taky

taky - A simple COT server for ATAK

Features (and anti-Features!)

• Designed with security in mind!

  • First class SSL support with client keys!
  • Data Package Server requires client keys!
  • Some design consideration for XML security!
  • Does not require root to run!

• Light weight COT Router and Data Package Server

  • Only ~2k SLOC for the whole shebang!
  • Supports multiple ATAK clients simultaneously! You can see them on the map!
  • Actually somewhat decent CoT routing, with Marti support!
  • A hacked up XML parser written by someone who barely understands XML!
  • Advanced Pythonic implementation of CoT model, with only 5 hours of combined industry experience in implementing CoT technology!

• Simplicity of Design, Use, and Configuration

  • Server shuts down with only one Ctrl+C!
  • Thread safety? Where we're going, we don't need threads!
  • Handy CLI utilities for generating systemd service files and client keys!
  • Advanced usage of synchronous I/O multiplexing avoids time.sleep!
  • Stupid fast for no good reason! Routes 1000 packets / second on an old Core i5-2500k!

• Misc

  • Optional redis backed object persistence storage!
  • DPS doesn't have a database! Just plain old file storage!
  • Tested for easy deployment on Ubuntu and CentOS!

Looking for an indepth feature comparison?

Hardware and Software Requirements

• Python 3.6 or greater
• lxml (BSD)
• dateutil (Apache 2.0 / BSD 3-clause)
• flask (BSD 3-clause)
• cryptography (Apache 2.0 / BSD 3-clause / PSF)
• gunicorn (MIT)
• redis (MIT)

This application was developed with Python 3.8 on Ubuntu 20.04, and tested with ATAK v4.2.0.4 and WinTAK. It is now in a beta state, and has even been tested on a CentOS 8 docker image! As the package is available on pip, it should run on most modern linux distros and docker containers!

taky has minimal hardware requirements, and runs comfortably on small VPS's, embedded systems, and old desktops. Many users have reported successful usage on older models of RaspberryPi and the smallest Digital Ocean droplets. If you have at least 128 MB of RAM free, you should be able to run taky just fine with up to 100 clients.

Installation

To install the latest release, install from pip. Open a shell and run:

$ sudo python3 -m pip install taky

If you prefer the develoment release (not always stable), you can install it from source.

$ git clone https://github.com/tkuester/taky
$ cd taky
taky $ python3 setup.py install

Usage

Right out of the box, with no configuration, you can build a simple COT server for you and your friends to play with over TCP!

$ taky -h
usage: taky [-h] [-l {debug,info,warning,error,critical}] [-c CFG_FILE] [--version]

Start the taky server

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -l {debug,info,warning,error,critical}
                        Log verbosity
  -c CFG_FILE           Path to configuration file
  --version             show program's version number and exit

# Run taky on 0.0.0.0:8087
$ taky
INFO:root:taky v0.7
INFO:COTServer:Listening for tcp on :8087

Deploying Taky

Taky has been written with ease of administration in mind. It should be easy to install, upgrade, build (and run) multiple instances, manage with systemd scripts, and adhere to standard Linux service organization and package management. Additionally, there is no tie in to operating systems. This should be just as easy to setup on Fedora as it is on Ubuntu -- though the instructions have been written for Ubuntu.

See the README_QUICKSTART.md guide in the /doc folder to get up and running! For more advanced setups, look at the README_DEPLOYMENT.md file!

Development Status

As far as the "Unicorn Test Readiness Level" goes, taky is not a high heritage space unicorn. We are somewhere between TRL 5 and 6. The horse is outside, and we're tentatively calling it a unicorn. Users have reported that taky worked well on ANW2C networks, L3Harris radios, passed custom COT messages without complaint, and even found taky deployments in the field with coalition forces!

The COT server is the most mature part of the codebase. While some of the more esoteric configurations have not been tested, the standard SSL setup seems to be rather solid, and performs well with heavy loads. That being said, there is a known memory leak with the XML parser that hasn't been resolved.

The Data Package server (DPS) is starting to mature, but has not been as extensively tested. Simple client-to-client and client-to-server transfers seem to work well, although some features like Video and posting tracks have not been implemented yet.

All said and done, taky is experimental software written as a hobby. You are free to use it as you see fit, but please take into serious consideration various failure modes, and craft contingency plans if the service fails, especially if life, wellbeing, or safety are on the line.

Feel free to checkout the milestones page to see what is planned for the next version of taky! Pull requests and issues are welcome!

Known Issues

At this time, there is one known issue with taky: a memory leak caused by the XML parser library. Over several days, the memory usage in taky will balloon to excessive size, potentially causing instability. This issue will likely not be resolved unless LXML writes a fix for their parser.