out contributor badges?

Or maybe potato stamps?

Challenge chips?

[gray igloo]

🤣

[gray igloo]

accidental bug find xd

[gentle kestrel]

Few low level enhancements like alerting for noisy telemetry nodes and access to packet debugging

`
[messagingSettings]

Noisy Node Telemetry Logging and packet threshold

noisyNodeLogging = False
noisyTelemetryLimit = 5

Enable detailed packet logging

debugMetadata = False
DEBUGpacket = False`

These are currently only sysop log no RF alerts

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/a9254c9c798e7127c64d082b49ac8897918c83ae

Uses the config.ini to set favorites on the bbs node, automating the lock of important use nodes in the db

Eliminates a step or two for needing remote admin

(This is just a fancy use of the CLI set)

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/f9ab6a79d370dd20ebbc0d296dc4a83e3acd226f

[gentle kestrel]

Also this wacky idea 📏

Figured we had the angle of the dangle and all 📐

[lunar fog]

So... Sorry for asking something so basic, I just discovered this Bot/project and would really like to try deploying one for testing. Am I correct in assuming that I can connect a Pi to a mesh node using a USB cable and have the "Bot" listen and communicate using the serial interface? Or does this require that a Lora hat be installed on the the Pi?

[gentle kestrel]

You got it @lunar fog attaching via USB will work.

It’s configured plug and play with 50% of them and the other 50% is ttyUSB0 typically

[lunar fog]

Thanks for replying so quickly.... Pretty excited about your project.

[gentle kestrel]

Yea no problem, hope it’s fun! @lunar fog

[lunar fog]

It will be a learning experience for me and thats always fun. Thanks @gentle kestrel !

[somber condor]

So... I hate to be such a noob with this... But Is there a certain OS that is recommended to install on the Pi (Bullseye, Bookwork)? Or does it need to be Ubuntu server? Sorry to such basic question...

[twin dust]

Pretty certain this should work on bookworm (I think this is current stable, bullseye might EOL). No need for Ubuntu server (although there’s probably very little difference between these two)

[somber condor]

Thank you!

[somber condor]

@gentle kestrel , you are a rockstar... Your utility Bot, is about the coolest thing I have seen on the Mesh. I need to buy a "spudgunman" t-Shirt...

[gentle kestrel]

Haha thanks @somber condor

[somber condor]

Let me know when you get your Etsy store up.... I'm first in line 🙂

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/2e8206d4ece323fddd44a38f7b182ae8af5c6548

[crimson onyx]

oh spud, THAT last one is ... dangerous as hell 🙂

Bah ha ha .. I'm going to go hunt down your node now... {{evil laugh}}

Just so I can go fix this in your github 🙂

You ever go by PDX Hackerspace?

I think Meshing-n-coffee are in order.

[twin dust]

If you see @modern agate (I’m assume they must be in PDX) in your travels buy them a croissant or coffee on my behalf. Between PDXLocs and Spud I’ve learnt a metric ton about coding stuff in Meshtastic . I’ll pay you in hops or smth

[gentle kestrel]

You can fill the working directory with batch scripts or whatever to do whatever including remote uptates; this is disabled by default

It’s only via DM so there is ok security all considered if you choose to enable it

If you do something like run nano, it will be a mess so, don’t.

[dusky abyss]

python -m contact

[gentle kestrel]

Haha yes, gonna be a mess

[dusky abyss]

not only will I mangle the i/o, i'll break the bot's link 🤣

[gentle kestrel]

Well it should be understood this is as said is dangerous as hell

[dusky abyss]

remote meshtasticd update script could be handy tho...

[gentle kestrel]

Yea handy for that and other basic troubleshooting; but ideally in scripts with good error handling as it’s not interactive console just one time data burst

[dusky abyss]

Need an api or something back into the bot ❤️

[gentle kestrel]

What for? I have some ideas on this but haven’t moved on them

[dusky abyss]

Like I run a script that does something that will take some time, afterwards it outputs "Success on job xyz!" to /tmp/meshtastic.nodeid and the meshbot sees that and sends the contents as a dm to that nodeid, then removes the file

Or just some way for an external script run from anywhere, like a cron job, to put a message in queue to be sent out by meshbot

Just spitballin 🙂

[stone lance]

Turn wifi on and off

[dusky abyss]

I like it! To extend upon that, how about turn cellular modem on update things, turn cellular modem off 🙂

[gentle kestrel]

So am I there is now a New tool

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/2d44faac98bb977d9b3b9f840ca4dfbec71af3dc

Needs a [bbs]
# enable API script access (increases disk i/o) bbsAPI_enabled = True

[dusky abyss]

Awesome! Gonna tinker with this later

[gentle kestrel]

You can easily do that with the new x: command

Have a wifiup.sh +x
And run x: wifiup

Could also x: rm / -rf so tread lightly

Could also x: python3 script/injectDM.py -s 4258675309 —d 1234567890 -m “hello world”

[gentle kestrel]

Lotsa’ updates, around bbs messages and telemetry

Better bbslink and detection sensor in sentinel

The bbs API enabled allows ssh of bbs database and it should synch bbs better now

[crimson onyx]

Looks good!

I've got a spare node here ( Heltec V3 ) and a Pi, I'm doing CI/CD builds from your source repo and playing with it 🙂

I've started a REALLY big project on my part -- implementing a TinyMUSH ( already have tiny nethack ) -- but I'm following my fellow PDX'er as you make meshing-around 🙂

[crimson onyx]

Hey, since I was already doing it for the meshbbs code, I went through meshing-around looking for memory/stability issues and improvements. I put in a PR

[gentle kestrel]

Woah thanks will check that out

[crimson onyx]

PPSt -- added a second one this morning. Silly, but fun.

[gentle kestrel]

Yea rad thanks will check that out!

[crimson onyx]

tips hat you're welcome.

