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SDRangel server

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f4exb edited this page Feb 12, 2019 · 36 revisions

Introduction

Starting with version 4 (v4.0.0) it is a fully implemented feature with support of nearly all plugins:

  • Channel Rx: AM, BFM, DSD, NFM, SSB, WFM demodulators, RemoteSink and UDP sink.
  • Channel Tx: AM, ATV, NFM, SSB, WFM modulators, RemoteSource and UDP source.
  • Sample sources: Airspy, AirspyHF, BladeRF, FCDPro, FCDPro+, File source, HackRF, LimeSDR, Perseus, PlutoSDR, RTL-SDR, RemoteInput, SDRPlay, Test source (that's all of them)
  • Sample sinks: BladeRF, File sink, HackRF, LimeSDR, PlutoSDR, RemoteOutput (that's all of them also)

The most graphical plugins: Channel analyzer and ATV related demods are not part of the deal but they are also very unlikely to be useful in a server. However for DATV support could be added in the future with a proper implementation of TS communication.

It is implemented as a new binary sdrangelsrv that is similar to sdrangel but does not fire up a GUI. This server mode binary has therefore no dependency on Qt Widgets nor OpenGL. Since it has no GUI its control is left entirely up to the web REST API interface. It also uses a different set of plugins with their GUI parts removed. These are placed in the lib/pluginssrv directory.

The main motivations are:

  • open to third party development for custom GUI implementation thanks to the REST API.
  • be able to run SDRangel on hardware without graphics (server).
  • be used in sophisticated remote transponders or repeaters in a headless server configuration.
  • possibility to use Docker technology to host SDRangel server instances in a distributed environment.
  • using another instance of SDRangel with a Daemon channel for the RF device interface even more distributed architectures can be supported to share workload in a cluster.

This is distributed only in Linux packages.

Hardware requirements

Most users will want to run the server variant on ARM based SBCs like the Raspberry Pi. It is recommended to use armv8 class devices with 4 A53 cores or better clocked at 1.2 GHz or more. It is recommended to use a armv8 (aka aarch64) O/S. It has been successfully tested on the following devices:

Controlling the process with supervisor

Supervisor is a Python package that makes it very easy to manage processes using a simple web interface

Program control via REST API

You can use any program that can make HTTP requests like a Python script with the request package. There are a few examples of such Python scripts here

You can also use the SDRangelcli web browser based UI.

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