README-Mastodon.md

Send a Mastodon Post for each new plane in PlaneFence

• Send a Mastodon Post for each new plane in PlaneFence
  • Prerequisites
  • Signing up for a Mastodon Account and creating an Application
  • Configuring Planefence to use Mastodon
  • Summary of License Terms

This utility enables sending Mastodon posts of new events. Ever since Twitter started to restrict posting about locations of aircraft, are encouraging people to post to Mastodon,

There are two major parts to install this. Each of these parts is described below.

• You must have a Mastodon account and create an Application in it.
• You must follow the instructions below to configure PlaneFence to use the credentials that Mastodon provides you during this sign-up process.

Prerequisites

This is part of the [sdr-enthusiasts/docker-planefence] docker container. Nothing in this document will make sense outside the context of this container.

Signing up for a Mastodon Account and creating an Application

Mastodon is a distributed social media service. This means, that you have your choice of Mastodon servers to create and maintain your account on. Any of them will work (as long as they allow bots), but we recommend joining this one. It's the one where many of us post results of our SDR and radio reception endeavors: https://airwaves.social/

Once you have an account, please do the following:

• Sign in to Mastodon and go to the home page, for example: https://airwaves.social/home
• Click Preferences on the bottom right of the page

• On the bottom left, click </> Development

• Create a new Application by clicking the button, then:
  • Give it a name (for example, "Planefence")
  • Add a URL (if you don't have one, use something like "https://airwaves.social/@myhandle" (replace myhandle by your Mastodon handle))
  • Make sure that the following scopes are selected (important!!!): read, write, follow
  • Press Submit at the bottom of the page

• Open the Application and (important!!!) note the Access Token

Configuring Planefence to use Mastodon

Please set the following parameters in your planefence.config file:

MASTODON_SERVER=airwaves.social
MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN=vsafdwafewarewdcvdsafwaefaewfdw
PF_MASTODON=ON
PA_MASTODON=ON
PA_MASTODON_VISIBILITY=unlisted
PF_MASTODON_VISIBILITY=unlisted

Replace by the applicable server name and access token. If PF_MASTODON is not set to ON, then no PlaneFence Mastodon notifications will be sent. If PA_MASTODON is not set to ON, then no Plane-Alert Mastodon notifications will be sent. Px_MASTODON_VISIBILITY can be public, unlisted, or private

Summary of License Terms

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.