[mortal shale]

I'm impressed by Copilot's recommendations on this PR

Rather I should say it's a solid-looking PR and I'm impressed by its recommendations

[crimson onyx]

snicker I sense the sarcasm, @mortal shale 🙂

I'm OK at writing technical documentation, but I still lean on Claude Code to clean up things. I grew used to "pair" programming through the '90's and early 2000's.. and twinning with Claude really does feel like working with a team again.

[gentle kestrel]

Sent a release out!

Thanks again @crimson onyx

[crimson onyx]

You are very welcome. I thought it would be a silly, fun thing to add

[crimson onyx]

I didn't make the AI perfect... what fun would that have been?

State engines are fun

[stone lance]

I remember when spud was first getting started adding stuff, I think there was a joke in there somewhere about the only winning move...

[gentle kestrel]

In all the cleaning the messages function went bad. Bug fixed 🪲

[gentle kestrel]

I added a telemetry log to the bot

Excited to hear if it’s fun

[heady raven]

My you’ve been busy 🤙
can’t wait to play with this new stuff

[heady raven]

survery, readnews, and quiz start -- how are those being activated???

[gentle kestrel]

Enable in config.ini games

Readnews is a filemon

Enable enable

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/cb55aba498367e7b62c8d39fd92f9a8eb1c91d1e

[heady raven]

Pi 4- update choked...
# git pull Updating ce317d8..3ce24fb error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by merge: .gitignore README.md config.template Please commit your changes or stash them before you merge. Aborting

[gentle kestrel]

Haha you might have a older copy it now should say - Git pull resulted in conflicts

Would you like to ..

git fetch --all git reset --hard origin/main

Of note; I did add a speed bump for news.txt

It got moved to data/

I could use more ideas for leaderboard. I have a few like “most messages” and such

If anyone thinks of a funny one

[heady raven]

Fun stuff! Hug MAHALO 🥔 🔫 👨‍🦲

leaderboard most nodes???

[gentle kestrel]

I had one idea for most words used on mesh, vs just most meshages

A GitHub user had most common word

That PR for language file adaptation likely will be some day, that specific PR is not ideal

[gentle kestrel]

I will ponder, it would need a lot of extra and be only as good as anyone who uses same ID on them all

[heady raven]

I do-- wh6gxz is on many of my nodes-- as many hams have -- just a thought
how do access quiz or survery?

[gentle kestrel]

If enabled should be in CMD?

They each show up but only work via DM

Like a game

(Needs a captive user)

I haven’t finished a admin detailed yet, possibly - ya know documentation..

If the bbs admin says go it will q: start

I think quiz ?

Also has it all

Survey is just a basic game like ham quiz

Quizmaster, however won’t stop playing till reboot or told

.. should add an auto start for it

But; the idea being if you were to use this for a quiz night

I got more ideas for it just wanted the basic ground work in

Survey thing was request from here/ny

fun idea

I also deleted my dev pi folder by accident. It had all my dumb game ideas - I may have thought of a way to get uno but need to find its backup.

I joked to Martin about battleship and had a bad copy because it’s hard to fit the fun in a window of 5x5 or so

I have thought about a text only could be funny

[heady raven]

This is very cool dude-- meshing-around sure has grown over the short time I've been using it!

[gentle kestrel]

B4
Hit, I think, yes you hit a sub

[gentle kestrel]

Glad it’s fun, I’m enjoying it!

Thanks to all the community 🥔

[twin dust]

Thought you’d like this Spud https://mastodon.social/@TomasKuchta/115345605766994924

[crimson onyx]

I have finished the battleship implementation

I''m making a port for meshing-around, so that both meshbbs and meshing-around will have the same game/interface if you like

( the idea being inter-bbs play someday )

I increased the grid size slightly.

This was the original design:

Enemy Grid:
A B C D E F
1 ? ? ? ? ? ?
2 ? H ? ? ? ?
3 ? ? ? ? ? ?
4 ? ? ? H ? ?

The problem was keeping the grid size < 200 chars

because we don't have guaranteed message delivery

Teh #$% of using unicode is that each one eats up TWO BYTES .. grrr

So using unicode characters for marking ships, though cool looking, costs

ASCII does have some nice line drawing chars though

[stone lance]

BTW, if you have an idea how to include some command keying or persistence of messaging that could be used by the apps for e.g. menu item selection, or even simple stuff like the above battleships board, shout up.

What's holding it back is being able to agree some kind of a spec for it.

I suggested using another invisible character like the bel, e.g. the data link escape character, maybe, to mark command characters.

[crimson onyx]

It's a tough nut.

persistence of messaging was easy, already implemented across meshbbs. There's a backing store, and you can read/write messages that way.

[stone lance]

I mean on the client apps - maintaining some elements of the screen, like partial refresh.

[crimson onyx]

That's already implemented in Meshtastic

but in our own clients ( I don't have one, I rely on Meshtastic right now ) that's always a good idea.

If we come up with a common "game and fun" client for meshtastic, we'll have to independently keep up with the protobuf spec and protocol changes. I'm up for it, but it's a HUGE lift to maintain a client like that across iOS, Android, Linux, Windows and MacOS

At that point you're almost better off writing an Electrum-style app ( like Slack or Discord ) that's basically a frameworked webapp

Again, I'm far from /against/ that ... but meshbbs is currently tied to the "tiny, light interface" philosophy

[somber condor]

So… I’d like to throw out the idea of being able to pull down an RSS feed (or multiple) for news…. It would be great if there was an automated way to get daily headlines and maybe allow users to click on them to open a link to the story details at the site that published the story…. Just a thought.

[somber condor]

Hmmm,

[gentle kestrel]

It’s hot off the press

You wouldn’t have seen it till now

You mentioned the link; I have it just didn’t put it yet lmk if this idea is cool or needs refining

URLs don’t travel well always

[gentle kestrel]

I did some play testing and the issue was for me, it was hard to keep track of a large game board and I didn’t like 5x5

[somber condor]

Ahhh… Ok…. Very cool

[gentle kestrel]

Like let’s say you hit f5 I want to see 5x5 around f5

But I can’t remember if I also hit on f19 because I can’t see it from f5

I would need a paper and pencil to keep track(which is fun) but I want it 100% in mesh app (mobile:tdek)

Also; one thing I learned from uno and it derailed me.

