meshview/README.md

Meshview

This project watches a MQTT topic for meshtastic messages, imports them to a database and has a web UI to view them.

An example of a currently running instace for the San Francisco Bay Area mesh runs at:

https://meshview.bayme.sh

https://view.azmsh.net/

Requires python3.11 or above.

Preparing

Clone the repo from github with:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/pablorevilla-meshtastic/meshview.git

Note

It is important to include the --recurse-submodules flag or the meshtastic protobufs won't be included.

Create a python virtual environment:

cd meshview

python3 -m venv env

Install the environment requirements:

./env/bin/pip install -r requirements.txt

You also need to install graphviz:

sudo apt-get install graphviz

Copy sample.config.ini to config.ini:

cp sample.config.ini config.ini

Edit config.ini and change the MQTT server, and Web server settings.

nano config.ini

[server]
bind = *
port = 8081
tls_cert = 
acme_challenge = 

[site]
domain = http://meshview.bayme.sh
title = Bay Area Mesh
message =
# Map structure
map_top_left_lat=39
map_top_left_lon=-123
map_bottom_right_lat=36
map_bottom_right_lon=-121

[mqtt]
server = mqtt.bayme.sh
topics = ["msh/US/bayarea/#", "msh/US/CA/mrymesh/#"] 
port = 1883
username = meshdev
password = large4cats

[database]
connection_string = sqlite+aiosqlite:///packets.db

Running Meshview

Start the database connection.

./env/bin/python startdb.py

Start the web server.

./env/bin/python main.py

Note

You can specify the path to your config.ini file with the run command argument --config

./env/bin/python startdb.py --config /path/to/config.ini
./env/bin/python main.py --config /path/to/config.ini

Running Meshview with mvrun.py

• mvrun.py starts startdb.py and main.py in their own subprocess threads and combines their terminal output.
• mvrun.py accepts the --config run command.

./env/bin/python mvrun.py

Now you can hit http://localhost:8081/ (if you did not change the web server port )