pytak 5.1.0

Python Team Awareness Kit (PyTAK) Module

PyTAK is a Python Module for creating TAK clients, servers & gateways and include classes for handling Cursor-On-Target (COT) Events & non-COT Messages, as well as functions for serializing COT Events.

PyTAK supports the following network protocols:

• TCP Unicast: tcp://host:port

• TLS Unicast: tls://host:port (see ‘TLS Support’ section below)

• UDP Unicast: udp://host:port

• UDP Broadcast: udp+broadcast://network:port

• UDP Multicast: udp://group:port

• STDOUT/STDERR: log://stdout or log://stderr

PyTAK has been tested and is compatible with many SA & COP systems.

Servers:

• TAK Server

• taky

• Free TAK Server (FTS/FreeTAKServer)

Clients:

• WinTAK

• ATAK

• iTAK

• TAKX

• RaptorX

• COPERS

PyTAK is used by many COT gateways:

• aiscot: Automatic Identification System (AIS) to COT Gateway. Transforms marine AIS position messages to COT PLI Events.

• adsbcot: Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) to COT Gateway. Transforms aircraft ADS-B position messages to COT PLI Events.

• adsbxcot: ADS-B Exchange to COT Gateway. Transforms aircraft ADS-B position messages to COT PLI Events.

• stratuxcot: Stratux ADS-B to COT Gateway. Transforms aircraft ADS-B position messages to COT PLI Events.

• aprscot: Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) to COT Gateway. Transforms APRS position messages to COT PLI Events.

• spotcot: Globalstar SPOT to COT Gateway. Transforms Spot satellite position messages to COT PLI Events.

• inrcot: Garmin inReach to COT Gateway. Transforms inReach satellite position messages to COT PLI Events.

• zellocot: ZelloWork to COT Gateway. Transforms ZelloWork user locations to COT PLI Events.

Support Development

Tech Support: Email [e-mail] or Signal/WhatsApp: [phone]

This tool has been developed for the Disaster Response, Public Safety and Frontline Healthcare community. This software is currently provided at no-cost to users. Any contribution you can make to further this project’s development efforts is greatly appreciated.

Usage

The following Python 3.7+ code example creates a TAK Client that generates takPong Cursor-On-Target Events every 20 seconds and sends them to a TAK Server at takserver.example.com:8087, without TLS. (If you’d like to do the same with TLS see TLS Support below.). To run this example as-is, save the following code-block out to a file named ‘example.py’ and run python3 example.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import asyncio
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET

from configparser import ConfigParser

import pytak


class MySerializer(pytak.QueueWorker):
    """
    Defines how you process or generate your Cursor-On-Target Events.
    From there it adds the COT Events to a queue for TX to a COT_URL.
    """

    async def handle_data(self, data):
        """
        Handles pre-COT data and serializes to COT Events, then puts on queue.
        """
        event = data
        await self.put_queue(event)

    async def run(self, number_of_iterations=-1):
        """
        Runs the loop for processing or generating pre-COT data.
        """
        while 1:
            data = tak_pong()
            await self.handle_data(data)
            await asyncio.sleep(20)


def tak_pong():
    """
    Generates a simple takPong COT Event.
    """
    root = ET.Element("event")
    root.set("version", "2.0")
    root.set("type", "t-x-d-d")
    root.set("uid", "takPong")
    root.set("how", "m-g")
    root.set("time", pytak.cot_time())
    root.set("start", pytak.cot_time())
    root.set("stale", pytak.cot_time(3600))
    return ET.tostring(root)


async def main():
    """
    The main definition of your program, sets config params and
    adds your serializer to the asyncio task list.
    """
    config = ConfigParser()
    config["mycottool"] = {"COT_URL": "tcp://takserver.example.com:8087"}
    config = config["mycottool"]

    # Initializes worker queues and tasks.
    clitool = pytak.CLITool(config)
    await clitool.setup()

    # Add your serializer to the asyncio task list.
    clitool.add_tasks(set([MySerializer(clitool.tx_queue, config)]))

    # Start all tasks.
    await clitool.run()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    asyncio.run(main())

Requirements

PyTAK requires Python 3.6 or above and WILL NOT work on Python versions below 3.6 (that means no Python 2 support).