How do you get that much data into the mesh well

[crimson onyx]

RSS feeds are getting very rare these days ( RSS is vastly deprecated, many sites don't support it ) but there are still many sites that support feeds.

As long as it's over DM, I don't see why not.

I'll throw it onto my TODO list for meshbbs

@gentle kestrel : In the best of all possible worlds, what would a "tiny battleship" game field look like for you?

Also, I may have mentioned this before -- but since you're in PDX, we should meet up for 💻 🍺🍕

[gentle kestrel]

Agree but it’s basic xml which could be handy for many things and if the stack is loaded..

Furthermore @somber condor what I do is have a LLM condense into news.txt which really helps to offload the whole news stack 📰

[gentle kestrel]

I’m in NASWI, could head that way some day

[crimson onyx]

Same here, but the number of API calls to either OpenAI or Anthropic can add up $$ if people really pound on it.

[gentle kestrel]

Why mesh-bot uses Ollama!

[crimson onyx]

Right now Google is making Gemini 2.5 access free for up to 1000 api calls/day but that could change at any time

[gentle kestrel]

I’m trying to long term make the local LLM tool call and use the local wiki for truth table

[crimson onyx]

Ollama + 2.5b models do run on a Pi5 -- passably -- well, but they are all very minified.

laptop isn't bad though, and of course a dedicated miniPC or desktop is ideal

[gentle kestrel]

Meshing-around .. not likely gonna save the planet but it may pass the time in a fun way

[crimson onyx]

same for meshbbs... not looking to save the 🌎 ... just looking to let people have fun on the mesh rather than just saying "hi" all the time

[gentle kestrel]

Ack

[crimson onyx]

@gentle kestrel : If it help, I do have a Reuters API key ( long story ) if you want to be able to grab well-curated journalism articles from subject queries, and top X news headlines/articles from the news.

[somber condor]

So… just as a comment. We are finding in our location that there is an explosion of nodes coming online. But once they appear… no one is using them

[crimson onyx]

Happy to share, it's good for ~50k API calls per day

Right, there's nothing TO DO... which is why meshbbs sends an 'ident' call every 30 minutes announcing it's existence, and a hint that there's more to do.

[gentle kestrel]

Ideally it’s a 1:1 remake of the OG but; the catch is only showing where you hit (make sense?) (at the same time showing enough play stats) I know your at a lower level but even with ack on packets needing a retry costs multiplayer

[somber condor]

I really like Meshing-around for its ability to push data to end users (weather, alerts, news, etc). It turns the mesh into an alternative information source…

[gentle kestrel]

Thanks 🙂

[somber condor]

Games are cool too…😜

[gentle kestrel]

Nice! I’m just webscraping today I don’t release it because news - politics and I’m full of it most don’t enjoy hihi

I figured with vibe coding most people would enjoy the challenge

I see the news.txt and alert.txt as primary api for the bot

[somber condor]

I’m gonna hit it,.. night guys…

[gentle kestrel]

I’m very curious to hear about someone using the quizmaster function at scale

I would like to add a html page for it if people think that would be cool

Depends if it works or that cart should get behind the horse

It’s on the list of things that might be cool

[stone lance]

Maybe I'm not making a whole lot of sense. 2 elements to this:

1. have the app latch on to "hooks" in the markup or whatever in the message (like hyperlink but hopefully lighter) and then present those like the quick-chat options. Mock-up below.

The other element would be to solve the issue of not wanting to resend a huge grid (as given by Spud)

Multipart messages are probably doable within the existing apps.

Partial refresh sounds fun...

[gentle kestrel]

It would be cool if we could access this via a message sent somehow to present suggested auto complete words to the mobile client

[gentle kestrel]

Client needs to cache and ack part well

[gentle kestrel]

5 parts delivered part 3 missing please resend

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/22384463e24f16931257a56a3b65d06ec00671a5

[crimson onyx]

Once we have -truly- reliable messaging in the Meshtastic protocol... it's coming, but slowly. There was a good proposal in Routing 3.0

[gentle kestrel]

I hear ya, this was mostly just for fun

[gentle kestrel]

Don’t forget licensed mode

[crimson onyx]

I discount that mode .. most ( almost all ) meshtastic users can't access it.

[gentle kestrel]

They just flip a switch

It only drops encryption

And a lot of extra bits

You have maxpayload power

…. Don’t tell me you are still crawling at lvl1, I would hope by now you have unearthed a waypoint and it had a password to the mini game connect4

[gentle kestrel]

RSSReader enhancement.
Multiple feeds
Multiple feeds
Possible
Possible?

[crimson onyx]

the issue with the lvl1> prompt is that the main BBS code is always overlaying the prompt even in the games. sigh Really not happy that early decision of mine is biting me in the ass

I'm thinking of just dropping the prompt altogether and saving the bytes

[gentle kestrel]

Likely good idea space is precious

RSS sucks, I agree. I refactored it

[gentle kestrel]

Add favorite helper script enhanced for new client_base automation of favorites

Basically just a fancy CLI for automating it

[heady raven]

been playing with readerrss -- here's some of the output for today...

if I type say, readrss meshtastic I get the same output-- the wiki: cmd is cool. type wiki: meshtastic and you get--
SWEET- run ollama-- then ur @ another level --

[gentle kestrel]

Yes the rss reader I am personally parsing and I am a potato. I didn’t use a well constructed import at the moment (femtofox includes) so was waiting to see how much use it might get

Like a feed of redit meshtastic might be icky with my basic html strip

A feed of older websites is fine

As mentioned by others rss is old and abused well

(All this said I have no issues added a well formed import)

If it’s a wanted feature, we can push a change to femtofox or people can just add it

.

