potato-mesh

a simple meshtastic node dashboard for your local community. no mqtt clutter, just local lora aether.

demo for berlin mediumfast: potatomesh.net

status

in active development.

what works:

• updating nodes from a locally connected meshtastic device (via serial)
• awaiting messages on default channel (0) from a local meshtastic device
• storing nodes and messages in a local database (sqlite3)
• displaying nodes ordered by last seen in a web app table view
• displaying nodes by geographic coordinates on a map layer, coloured by device role
• displaying new node notifications and chat messages in default channel in chat box
• displaying active node count and filtering nodes by name
• exposing nodes and messages to api endpoints

what does not work (yet):

• posting nodes and messages to the api endpoints (wip)

requirements

requires a meshtastic node connected (via serial) to gather mesh data and the meshtastic cli.

requires the meshtastic python api for the database.

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -U meshtastic

requires latest ruby and ruby gems for the sinatra web app.

gem install bundler
bundle install

database

uses python meshtastic library to ingest mesh data into an sqlite3 database locally

run mesh.sh in data/ to keep updating node records and parsing new incoming messages.

MESH_SERIAL=/dev/ttyACM0 DEBUG=1 ./mesh.sh
[...]
[debug] upserted node !849b7154 shortName='7154'
[debug] upserted node !ba653ae8 shortName='3ae8'
[debug] upserted node !16ced364 shortName='Pat'
[debug] stored message from '!9ee71c38' to '^all' ch=0 text='Guten Morgen!'

enable debug output with DEBUG=1, specify the serial port with MESH_SERIAL (default /dev/ttyACM0).

web app

uses a ruby sinatra webapp to display data from the sqlite database

run app.sh in web/ to run the sinatra webserver and check 127.0.0.1:41447 for the correct node map.

API_TOKEN="1eb140fd-cab4-40be-b862-41c607762246" ./app.sh
== Sinatra (v4.1.1) has taken the stage on 41447 for development with backup from Puma
Puma starting in single mode...
[...]
*  Environment: development
*          PID: 188487
* Listening on http://127.0.0.1:41447

set API_TOKEN required for authorizations on the api post-endpoints (wip).

the web app can be configured with environment variables (defaults shown):

• SITE_NAME - title and header shown in the ui (default: "Meshtastic Berlin")
• DEFAULT_CHANNEL - default channel shown in the ui (default: "#MediumFast")
• MAP_CENTER_LAT / MAP_CENTER_LON - default map center coordinates (default: 52.502889 / 13.404194)
• MAX_NODE_DISTANCE_KM - hide nodes farther than this distance from the center (default: 137)
• MATRIX_ROOM - matrix room id for a footer link (default: #meshtastic-berlin:matrix.org)

example:

SITE_NAME="Meshtastic Berlin" MAP_CENTER_LAT=52.502889 MAP_CENTER_LON=13.404194 MAX_NODE_DISTANCE_KM=137 MATRIX_ROOM="#meshtastic-berlin:matrix.org" ./app.sh

api

the web app contains an api:

• GET /api/nodes?limit=1000 - returns the latest 1000 nodes reported to the app
• GET /api/messages?limit=1000 - returns the latest 1000 messages

the POST apis are currently being worked on (tm).

license

apache v2.0