Community Feed¶
The Community Feed allows you to share received AIS messages with the AIS-catcher community.
Sharing is not enabled by default. On the CLI, -X enables sharing: if you provide a sharing key (created at aiscatcher.org), the station is linked to your account; if omitted, sharing is anonymous. -X off explicitly switches sharing off, overriding an enabled setting in the configuration.
In managed mode, sharing is configured in the dashboard under Output → Community: enter your sharing key and make sure sharing is enabled.
In JSON configuration, Community Feed settings are configured via the root-level keys sharing and sharing_key (they are not part of an output array like udp).
Live community map in the viewer¶
In the web viewer, the community map is no longer drawn as an overlay on the local map. Opening the community map pops up a pane connected to aiscatcher.org/livemap. Pan and zoom are kept in sync in both directions, and vessels seen by the local receiver are pushed to the community view in real time.
The community-feed icon in the header indicates the current sharing state at a glance:
- Red — sharing is off (no data leaves the station)
- Orange — sharing is on, anonymously (no
sharing_keyset) - Green — sharing is on and the station is identified by a
sharing_key
Summary Settings¶
| Setting (JSON key / CLI setting name) | Type | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| sharing | boolean | false | Enable community feed sharing (CLI equivalent: -X) |
| sharing_key | string | - | Optional sharing key to associate your station with aiscatcher.org (CLI: -X <key>) |
| sharing_zone | string | - | Optional zone tag included with shared messages |