wbor-endec (FKA OpenEndec)

Warning

DO NOT RELY ON THIS PROGRAM WHEN LOSS, DAMAGE, INJURY OR DEATH MAY OCCUR! ALWAYS, ALWAYS HAVE MULTIPLE METHODS TO RECEIVE EMERGENCY ALERTS.

THIS IS NOT AN EAS DECODER

A secure, Open Source EAS ENDEC Logger to transmit News Feed messages recieved by a Sage Digital ENDEC Hardware Unit to external destinations.

News Feed & EAS Specs

• News Feed spec: section 9.4 (pg. 70) of the ENDEC manual
• EAS protocol specification: 47 CFR 11.31

Features

• Supports multiple concurrent transmission destinations:
  • Generic HTTP(S) webhooks
  • GroupMe bot
  • Discord embed
  • RabbitMQ
• In the future, we would be open to PRs for other destinations, such as:
  • Slack
  • Email (SMTP)
  • Twilio

Configuration

Public settings (config.json)

{
  "port": "/dev/ttyUSB0",
  "logfile": "/var/log/wbor-endec/wbor-endec.log",
  "debug": false
}

• port: The device to read from. This is the /dev/ port for your ENDEC hardware. For example, if your ENDEC is connected to /dev/ttyUSB0, you would use /dev/ttyUSB0.
• logfile: The (optional) path to the log file. This is where wbor-endec will write its logs if specified. Make sure the user running wbor-endec has write permissions to this file. If not specified, logs go to stderr/journal.
• debug: Set to true to enable debug level logging.

Save as /etc/wbor-endec/config.json (0644):

sudo mkdir -p /etc/wbor-endec
sudo cp config.json /etc/wbor-endec/config.json
sudo chmod 0644 /etc/wbor-endec/config.json

Private credentials (secrets.json)

{
  "webhooks": ["https://example.com/webhook1", "https://example.com/webhook2"],
  "discord_urls": ["https://discord.com/api/webhooks/...", "..."],
  "groupme_bot_ids": ["abcd1234", "efgh5678"],
  "rabbitmq_amqp_url": "amqp://guest:guest@localhost:5672",
  "rabbitmq_exchange_name": "wbor-endec"  // Optional, defaults to "wbor-endec"
}

• webhooks: List of webhook URLs to forward EAS messages to. These can be any HTTP(S) endpoint that accepts POST requests.
• groupme_bot_ids: List of GroupMe bot IDs to forward EAS messages to. These can be found in the GroupMe developer portal (public, free).
• discord_urls: List of Discord webhook URLs to forward EAS messages to. You can create a webhook in your Discord server channel settings.
• rabbitmq_amqp_url: RabbitMQ AMQP URL to forward EAS messages to. This should be in the format amqp://username:password@hostname:port/vhost.
• rabbitmq_exchange_name: The RabbitMQ exchange name to publish messages to. This is optional and defaults to wbor-endec.

Save in a directory managed by systemd's LoadCredential (e.g. /etc/wbor-endec/) as secrets.json with permissions 0600 and owner root:root:

sudo mkdir -p /etc/wbor-endec
sudo cp secrets.json /etc/wbor-endec/secrets.json
sudo chmod 0600 /etc/wbor-endec/secrets.json
sudo chown root:root /etc/wbor-endec/secrets.json

Installation & usage

This project uses uv for dependency management (recommended, installation instructions). You can also use pip if preferred.

Quick Start with Makefile

For development and quick setup, use the included Makefile:

# Clone and navigate to repo
git clone https://github.com/WBOR-91-1-FM/wbor-endec && cd wbor-endec

# Install dependencies and set up development environment
make dev-setup

# Edit config.json and secrets.json with your configuration
# (config.json template will be created by dev-setup)

# Run the application
make run

See more on the Development page for available Make commands and additional setup instructions.

Manual Installation

Example scenario:

1. In Sage's EndecSetD, set one of the DB-9 serial COM ports on your ENDEC to output "News Feed". See section 9.4 (pg. 70) of the ENDEC manual for more info.

2. Use a USB to RS-232 serial adapter to connect the News Feed COM port of your ENDEC to a computer. We're using a Raspberry Pi, though any computer that can run Python and connect to the internet should work fine.

3. Run sudo dmesg (for macOS/Linux) to identify the the /dev/ device the adapter is plugged into. We're looking for a new USB detection for a serial device. Using the RS-232 adapter linked above, this is the log we found:

   usb 1-1.1: FTDI USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSB0

   This is telling us that the ENDEC feed will come in at /dev/ttyUSB0. If you're feeling up to it, assign the device a more user-friendly name by creating a udev rule. See this guide for more info.

4. Clone this repo and navigate to it via git clone https://github.com/WBOR-91-1-FM/wbor-endec && cd wbor-endec

5. Install dependencies:

   • Using uv: uv sync

6. Start monitoring the ENDEC by running the script:

   uv run python endec.py --config /etc/wbor-endec/config.json

   • Reads public settings from --config path
   • Loads secrets from $CREDENTIALS_DIRECTORY/secrets.json or /etc/wbor-endec/secrets.json
   • Validates port and URLs, then begins reading <ENDECSTART>…<ENDECEND> payloads and forwards messages

Running as a Systemd Service

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/wbor-endec.service

Reference the template at wbor-endec.service.

You will need to change:

• {DEVICE} = the /dev/ device you found in step 3, e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0. IMPORTANT NOTE: Systemd derives the device unit name from the path by converting slashes to dashes, e.g. /dev/ttyENDEC → dev-ttyENDEC.device. So, if your device is /dev/ttyUSB0, the unit name will be dev-ttyUSB0.device. You can check this by running systemctl list-units --type=device and looking for your device.
• Environment=SECRETS_PATH={PATH_TO_SECRETS_JSON} = path to the secrets.json file you created in the previous step (/etc/wbor-endec/secrets.json). This is where the script will look for the credentials.
• Under ExecStart
  • {PYTHON3_EXEC_PATH} = directory for your Python executable, e.g. /home/username/wbor-endec/.venv/bin/python
  • {SCRIPT_PATH} = path to endec.py, e.g. /home/username/wbor-endec/endec.py
  • {PATH_TO_CONFIG_JSON} = the path to the config.json file you created in the previous step (/etc/wbor-endec/config.json)
• WorkingDirectory = path to the wbor-endec repo folder you cloned, e.g. /home/username/wbor-endec
• User = username for the user running wbor-endec (e.g. pi for Raspberry Pi)

After saving, run:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable wbor-endec.service
sudo systemctl start wbor-endec.service
sudo systemctl status wbor-endec.service

Look for active (running) and the wbor-endec.log file to confirm it is up and running.

After updating (pulling from this repo), be sure to run:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart wbor-endec.service

Troubleshooting & Logs

If the service fails to start or continuously restarts, view live output with:

sudo journalctl -u wbor-endec.service -f

To inspect the last 100 entries:

sudo journalctl -u wbor-endec.service -n 100

TODO

• Add support for setting different timezones (for users in different timezones)

Maintained by WBOR 91.1 FM and Mason Daugherty, originally inspired by Evan Vander Stoep.