Also just fixed a bunch of tabs and bugs on leaderboard I didn’t use an ide and it was looking like crap

So it’s working, now haha

I just had a fly over by some meshtastic people and it was totally chaos on the leader traffic for a bit during the relay

[gentle kestrel]

Fixed save on the leaderboard

[gentle kestrel]

I wish I did this a while ago, this is fun

[heady raven]

I like playing with it--- I'll try more variables

[heady raven]

the leaderboard is very cool bro- play with it a few time a daZe... hihi

I just updated my femtofox bot-- runs on a channel called HawaiiNet that runs through out the Hawaiian Islands.
...and i run one on a pi4 -- a private channel -- runnung Meshtastic, RNS "Reticulum", and meshing-around... Oh YEAAH With aloha 🥔 man--

just typing 'leaderboard' outputs header 'leaderboard' more detail produced this-

cool stuff --got work to do-- 73 and aloha
BTW I did get output after a the bot was up and running for a bit- by just typing 'leaderboard" a little diff- output it appears each time. shaka

[gentle kestrel]

As data is so will it be.

The only leaderboard command is leaderboard reset by admin to clear runtime

[gentle kestrel]

I just had a juicy test work well..

[deep igloo]

I just noticed that some of the games (dopewars, videopoker) aren't handling game commands. Instead the bot is responding with either a joke or the default response. Could be just me.

[gentle kestrel]

Like a new thing? (Could be a memory cleaning problem)

It’s the same game engine for tick tack toe but was modified at the same time, ttt works as will quiz last tested

It can get confusing, I try and keep debug full

Should say “LLM disabled” game

[deep igloo]

TTT is working for me, so is Blackjack

[tacit brook]

and hangman?

[deep igloo]

Yup hangman as well is working.

[gentle kestrel]

I will check the game timer for the older games are fresh I would bet they got lost in the shuffle by the sounds of it

[deep igloo]

But if I choose 'e' in hangman it ends the game

I'm starting to get the shakes without my dopewars

[gentle kestrel]

Can you tell me more? I can’t replicate yet

I did futz up the new vox/radio module now fixed

It’s not documented yet

But should .. turnkey

[gentle kestrel]

Make sure to git pull latest, also just extended the timer for it to 3 days or so

[deep igloo]

Will do. Thanks

[gentle kestrel]

Ok I found a issue

[deep igloo]

It's me right, I'm the issue

[stone lance]

https://tenor.com/view/its-me-hi-taylor-swift-antihero-hi-its-me-gif-26982379

[crimson onyx]

@gentle kestrel : What is your PDX Node running meshing-around?

I'm adding some serivce-reachability tests to my grafana monitor...

[gentle kestrel]

What’s the node ID?

[gentle kestrel]

No it was me, very much.

Just got a big patch in to fix

lmk!

Thanks btw Martin for that PR

I should have tested more but the better error handling is welcome

I had a lot of trash

[deep igloo]

Thanks a bunch! That fixed it.

[gentle kestrel]

Thank you for calling it attention

[somber condor]

So, just double-checking… should we still be using the same ”update.sh” she’ll script to upgrade to the latest version ?

[gentle kestrel]

Yea should be fine

The tic-tac-toe changes are where games went wacky - now back on track. My fault all along.

[gentle kestrel]

Also just play tested some bugs out of TTT

Can’t replicate hangman e

[deep igloo]

It's possible that the 'Goodbye' I caused here was from me trying multiple games at once. It's working since your fix.

Lemonstand has always given me this output, so I just leave it disabled. Cuz you have cooler things to work on

[gentle kestrel]

Hope it’s fixed now

[deep igloo]

I'm still getting the same network stress-test output after updating.

[deep igloo]

Also noticed that the sysinfo command is only returning 'Gathering Telemetry try again later⏳'

[gentle kestrel]

Wait longer

[gentle kestrel]

Yes you did - I have reworked it some more well a lot

I hope .. all games work now

[gentle kestrel]

Yes it is now thanks for idea

Took a little bit to iron that one out

I also added a new fun one
`

voxDescription = VOX
useLocalVoxModel = False
voxLanguage = en-us
voxInputDevice = default
voxOnTrapList = True
voxTrapList = chirpy
`

“Chirpy hello world”

It works like Siri but it’s chirpy!

Sends whatever it hears to mesh

I’m not sure how stable it is; but I let it go 30min and it still worked

Yelling hey chirpy time for dinner

🎙️Detected VOX: it's time for dinner

[somber condor]

I may have found a bug (or maybe I did something wrong). To put this in context, I send out the days weather to our local mesh every morning at 7am. I use the advanced scheduling functionality. In my "config.ini" I have a location defined (which is our local Intl Airport), but in the node that I am using for "MeshBot", I do not have a location defined (i wanted to keep the node off the map). For the past couple of days, I have been getting this error when the mesh notification is attempted to be sent ("2025-10-12 07:01:00,880 | WARNING | System: Location for NodeID 0 not found in nodeDb", "2025-10-12 07:01:12,250 | WARNING | Location:Error fetching weather forecast from NOAA", 2025-10-12 07:01:12,250 | INFO | Device:1 Channel:0 SendingChannel: error fetching data").

This morning I set a fixed location in the node and the scripted mesh notification went out correctly. So it appears to me that the advanced scheduling functionality is not using the location set in the "config.ini"

Just a headsup...

[gentle kestrel]

Oh interesting, yea thanks

[gentle kestrel]

You had too wait too long sorry haha I was .. yea fixed now

[crimson onyx]

nod I've been having issues with getting weather from openweather, so I ended up implementing a 10 minute "cache" and if there's a miss after 10 minutes I just say "Weather not availble" so the data won't get stale.

NOAA has some rate limits in place that seem to soft-block for a while if you hit them too hard

[gentle kestrel]

Yes they do

[gentle kestrel]

Thanks for this. Dropped a new release and a significant change to the location behavior to include fuzzing

[gentle kestrel]

Corrupt data or just rushing to new code. I also find clearing nodeDB helps things sometimes.

[deep igloo]

How patient do you expect a dopewars junkie to be? 😂
Thanks for the many fixes! You da 🥔

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/31f0abc8c82c84695e81f803f53e173c8ab9bfed

If you use sentinel I would be interested to know thoughts

[somber condor]

Thanks!

