Installation problems with Ethernet using Navico Radar and OpenCPN in Ubuntu

[Pegasos]

p { margin-bottom: 0.25cm; line-height: 120%; }

Can someone please help a Linux novice in setting up the OpenCPN radar plugin to work with my brand new Navico 3G radar. I'm really stuck and I've been fighting this for days.



I have the RI10 interface box and I cut the Navico Ethernet cable and connected an RJ45 as per the guidelines. I'm fairly confident that Ive got the hardware correct.



On OpenCPN the popup Radar screen shows the error message
“Cannot switch radar on as it is not connected or off”
and the 'Radar present' checkbox is not ticked.



I think that the radar is transmitting data (the green led flashes) and that the Ethernet/UDP/Multicast data is being received by Ubuntu and that it is not being transferred to the opencpn application.


The wiki gives this advice: “The simplest solution is to allow `opencpn.exe` full access to the network for both receive and transmit.” But how do I do this?




Or am I missing something else?




Ubuntu 64 bit version 16.04
Open CPN 4..8.2 (2018-02-06)
Radrnplugin BR24Radar 3.0


wiki
https://opencpn.org/wiki/dokuwiki/do...ais:br24_radar




thanks

[petter5]

See attached photos.

1. Install the radar plugin into opencpn
2. Connect radat RJ45 eternet cable form radat to your switch / Computer
3. Connect power to our radar as shown in battery photo.

Now, you should be able to see that the radar is connected on opencpn.

The set-up shown in the battery photo was just to do a quick test before mounting. The fuse should be connected to the battery side, and all the other cables on the other side of the fuse. If you want to be able to turn the radar completerly off, the yellow cable thould be connected ti a switch for on/off.

[Pegasos]

Thanks Peter, but I have the hardware set up correctly. The Radar powers up and draws 2 watts (I measured) and the the green LED shows a pattern of 3 fast flashes. So I understand that it is going into standby mode and transmitting a few packets of startup data. I made up an Ethernet cable to connect the RI10 to my Ubuntu laptop. I've got OpenCPN running. OpenCPN is getting heading and position data from the GPS. The Radar plugin is installed. The radar fault icon appears: concentric rings with a question mark in the middle on a white background. When I click on the icon a popup dialog displays the message that the radar is off or not connected.

I think that there is a software configuration problem that stops the data somewhere on the route between the Ethernet device and the application, but I'm too unfamiliar with Ubuntu to know where to start.

To get the GPS to work on the serial ports I had to add the dialout group to my user rights. I thought there might be a similar trick to allow the application access to get IP data.

anyone?

[petter5]

Does the small led on the Ethernet ports on both sides lit up ? Maybe you need a Ethernet crossover cable if your Ethernet adapter does not auto detect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable

Pretty sure the problem is your cable.

Originally Posted by Pegasos

Thanks Peter, but I have the hardware set up correctly. The Radar powers up and draws 2 watts (I measured) and the the green LED shows a pattern of 3 fast flashes. So I understand that it is going into standby mode and transmitting a few packets of startup data. I made up an Ethernet cable to connect the RI10 to my Ubuntu laptop. I've got OpenCPN running. OpenCPN is getting heading and position data from the GPS. The Radar plugin is installed. The radar fault icon appears: concentric rings with a question mark in the middle on a white background. When I click on the icon a popup dialog displays the message that the radar is off or not connected.

I think that there is a software configuration problem that stops the data somewhere on the route between the Ethernet device and the application, but I'm too unfamiliar with Ubuntu to know where to start.

To get the GPS to work on the serial ports I had to add the dialout group to my user rights. I thought there might be a similar trick to allow the application access to get IP data.

anyone?

[Pegasos]

Thanks.

I'll try a cross-over cable next. Will report back soon.

In the meantime I discovered the terminal command tcpdump, which list all network type traffic on the computer. The output of this command does not change if the radar is plugged in or not. So I now believe that I was wrong in thinking that Radar data was arriving at my computer.

