jdmtool 0.2

Tool for downloading and transferring Jeppesen databases

JdmTool

A command-line tool for downloading and transferring Jeppesen databases aiming to be compatible with Jeppesen Distribution Manager.

It requires a Jeppesen subscription, and currenty supports the following services:

• NavData for Garmin GNS 400/500 Series
  • Requires a Skybound data card programmer (USB ID 0e39:1250)
  • Requires a 16MB NavData WAAS card or a 4MB NavData non-WAAS card
    • If you have an 8MB data card, please file a bug!
• NavData and Obstacles for Avidyne IFD 400 Series
• (Very experimental) Garmin G1000 support, except for Electronic Charts
  • If you try it, please file a bug to report your results - even just to say "it worked".

It is mainly tested on Linux, but should work on OS X and Windows.

Installing

You may want to create a Python virtual environment using e.g. virtualenvwrapper.

Install the latest jdmtool release:

pip3 install jdmtool

Or install the latest code from GitHub:

pip3 install "git+https://github.com/dimaryaz/jdmtool.git#egg=jdmtool"

IFD 400 and G1000

You should install an optional Just-in-Time compiler by running:

pip3 install jdmtool[jit]

This should significantly improve transfer speeds.

GNS 400/500

Make sure you have access to the USB device. On Linux, you should copy udev/50-garmin.rules to /etc/udev/rules.d/ and possibly reload the rules.

Basic Usage

Log in

You only need to run this once (unless you change your password).

$ jdmtool login
Username: [e-mail]
Password: 
Logged in successfully

Refresh the list of available downloads

Run this every time you want to download updates.

$ jdmtool refresh
Downloading services...
Downloading keychain...
Success

View available downloads

$ jdmtool list
ID  Name                                                                    Coverage              Version   Start Date  End Date    Downloaded
 0  Garmin GNS 400/500 Series WAAS - NavData                                Americas              2303      2023-03-23  2023-04-20            
 1  Garmin GNS 400/500 Series WAAS - NavData                                Americas              2304      2023-04-20  2023-05-18            

View detailed info

$ jdmtool info 0
Aircraft Manufacturer:        LOCKHEED
Aircraft Model:               SR-71
Aircraft Tail Number:         N12345

Avionics:                     Garmin GNS 400/500 Series WAAS
Coverage:                     Americas
Service Type:                 NavData
Service Code:                 DGRW7253
Service ID:                   12345678
Service Renewal Date:         2024-01-01 00:00:00

Version:                      2303
Version Start Date:           2023-03-23 06:00:00
Version End Date:             2023-04-20 06:00:00

Next Version:                 2304
Next Version Available Date:  2023-04-10 06:00:00
Next Version Start Date:      2023-04-20 06:00:00

File Name:                    dgrw72_2303_eceb0273.bin
File Size:                    8443904
File CRC32:                   eceb0273
Serial Number:                
System ID:                    

Downloads:
  /home/user/.local/share/jdmtool/downloads/dgrw72_2303_eceb0273.bin  (missing)

Download the database

$ jdmtool download 0
Downloading: 100%|█████████████████████████████████████████████████| 8.44M/8.44M [00:03<00:00, 2.15MB/s]
Downloaded to /home/user/.local/share/jdmtool/downloads/dgrw72_2303_eceb0273.bin

Transfer the database to the data card (GNS 400/500)

$ jdmtool transfer 0
Found device: Bus 001 Device 052: ID 0e39:1250
Detected data card: 16MB WAAS
Transfer /home/user/.local/share/jdmtool/downloads/dgrw72_2303_eceb0273.bin to the data card? (y/n) y
Erasing the database: 100%|████████████████████████████████████████| 8.59M/8.59M [02:15<00:00, 63.1KB/s]
Writing the database: 100%|████████████████████████████████████████| 8.59M/8.59M [04:14<00:00, 40.5KB/s]
Verifying the database: 100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 8.59M/8.59M [01:32<00:00, 92.5KB/s]
Writing new metadata: {2303~12345678}
Done

Transfer the database to the USB drive (IFD 440 or G1000)

Note: the final database file requires the FAT32 volume ID of the USB drive. jdmtool will attempt to find it automatically - which requires the destination to be an actual FAT32-formatted device, not any random directory. Alternatively, you may set the volume ID manually using the --vol-id parameter.

Getting the volume ID automatically is currently not supported on Mac OS, so you will need to use the --vol-id parameter. You can try these instructions for finding the volume ID.

$ jdmtool transfer 0 /run/media/user/USB/
Transfer 'Avidyne IFD 400 Series, Bendix King AeroNav Series - NavData' to /run/media/user/USB/? (y/n) y
Found volume ID: 1234abcd
Writing to /run/media/user/USB/navdata.dsf: 100%|██████████████████| 38.0M/38.0M [00:15<00:00, 2.49MB/s]
Updating .jdm...
Done

Advanced Features (GNS 400/500)

Check that the tool can detect the device and the data card:

$ jdmtool detect
Found device: Bus 001 Device 049: ID 0e39:1250
Firmware version: 20071203
Card inserted:
  IID: 0x1004100
  Unknown identifier: 0x38001000

("Unknown identifier" likely contains the information about what type of card this is, but I don't have enough information to decode it.)

Read the metadata (should contain the cycle and the service ID):

JDM seems to only write it to 16MB cards. Not clear if it's actually used for anything.

$ jdmtool read-metadata
Found device: Bus 001 Device 045: ID 0e39:1250
Detected data card: 16MB WAAS
Database metadata: {2303~12345678}

Write the metadata (should probably keep the same format):

JDM seems to only write it to 16MB cards. Not clear if it's actually used for anything.

$ jdmtool write-metadata '{2303~12345678}'
Found device: Bus 001 Device 045: ID 0e39:1250
Detected data card: 16MB WAAS
Done

Read the current database from the data card:

$ jdmtool read-database db.bin
Found device: Bus 001 Device 044: ID 0e39:1250
Detected data card: 16MB WAAS
Reading the database: 100%|████████████████████████████████████████| 8.59M/8.59M [01:33<00:00, 91.6KB/s]
Truncating the file...
Done

You should now have the database in db.bin:

$ file db.bin
db.bin: DOS/MBR boot sector, code offset 0x3c+2, OEM-ID "GARMIN10", sectors/cluster 8, FAT  1, root entries 512, sectors 32768 (volumes <=32 MB), sectors/FAT 16, sectors/track 63, heads 255, hidden sectors 63, serial number 0x1102, label: "GARMIN AT  ", FAT (16 bit)

It may not match the original downloaded file exactly. There is no way to know the size of the database on the data card, so either db.bin or the original file will likely contain extra \xFF bytes at the end.

Write a new database to the data card:

$ jdmtool write-database dgrw72_2303_eceb0273.bin
Found device: Bus 001 Device 045: ID 0e39:1250
Detected data card: 16MB WAAS
Transfer dgrw72_2303_eceb0273.bin to the data card? (y/n) y
Erasing the database: 100%|████████████████████████████████████████| 8.59M/8.59M [02:15<00:00, 63.1KB/s]
Writing the database: 100%|████████████████████████████████████████| 8.59M/8.59M [04:14<00:00, 40.5KB/s]
Verifying the database: 100%|██████████████████████████████████████| 8.59M/8.59M [01:32<00:00, 92.5KB/s]
Done

Bugs

Please file a bug if you run into problems, or if you have a device/service that is not currently supported.