[gentle kestrel]

I feel it’s important to document this milestone

[crimson onyx]

PPSST - fixed the danged "lvl(X)" problem in MeshBBS 🙂

Even have the MUSH working more or less reliably 🙂

[gentle kestrel]

I hope to set a copy up soon 🙂

Can also be managed via data/list.txt file

[somber condor]

So, this morning, none of my scheduled events fired. The scheduler is enabled and the events are setup. I don’t see any errors in the log file. I can get the data (weather) via DM, so I know that meshbot is working.

[gentle kestrel]

Is it from like 6+ hours build?

[somber condor]

Yes sir…. Updated yesterday evening..

[gentle kestrel]

I found a issue at midnight

[somber condor]

Is there a version baked into the code somewhere?

[gentle kestrel]

Not yet I should do that I hope I have ironed out most of the blocking code

The addition of an idea for sentinel needed handled better

So if you happened to land on that it would block the watchdog

[somber condor]

So I had enabled the high altitude feature… I must have received 50 notifications overnight. That continued to work and I had to disable it this morning

[gentle kestrel]

for over 2k above sea?

Or you saw logs

Anyone can obviously fake a packet and such but - the addition of the flight tracker should help narrow it (I get one or so a week and they match up for alt typically)

[somber condor]

So, I’m in El Paso Texas… we are at 3500 above sea level. But yes, it was set for 2000. We have a military base here and I think someone had a Seeed 1000 in there pocket. I kept getting the same notification over and over. Like they were in a flight pattern around the city

[gentle kestrel]

Dude ..

I think the same thing about that image I showed haha

[somber condor]

I can send you logs if you want?

[gentle kestrel]

Yea, also you can bump the ceiling

Altitude in meters to trigger the alert
highFlyingAlertAltitude = 2000

I am not skilled in actual flying so I have no idea I just thought 2000 was a nice default if anyone has better it will be changed

I find this feature to be one of the most fun

I am also on the setup for approach for Seattle some days and I see a lot of flying hellos

Also Sysinfo was fixed in the fix of the watchdog as well

[somber condor]

Sorry, got pulled away.... So. Should I do another update this morning to fix the watcher issue?

[gentle kestrel]

Every push has hopefully fixed some issues lately

been going thru old code

[somber condor]

So.. I'm not sure if you are interested in this or not. But I will send you a copy of the log entrys for "High Altitude" alerts that started yesterday for my system.

If you look at the last 7 entrys, they are all the same, just different time stamps

they were all sent out to the mesh...

[gentle kestrel]

Ahh yes, sometimes for any reason someone could have a bad sensor or bad data

list of nodes numbers to ignore high flying alert ex: 2813308004,4258675309
highFlyingIgnoreList =

Can also block them outright but

This value assumes just bad sensor

I have 2 at least near me

Same way stuck at some wacky value

Also I could use input - I was considering narrowing the flight return to like 300m of the node alt

Wasn’t sure if that was handy or not as fun

[somber condor]

so, a question. all of these events are being report by NodeID:382705832. This is the main "router" that sits atop a mountain that El Paso wraps around. Unless I am mistaken, we are not identifying the node that is actually on the aircraft that is (I assume) pinging and being discovered by the local node.

Is there a way to identify the node on the plane that is being "discovered" or reporting its position via telemetry?

Also, I just pulled down your latest code.... I am getting this error when I restart the service : "2025-10-14 08:33:47,130 | WARNING | System: No schedule.Value set edit the .py file to do more. See examples in the code."

The scheduler service is enabled.

Also the watchdog does not appear to be running...

or responding

[gentle kestrel]

Did you enable the request Position feature

Disable it for now

[somber condor]

I don;t think that I did

Is it in the config.ini?

[gentle kestrel]

Yes lemme check its defaults are ok

reqLocationEnabled', False

[gentle kestrel]

Bad location to log this fixed

It was just a log line

This is a bug @somber condor

[gentle kestrel]

can you pull a new one

Major refactor to scheduler

Put it in a module

So if anyone using a custom 🚨

Pull a new and have some peace of easier edit

[somber condor]

Pulling now

Ok, just completed the update. I really like that you moved the schedule stuff out of mesh_bot.by and put it into a "modules" sub

I am rebooting the machine and I have a scheduled event in 4 min

I will let you know how it goes

so... mixed results.... The event that was scheduled at 10am my time fired correctly (success). I had a second event scheduled at 10:01am "weather" and I see this error being logged. "2025-10-14 10:01:00,424 | ERROR | System: Scheduler Error name 'handle_wxc' is not defined"

Maybe a typo?

[gentle kestrel]

No this is why I hadn’t moved it all yet le sigh .. it might need to go back

[somber condor]

If I just run the wx command... it works

I looked at your code... I can;t see an issue

[gentle kestrel]

This is only the schedule use of Wx

Let me noodle this for a moment

[somber condor]

I need to go out an run some errands,,, I will be back later

[gentle kestrel]

Roger - I think I got it working. Thanks again for calling it out

[crimson onyx]

@gentle kestrel : how effective is a ban-node in a world where the firmware can be patched to change nodeID?

[gentle kestrel]

About as much as being in a open network. I use it to quiet things mostly

might auto block some day depending

.

“Hey chirpy” feature seems more stable now

This demand on resources sent me all over thanks for patience to anyone disrupted

[crimson onyx]

I just had a memory leak issue ( first one! ) on MeshBBS, so I feel your pain

I couldn't get a full 24-hour test run in with the TinyMUSH code loaded in

Would not have noticed it if I hadn't been running on a Pi2ZeroW

A normal Pi4/Pi5 would have taken 3-7 days to fall over

Actually, since I have perfmon and memory guard stuff running here, is meshing-around in a state you'd appreciate a 72 hour run to get stats?

the last time, I just went through the code looking for easy "gotchas" but this is a bit more instrumented

I'm doing a valgrind run on current code.