[Pegasos]

I’ve tried a cross-over cable, and it makes no difference! Both cables work in getting data sent to the laptop, but still the OpenCPN Radar plugin cannot see the radar.

Using the verbose option with tcpdump I have been able to establish that the Radar is actually sending at least some data to the computer. Among the output are data packets like this, seemingly originating from the radar.
......
......
20:23:40.128279 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 0, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 324)
0.0.0.0.bootpc > 255.255.255.255.bootps: [udp sum ok] BOOTP/DHCP, Request from 00:0e:91:0a:ae:31 (oui Unknown), length 296, xid 0x20845348, secs 902, Flags [none] (0
x0000)
Client-Ethernet-Address 00:0e:91:0a:ae:31 (oui Unknown)
Vendor-rfc1048 Extensions
Magic Cookie 0x63825363
DHCP-Message Option 53, length 1: Discover
Client-ID Option 61, length 7: ether 00:0e:91:0a:ae:31
MSZ Option 57, length 2: 576
Parameter-Request Option 55, length 7:
Subnet-Mask, Default-Gateway, Domain-Name-Server, Hostname
Domain-Name, BR, NTP
Vendor-Class Option 60, length 12: "udhcp 1.20.2"
Hostname Option 12, length 14: "Radar-f7-0c-fd"
......
......

I'm not sure what to try next. Any ideas?

[merrimac]

If that is the only data you see with tcpdump, the radar is not getting an IP address, but luckily Navico radars don't care. Still you may want to set up a DHCP server on that port, assuming you're not using a router of some kind, in which case you should see the radar getting an address from the router...

Since you are a novice Ubuntu user, you probably installed a default Ubuntu install that might have a firewall installed. Read up on 'Ubuntu firewall (ufw)' and 'iptables'.

Find out what interface you are trying to connect to (check the GUI, and the output of 'ifconfig -a' or 'ip addr' depending on OS version) then check what rules are in place for that interface (see 'iptables -L'). If this comes back other than:

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)

(possibly with some target/prot/opt/source/destination headers each)

then you've got a firewall.

[merrimac]

Just to be sure, the recommended version right now is 4.8.2 with plugin version 3.0.0. Not that it matters much at this stage

[petter5]

To see firewall status:

sudo ufw status verbose

If active try:

sudo ufw disable

Does your radar work now?

Originally Posted by merrimac

If that is the only data you see with tcpdump, the radar is not getting an IP address, but luckily Navico radars don't care. Still you may want to set up a DHCP server on that port, assuming you're not using a router of some kind, in which case you should see the radar getting an address from the router...

Since you are a novice Ubuntu user, you probably installed a default Ubuntu install that might have a firewall installed. Read up on 'Ubuntu firewall (ufw)' and 'iptables'.

Find out what interface you are trying to connect to (check the GUI, and the output of 'ifconfig -a' or 'ip addr' depending on OS version) then check what rules are in place for that interface (see 'iptables -L'). If this comes back other than:

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)

(possibly with some target/prot/opt/source/destination headers each)

then you've got a firewall.

[Pegasos]

Hi. Thanks for your help so far.

I’ve checked that I have the right software versions, OpenCPN 4.8.2 and BRRadar 3.0.


There’s no router in my setup – the radar (Navico 3G) connects to the RI10 interface box and the Ethernet cable from that is plugged directly into the side of my computer. I have two computers, both Ubuntu 16.04, one of them is fully up to date with latest drivers and libraries and updates and the other has had no updates to any drivers or anything and is exactly the initial install as downloaded onto a memory stick from the basic original release. I get the same results on both computers. I have made up three wires, just to make sure that there is not a connector or soldering problem. They all give the same results.


The firewall is off ...


:~$ sudo ufw status verbose
Status: inactive


And also ...


