Install aprsd into Python 3 venv

By rbosaz, 16 October, 2023

Installing into a venv (python virtualenv):

1. Install pip in current user profile (optional).

python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade pip

2. Ensure you are using Python 3.3 or greater. 

Note: For this exercise I recommend 3.11 or whatever the creator's GitHub states.

python3 -V
-or-
python -v

3. Create your venv, activate environment and confirm you are in the environment. 

python3 -m venv env 
source env/bin/activate
which python

After executing 'which python' you should see '.../env/bin/python' where ... is the full path to the environment.

4. Install aprsd within the environment created above.

python3 -m pip install aprsd

5. I created my 'aprsd.yml' in the directory above the 'env' directory using the following command.

aprsd sample-config > aprsd.yml

Using your favorite editor (mine is vim) edit the config file you just created. I read each setting and enabled most of them using default. Some parameters required me to get information from the web like: aprs.fi passkey and magicbug password. Once you're satisfied start the aprsd server with the -c flag and filename. Being that  I performed this in the environment above the env directory id did the following.

aprsd server -c aprsd.yml

Note: Do not close the command prompt window else you shutdown the server. If you want to shut down the aprsd server gracefully use ctrl+c keyboard key combination.

6. Install web client in venv where aprsd was installed above.

pip install gunicorn

7. Start the web client. I'm stuck here

gunicorn --bind 127.0.0.1:8080 "aprsd.wsgi:app"

8. To deactivate the venv.

deactivate