[gentle kestrel]

You can now say

“Chirpy tell me a joke”

[gentle kestrel]

It’s been stable so far 🤞

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/1c2fa174ea1012abbd188800c27f872d07beec99

[twin dust]

I’m thinking about throwing my hat into the bbs game. One caveat I need to get gud at Ruby (for work) so will try writing it in that

[crimson onyx]

you can .... there are a lot of Meshtastic BBS/bot frameworks now though, so unless you really REALLY like the pain...

I'd extend the ones that already exist, like meshing-around 🙂

mine ( MeshBBS ) is itself a port of a much older codebase from the '90s

Which started life as Pascal, then was ported to Java, and now Rust

[gentle kestrel]

Random post. https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/blob/main/etc/meshview.ino

[gentle kestrel]

Also a matching (working example) https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/blob/main/modules/udp.py

The .ino works but I can’t figure out how to print decoded payload yet

(Likely need a key somewhere)

[crimson onyx]

Let me take a look.

I'm pretty good with arduino code and such

I'm assuing the arduino code is the broken one?

[gentle kestrel]

Yea

[crimson onyx]

do you want the raw UDP payload, or the decoded Meshtastic protobuf?

I assume the latter?

[gentle kestrel]

Yea

[crimson onyx]

Easy. One sec.

[gentle kestrel]

Nice thank you

[crimson onyx]

do you have all the nanopb headers you need from the protobuf repo?

You'll need:

portnums.pb.h
user.pb.h
postition.pb.h

[gentle kestrel]

Yes I got them

[crimson onyx]

That should do the trick.

Two important things:

Comment out:

// Always print raw payload first
Serial.print("Raw UDP payload (hex): ");
for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) Serial.printf("%02X ", buffer[i]);
Serial.println();

Serial.print("Raw UDP payload (ASCII): ");
for (int i = 0; i < len; i++) {
char c = buffer[i];
Serial.print(isprint(c) ? c : '.');
}
Serial.println();

If you find it annoying... that will print the raw UDP

and ... packet.which_payload_variant == meshtastic_MeshPacket_decoded_tag is important, it confirms the oneof contains decoded data rather than an encrypted blob

Oh, and since it's meshtastic ( yay ) and you're on Arduino ( um, yay? ) the width of words kind of kicks you in the butt. So, positions are scaled integers.

Divide by 1e7 to get "normal" lat/log ( and don't forget to cast to float )

I'm having my own problem similarly -- I want to use WiFi with the BBS, but haven't started serious work in the that direction yet. Serial connection is good enough for now.

wifi or ethernet

[gentle kestrel]

im missing stuff like user and position proto gonna need to fix that still

[gentle kestrel]

I can build proto now but still stuck

Can’t find user

I also don’t see a position

In local build or in firmware

[crimson onyx]

the .h files should have built for you. hold on, let's see if I can fix that

you should be able to grab them from: https://github.com/meshtastic/protobufs

[gentle kestrel]

Totally and I can build them fresh, I’m failing to see or understand where user.pb came from as it’s never in other projects? For example I can see a telemetry but not position

https://github.com/meshtastic/protobufs/blob/master/meshtastic/telemetry.proto

I assume, the existing call needs to be on existing methods

[crimson onyx]

protoc --nanopb_out=. mesh.proto
protoc --nanopb_out=. user.proto

should generate mesh.pb.h and user.pb.h ( and c )

Mind you, I generally only use Arduino for "light" projects, I've never seriously considered using Arduino + ESP32 to do protobuf stuff, even though it should totally be possilble.

These days the smallest computer I use tends to be a Pi Zero W or 2W

[gentle kestrel]

I can build everything but that? I don’t see options for it

[crimson onyx]

oh! Looked through.. I have a much older version of the protobuf defs in my Arduino build directory.

Current:

#include "mesh.pb.h"
#include "pb_decode.h"
#include "pb_encode.h"

sorry about that, they moved 💩 around

[gentle kestrel]

This makes sense brb

[crimson onyx]

Wait, I have code edits, had to pull current protobuf

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/blob/main/etc/meshview.ino

Progress, I think just encryption to decrypt now?

I don’t have a ham lab handy, need to make a net

[heady raven]

I can't wait to try this out!
I run mdup on a pi- running ubuntu 👀

[gentle kestrel]

Nice! There is a mudp python implementation and I’m working on some ideas now with pygame!

The arduino variant isn’t currently decoding encrypted packets (beyond me at the moment)

For me, I need to iron out in Python first anyway

The idea for the .ino is wide use by community for boilerplate ESP32 display for tinkering

The mudp variant will work fine for the bot here

Ideally I would like to have it on Esp32 only and it could be an AP

Connect node it shares UDP and you have a wireless/wifi display

So you can do wild things like make a full game

Or have a fun boilerplate for a custom weather display

I would like to have a bot dash on this as well

All just very rough drafts

All this to say mudp is using Python in modules folder 📁 UDP.py run it Python modules/udp.py it’s just a demo right now

The .ino in etc/ is not fully working it will only pull out clear text

To from junk

[crimson onyx]

I think I know how to decrypt the packets. Let me see if I can implement that a little later this afternoon

[cold jungle]

Spud my good man, is a UDP-only connection supported now? We (@eager zephyr and/or I) may finally be setting up an Oregon meshing-around soon.

[stone lance]

Wait, what?

How has it taken this long?

[cold jungle]

Not for lack of nodes....

[stone lance]

Too many bouts of dysentry?

I know nothing about Oregon, except what organ trail taught me

[gentle kestrel]

It should be, perhaps soon!

Currently the bot rides on firmware(using the api to access the nodeDB on device)

while a UDP will need a database and all, firefly base looks nice 😉

The advantages of each I haven’t landed on which is better, Linux native can hold a lot and keep up with changes

ultimately holding rev1 on existing concept or flipping to UDP for v2 with a new core

The PR to return nodedb as json may force this as well

[cold jungle]

It's accurate.