Installation

PyTAK is available as a Debian .deb package. This is the preferred way to install PyTAK as it will pull in all of the required OS-level dependencies:

$ wget https://github.com/ampledata/pytak/releases/latest/download/python3-pytak_latest_all.deb
$ sudo apt install -f ./python3-pytak_latest_all.deb

Alternative Installation

You can install from PyPI or from source. Both of these methods will require additional OS libraries.

Install LibFFI on Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install libffi-dev

Install LibFFI on RedHat, Fedora, CentOS:

$ sudo yum install libffi-devel
# or
$ sudo dnf install libffi-devel

Install PyTAK from the Python Package Index:

$ python3 -m pip install pytak

Install PyTAK from this source tree:

$ git clone https://github.com/ampledata/pytak.git
$ cd pytak/
$ python3 setup.py install

Configuration Parameters

All configuration parameters can be specified either as environment variables or within an INI-style configuration file.

• COT_URL: (optional) Destination for Cursor-On-Target messages. Default: udp://239.2.3.1:6969 (ATAK Multicast UDP Default)

• DEBUG: (optional) Sets debug-level logging.

• FTS_COMPAT: (optional) If set, implements random-sleep period to avoid FTS DoS protections.

• PYTAK_SLEEP: (optional) If set, implements given sleep period between emitting COT Events.

TLS Support

TLS Support for connections to TAK destinations is configured with two settings:

1. Specify tls:// in the CoT Destination URL, for example: tls://takserver.example.com:8089

2. Specify the TLS Cert and other configuration parameters.

Client Certificates, Client Key, CA Certificate & Key must be specified in PEM format.

N.B: Encrypted private keys are not supported and must be saved in clear-text: openssl rsa -in my_cert.key.pem -out my_cert-nopass.key.pem

Minimum TLS Configuration

• PYTAK_TLS_CLIENT_CERT: PEM Public Key Certificate that the PyTAK-based client will use to connect.

Optional TLS Configuration

• PYTAK_TLS_CLIENT_KEY: PEM Private Key for the associated PYTAK_TLS_CLIENT_CERT

• PYTAK_TLS_DONT_VERIFY: Disable destination TLS Certificate Verification.

• PYTAK_TLS_DONT_CHECK_HOSTNAME: Disable destination TLS Certificate Common Name (CN) Verification.

• PYTAK_TLS_CLIENT_CAFILE: PEM CA trust store to use for remote TLS Verification.

• PYTAK_TLS_CLIENT_CIPHERS: Colon (“:”) seperated list of TLS Cipher Suites.

For example, to send COT to a TAK Server listening for TLS connections on port 8089:

PYTAK_TLS_CLIENT_CERT=client.cert.pem
PYTAK_TLS_CLIENT_KEY=client.key.pem
COT_URL=tls://tak.example.com:8089

FreeTAKServer Support

FTS (Free TAK Server) has built-in anti-Denial-of-Service (DoS) support, which restricts the number of COT Events a client can send to a listening TCP Port. Currently this FTS feature cannot be disabled or changed, so clients must meter their input speed.

To use a PyTAK-based client with FTS, set the FTS_COMPAT Environment Variable to 1. This will cause the PyTAK client to sleep a random number of seconds between transmitting CoT to a FTS server:

export FTS_COMPAT=1
aprscot ...

Or, inline:

FTS_COMPAT=1 aprscot

Alternatively you can specify a static sleep period by setting PYTAK_SLEEP to an integer number of seconds:

export PYTAK_SLEEP=3
spotcot ...

Source

Github: https://github.com/ampledata/pytak

Author

Greg Albrecht W2GMD [e-mail]

https://ampledata.org/

Copyright

• PyTAK is Copyright 2022 Greg Albrecht

• asyncio_dgram is Copyright (c) 2019 Justin Bronder

License

Copyright 2022 Greg Albrecht <[e-mail]>

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

• asyncio_dgram is licensed under the MIT License, see pytak/asyncio_dgram/LICENSE for details.

Style

1. Prefer double-quotes over single quotes.

2. Prefer spaces over tabs.

3. Follow PEP-8.

4. Follow Google Python Style.