Tag: GSoC 2011

GSoC 2011: Nodeshot

Posted on by Mario Behling

Do wireless communities around the world really need another map server? Here in Ninux we believe that the answer is yes!

Enter Nodeshot an open source wireless community map server written in python and based on django, focused on ease of useand performance.

Why a new map server? Mainly because we had some precise needs that the current open source map servers can’t satisfy easily:

  • we needed an application which is easy to use and understand for everyone
  • we wanted to preserve a similar look to the old map server we used before (wnmap).
  • we wanted it to be simple and performant
Instead of modifying and hacking the existing alternatives we decided to make a new one, trying to keep the code clean and well commented (which was one of the hardest tasks).

The frontend is built in HTML5 and it does an intensive use of jQuery and the Google Map API.

The backend is based on the django admin and it permits to easily administer the app.

These are the main features of the nodeshot:

  • Map based on Google Map API v3
  • New node with confirmation via email
  • Possibility to insert devices, interfaces and hna4 for a better troubleshooting
  • Edit node, devices, interfaces, hna4
  • Contact node owners
  • Address lookup
  • Hide sidebar
  • Search nodes and IP addresses
  • Distance calculation between nodes
  • Save distance calculations for future reference
  • Public information about devices, interfaces and performance of links
  • Statistics  (number of nodes, links, links in km)
  • IPv6 support

During the development we used github to commit changes and several merges have occurred in some cases when different developers were working to fix some issues.

The project has revealed to be more complex than what was expected but at the same time has been really engaging and fun.

There is still work to do though, actually we are translating and optimizing the app. We’ll keep working on nodeshot so that we can arrive quickly to a stable and performant release, we hope we’ll attract new developers from all around the world that will help us to push forward this new open source project!

Meanwhile, you can check the demo and you can download the source code on github.

This article appeared first on the website of Ninux.org: 

http://blog.ninux.org/2011/09/06/gsoc-2011-nodeshot

GSoC 2011: Videochat for Diaspora with Vittorio

Posted on by Mario Behling

I’m writing about the results achieved with my Google Summer of Code project, for the Ninux community, under the umbrella of Freifunk (I thank them both for the opportunity they gave me).

Briefly it consisted in developing a video chat feature for Diaspora*, a distributed social network.

This project has received a very big feedback and appreciations from the entire Diaspora community, including the core team, who helped and supported me during the development.

Basically, it provides two new functionalities to the Diaspora engine:

  • Textual chat, based on XMPP signaling protocol
  • Video chat, using Jingle XEP
Both have been developed in Javascript, with some Rails code. It usesStrophe.js library for the textual chat, based on XMPP Over BOSH standard, and a self-made extension of it to realize Jingleprotocol.
The project includes a custom ejabberd module in Erlang for the integration of ejabberd/diaspora databases, an Actionscript part for the video chat stuff and an external authentication script written in Ruby used by ejabberd to authenticate users from Diaspora.
The project has been split in two pull requests, and we’re currently fixing them before merge with master repository: [1],  [2].

Source code can be found at https://github.com/vcuculo/diaspora, under “jabber” and “video_chat” branches.

Setup instructions here. Some screen-shots: [1], [2], [3].

I hope it will be soon merged and improved by me and the community, to make it available on every Diaspora* pod!

Vittorio

**This article appeared first on the website of Ninux, our friends from Italy: http://blog.ninux.org/2011/08/30/gsoc-2011-videochat-for-diaspora/

GSOC 2011: RadioMate

Posted on by Mario Behling

The Ninux community, under the umbrella of Freifunk, developed four awesome open-source projects for the Google Summer of Code program 2011: a front-end for RadioMate, a new mapserver (called nodeshot), a video and chat extension to the social networking engine Diaspora* and a new tunneling tool.

In this post I will write about RadioMate, the project I was involved in. Then posts on the other projects will follow!

There are many web-radio projects that are closely involved in the world of Community Networks: in Rome Fusoradio and Radio Sonarare an active part of the community and relay on the ninux network for their streaming, in Leipzig Radio Blau (which transmits also in FM) gives big spaces to the Freifunk project, or RadioCona in Ljubljana, where the Wlan Slovenija project is based.

Often these web radios have to relay on closed-source software platforms as the available open-source solutions don’t fit their needs.

RadioMate is a free (as in freedom) community-wise Web-radio management system. Some of its features are:

  • support of multiple users with different privileges (roles)
  • easy radio schedule management
  • handling of audio files and playlists
  • extendable with new types of transmissions
  • interface with the icecast server
  • takeover of the radio streaming in case of “special editions”

While last year the RadioMate engine was developed, this year our efforts focused on a Web frontend. You can find a demo atradiomate.ninux.org. The username is “foobar” while the password is “secret”. Point also your player (e.g. VLC) atradiomate.ninux.org:8000.

For the techies, the engine is based on liquidsoap, written in Python, and easily extendable through liquidsoap scripts. It exports a JSON API which is exploited by the Javascript (jQuery) based Web frontend. Source code and documentation can be found at radiomate.org.

Of course there is still work to do, but I hope that this software will be soon used by our friends running webradios!

As we say in Rome:Daje!
Clauz

This article appeared first on the website of Ninux.org:

http://blog.ninux.org/2011/08/29/gsoc-2011-radiomate/