[cold jungle]

We're running linux nodes but don't want to consume the API so we can still use clients for messaging. I was thinking we could also run a 2nd meshtasticd (why recreate the wheel) and mesharound with that, while the daemons have a UDP party.

[gentle kestrel]

Indeed, this is why it’s been not quick to release, having it in a vm -meshD instance you can remote manage the node /infrastructure and there is no need for the bot to have any keys or data of consequential value

The negative is an added hop but so is UDP

[cold jungle]

We all run custom firmware with hops set to 11.

[gentle kestrel]

My initial thought is, I have message ID from firmware and if I see it on UDP ignore it as a dupe, I need to decode the channel ID still from UDP

Allowing disable of a classic interface and the bot rides on UDP alone as a “default install”

I have been thinking about using senddata() to back channel graphics for games lately via UDP

ESP runs a display manger
Bot sends command, control via data line

So let’s say tick-tac-toe was running text like it is now

Add a UDP display and you have rendered whatever via the “display manager”

simple as Senddata(“battleship:d4”)

The text_message sends in queue with _data

Giving the illusion of a unified device

While that idea bakes, another I couldn’t help but wonder if MartinsMuSH can expand into massive multiplayer Oregon trails. Or sim city 1.0 clones

Like if there was an esp with a mouse or touch screen

It would be a tablet for mesh kinda

Advertise as an AP

if I drive past I5 PDX and my node appears on mesh do I become a new NPC if I say hello and have a tablet on me do I collect a Pokémon?

Further ideas, what if it’s a $30 device and I have 50 of them to hand out in a emergency to full out a survey

sendmail(me@winlink)

[stone lance]

Emergency.... Survey?

[gentle kestrel]

Whatever, what if it’s an exit survey at a family reunion or a picnic for the company

It’s common in USA emergency to have surveys of data

Winlink is a off grid email system with such a system of forums and data

Used by many in FEMA aka USA EMCOM

[gentle kestrel]

Survey idea came out of a snow ⛄️ request

If you enable survey and say survey snow

This was a direct request from user community

(I hope I nailed it)

Need some snow first 😉

[stone lance]

Ok, that makes sense

[gentle kestrel]

FoxInSocks 🦊 🧦

[gentle kestrel]

I think you know where this about to go

[gentle kestrel]

The idea works anyway

[gentle kestrel]

Other things this architecture allows is stuff like the screen responding and the bot detecting an attached screen and altering from text output to video, giving display parameters

Need to test with pygame zero

Could also add a basic game pad

Offloading the demand (or putting it on mobile) for such an inclusion 🕹️

[gentle kestrel]

Was pondering things and Pygbag + firefly = 🎰

Might need a fork called firepy

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/0e0d6416d9c13d9d324a1961345d2b5e6b4c0c3d

Shows you any missing config values

Script as part of update.sh or run from script/

(Run from project root) python3 script/configMerge.py

You don’t need to add them if the default is what you want

[eager zephyr]

@gentle kestrel Just had an idea for a potential work around to add UDP support. Maybe this is crazy so feel free to call me dumb. (Or maybe you’ve already thought of this)

Second meshtasicd and the bbs in a docker container. No actual radio for the “virtual” node, UDP only. BBS connects serial to this “virtual” node. Virtual node communicates with primary node / meshtasticd over UDP for transmission to actual mesh.

Theoretically allows any number of these serial based softwares to be packaged and run together on one Linux native node and each have their own virtual node IDs and none tie up the serial connection of the real node.

Also don’t have to reinvent the wheel to add UDP support, it basically relies on the built in UDP of meshtasticd. And you get all the same features of connecting to a dedicated node, in theory.

[gentle kestrel]

Yes this is a very effective way to build a network today!

You can also use MQTT this way

I don’t even develop with a radio anymore 100% using mudp and meshtasticD

[eager zephyr]

True, but with MQTT you might lose people depending on configuration on both ends.

[eager zephyr]

Nice, so it is possible!

[gentle kestrel]

Yes just that the architecture is possible. I will likely have ability to listen and respond to UDP native soon; it may be a core replacement, still ironing out details.

[eager zephyr]

(I just got my first linux native node running yesterday so I'm a bit new to it)

[gentle kestrel]

Sweet! You can enable UDP on it and it will respond via the real radio but be advised any channels with UDP may be uncontrolled data

Right now; the bot has no channel ID for UDP

[gentle kestrel]

All that survey module hype and it was broken! Fixed now

https://tenor.com/view/winter-snow-man-jump-into-snow-swimming-dive-gif-13524191497834286566

[gentle kestrel]

I lost power likely for the day so had to power down. But I was working out a lot of core issues around random bugs thanks to community 🙂

Anywhoo nothing huge but the update.sh got some enhancements to include backing up your data/ files as well as incorporating a log of any config.ini or features you may not know of

You can git pull and update and then bash update.sh

Or run update.sh twice to enjoy

Did fix one game play issue with core dm

Likely broke survey haha

But .. I didn’t update my offline bot before powering down to deal with the day

I lost all my high scores recently I cried I had some insane coins going

[cold jungle]

Lightly tested but seems to work for multiple d's using different ports https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/pull/219

[cold jungle]

(when your power comes back)

[gentle kestrel]

Nice thanks, it’s in along with a refactor on game tracking (better game management now)

[gentle kestrel]

1.8 release, I hope I’m nearing the end of the bug 🪲

[gentle kestrel]

1.8.1 with new hop logic and better MQTT and IP nodes

[gentle kestrel]

A reminder there isn’t full UDP channel support yet. I am unsure how to get the channel hash out of the current methods used or if I need to bring in new ones?