:~$ sudo iptables -L


Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination


Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination


Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination




I’ve learned that the Ethernet interface on my computer is named enp0s25


With the Radar not connected it looks like this ...


:~$ ifconfig -v enp0s25


enp0s25 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 64:31:50:9b:cc:74
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:20 Memory:d2500000-d2520000




After the Radar has been on for about a minute it looks like this:


:~$ ifconfig -v enp0s25
enp0s25 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 64:31:50:9b:cc:74
inet6 addr: fe80::a36:7b97:4b78:46c9/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:25 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1624 (1.6 KB) TX bytes:4743 (4.7 KB)
Interrupt:20 Memory:d2500000-d2520000




Eight packets per minute doesn’t seem like much data, but I guess the radar is still in standby mode.




Tcpdump still reports this packet, so the Radar is still sending data ...




09:58:25.102753 IP (tos 0x0, ttl 64, id 0, offset 0, flags [none], proto UDP (17), length 324)
0.0.0.0.bootpc > 255.255.255.255.bootps: BOOTP/DHCP, Request from 00:0e:91:0a:ae:31 (oui Unknown), length 296, xid 0xe8115358, secs 106
3, Flags [none]
Client-Ethernet-Address 00:0e:91:0a:ae:31 (oui Unknown)
Vendor-rfc1048 Extensions
Magic Cookie 0x63825363
DHCP-Message Option 53, length 1: Discover
Client-ID Option 61, length 7: ether 00:0e:91:0a:ae:31
MSZ Option 57, length 2: 576
Parameter-Request Option 55, length 7:
Subnet-Mask, Default-Gateway, Domain-Name-Server, Hostname
Domain-Name, BR, NTP
Vendor-Class Option 60, length 12: "udhcp 1.20.2"
Hostname Option 12, length 14: "Radar-f7-0c-fd"




Open CPN still says “Cannot switch radar as it is not connected or off ...


But we would expect that as I haven’t changed anything.

[merrimac]

I think the issue is that your Ubuntu network card doesn't have any IPv4 address so it may very well be that that is causing it to fail. The code tries to bind to particular IPv4 addresses but if it can't find any it won't be able to do that. It is not complaining because this environment is valid when a laptop is temporarily disconnected, or the radar is off. Still it could give a better diagnostic message.

I suggest setting up a DHCP server (f.i. dnsmasq) on the card, to give the radar an address, and set the card to a fixed address in the same network range. Just choose a network in one of the approved ranges (10/8, 172.10/16, 192.168/16), f.i. 10.0.0.0/24 with 10.0.0.1 for the computer and DHCP addresses 10.0.0.100-10.0.0.200 for the radar.

[Pegasos]

Thank you, thank you! That worked.

I have a fairly limited understanding of networking - but with a bit of searching on the Internet I was able to set up DHCP - and now the radar is happy. And so am I

[merrimac]

Well done!

Out of interest, can you stop your DHCP server, power cycle the radar and then see if just the IP address on the network card is enough? If so we can add this to manual.

I guess we currently assume that the ethernet card will get a 'self assigned' address in the 169.254/16 range. If that happens there is an IPv4 address and everything is rosy. But your cards are not getting such addresses by themselves.

[petter5]

I have several times set up radar using Ubuntu 16.04 and all went smooth - all my systems have fixed IP but no DHCP server involved so I think that is the answer to your question regarding ned for DHCP server or not.

Originally Posted by merrimac

Well done!

Out of interest, can you stop your DHCP server, power cycle the radar and then see if just the IP address on the network card is enough? If so we can add this to manual.

I guess we currently assume that the ethernet card will get a 'self assigned' address in the 169.254/16 range. If that happens there is an IPv4 address and everything is rosy. But your cards are not getting such addresses by themselves.

[Pegasos]

I will not have access to my radar until the weekend. When I get to play with it again I will try a few experiments along the lines of no DHCP and just an IP address allocated to the card.