jdmtool 0.0.1

Tool for downloading Jeppesen databases and programming Garmin aviation data cards

JdmTool

A command-line tool for downloading Jeppesen databases and programming Garmin aviation data cards aiming to be compatible with Jeppesen Distribution Manager.

It requires:

• Jeppesen subscription
• A GNS 430/530 data card programmer (USB ID 0e39:1250)
• A 16MB data card

Currently, it has only been tested on Linux with GNS 430 and a Jeppesen NavData database.

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"

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

Basic Usage

Log in

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

Refresh the list of available downloads

$ jdmtool refresh
Success

View available downloads

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

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

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

$ jdmtool transfer 0
Found device: Bus 001 Device 052: ID 0e39:1250
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

Advanced Features

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):

$ jdmtool read-metadata
Found device: Bus 001 Device 045: ID 0e39:1250
Database metadata: {2303~12345678}

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

$ jdmtool write-metadata '{2303~12345678}'
Found device: Bus 001 Device 045: ID 0e39:1250
Done

Read the current database from the data card:

$ jdmtool read-database db.bin
Found device: Bus 001 Device 044: ID 0e39:1250
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)

Write a new database to the data card:

This will do some sanity checks to make sure the file is in fact a Garmin database. If it rejects your file, please file a bug to let me know.

$ jdmtool write-database dgrw72_2303_eceb0273.bin
Found device: Bus 001 Device 045: ID 0e39:1250
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

After it is done, you may want to run jdmtool write-metadata '{...-...}' to save the new cycle number in the metadata.

Bugs

This has only been tested with a single card reader and two cards, so chances are, it won't work correctly for others. Please file a bug if you run into problems.