[gentle kestrel]

I’m interested if any negative impact of hop change and specifically which firmware may be negatively impacted

users of UDP or MQTT likely the most

I do dev on latest alphas normally

[gentle kestrel]

Released pushed a lot of stuff but this is fun

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/1324f83f1785b6750771e2b6a66804cee20cdec6

[heady raven]

busy 🥔 ! i'll 'git pull'

...and one on femtofox --- oh yeah!

not getting motd output... used to-

[crimson onyx]

there is a HUGE update coming

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/5c7d19983184f715a7e7836fc4ccdfb5127840b5

Is it reporting for survey

[gentle kestrel]

What the heck - fixed now

[heady raven]

i'll have to play with the survey stuff-- get a few people to participate.
MOTD is back

[gentle kestrel]

You can also run sysinfo as an admin from a DM it will give you local IP guess and public IP guess

(With update)

[gentle kestrel]

Sentry got a overhaul

# list of watched nodes numbers sentryWatchList =

Will alert if they are seen outside the zone

[eager zephyr]

Question - is this thing supposed to be telling me jokes every time it doesn't recognize a command? lol

[gentle kestrel]

Yes that is default way to fill space and time 🙂

[heady raven]

aloha the cmd mwx stopped working hmm.. no error output -- nada -- wx is good and other weather related cmd's 🤔

[gentle kestrel]

Doh! Thank you. Fixed.

[gentle kestrel]

@drowsy rock it give you an error?

Key in .ini?

[drowsy rock]

I did add what i think is the api key, but maybe not? I'm not home now to copy exactly what I entered. It doesn't give an error, just keeps giving an example of how to use it

[gentle kestrel]

This is its basic use

Register for free API https://www.n2yo.com/login/
n2yoAPIKey =

Paste key no “

You can also be fancy

Or stack,them,in .ini

[gentle kestrel]

I patched for a 2.6.11> issue to hopefully allow direct pings back and not allow as much of a mess with UDP

Update firmware 🙂

[cold jungle]

OK, we now how meshin around up and running in Portland and in Salem and will soon have them linked up to sychronize. I only have one question so far:
What? https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/blob/4aa65dad6acb798829ee4a40adfc3c62b72be4c7/modules/games/joke.py#L58

[heady raven]

mahalo spudgunman for meshing-around!

[gentle kestrel]

https://tenor.com/view/wizrd-of-oz-pay-no-attention-man-behind-curtain-gif-9488490

I should add a pylint ignore huh?

[gentle kestrel]

I sent the best bots on this one https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/pull/223

[cold jungle]

I was just browsing variable values to actually fix the ip:port support. Got it working for real this time on a sim linux node alongside a "real" linux node/radio with UDP enabled

[gentle kestrel]

Thanks! update in with better hop debug logs now 🪵

[eager zephyr]

I'm getting an "error fetching data" when I try to run ea on my new install, any thoughts?

[gentle kestrel]

Increase the urlTimeout in general.ini

[eager zephyr]

Increased to 60, still failing (instantly)

[gentle kestrel]

With what error?

(Works here)

[gentle kestrel]

Just pushed (so update) a better error log with result code

Will give like 404

(Always dns)

[eager zephyr]

Updated but it doesn't appear to be any more verbose.

[gentle kestrel]

I added much verboseness

[eager zephyr]

I'll try it again, hang on

[eager zephyr]

Interesting.

[gentle kestrel]

Agree

Proxy?

[eager zephyr]

None configured, should be a pretty straightforward connection to the internet.

[gentle kestrel]

Let’s hope you got a pool member

Is api under open government budget?

Ping @thedonald

[eager zephyr]

The SSL looks valid and curl is able to connect from the same device. Weird.

[gentle kestrel]

check out https://apps.fema.gov/IPAWSOPEN_EAS_SERVICE/rest/feed

thats whats used

is your local time wayyy off

[eager zephyr]

Fixed by adding this to the [service] block

in mesh_bot.service

[gentle kestrel]

Was this a raspian or armbian build

[eager zephyr]

https://github.com/markbirss/rk3506-ubuntu

[gentle kestrel]

Cool thank you. I will add this vs ignore them

Got that in for new installs I hope to test soon

[gentle kestrel]

https://github.com/SpudGunMan/meshing-around/commit/d4fd4847064ec9f6be6ca99a811737e7b7885cf7

I have been meaning to add this for some time

Excited to hear if handy

[gentle kestrel]

Ping and hops might work better, specifically on UDP hosts

[drowsy rock]

This is what i put for the api key

I guess i don't know what an api key is. I thought i signed up for it.

[gentle kestrel]

It will look like a windows activation key and you ideally don’t want to share it

On login,

[drowsy rock]

Okay I've been scrolling up and down and I must have missed it buried in all of the ads LOL. We'll check again

Found it

[gentle kestrel]

I will take ads’s in html for free api 😋

[drowsy rock]

👑

[cold jungle]

Hey so we have bbs's linked up in Portand and Salem with the scheduler set to sync. Did you have any plans/thoughts about pushing new messages to other bbs's when something gets posted?

[gentle kestrel]

Currently it was a pull request only, if you ssh:copy you can do it live by enabling the “api” which is just file polling mostly

The reason for pull only is it’s administratively ran at midnight?

I can otherwise post a bunch of messages and crash things mid day downgrading high use time

I do have a plan to put compression and back haul on port 256, can send the whole package 📦

The bones are there just not the testing yet

[gentle kestrel]

Thanks to community ideas a throttle of “only every 30 min” is now on 🚀 high flying

So same flying node won’t fire without 30min delay

[crimson onyx]

ditto -- I have the beginnings of a "republish"/"sync" setup for meshbbs, but it will come down to handle async replication

I may just "borrow" from the best -- usenet

UUCP worked, for a reason

[gentle kestrel]

You mean a pickle file 🥒 and ssh.copy isn’t good?!

[crimson onyx]

It's great! Don't get me wrong

but that's if you have each node trusting the other 🙂

<-- information security, remember?

[gentle kestrel]

They share PSK channel

[crimson onyx]

Tru

[gentle kestrel]

This means someone hacked your coms and the data of the pickle!

[somber condor]

So… my instance works great when folks DM the meshbot. I am still trying to schedule a daily weather forecast. If anyone’s runs the “Wx” command, it works perfectly. If I run it from the scheduler, (using your example by in commenting it), I get “error fetching data”. I can run the manual Wx command 30 seconds after the error is posted and it works fine.