voxl-mavlink-server GCS udp port
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Is there any benefit to making the udp port the mavlink server uses to communicate with QGC/the groundstation configurable? Like by loading in a value from the config file else defaulting to 14550
Besides the udp ports used for the mavlink streams to/from px4 and voxl-mavlink-server (14556-14559) are there any other ports used by voxl services? I was probably going to just use 14560 - 14570 unless they're reserved for something else
Reason:
I'm trying to get a multi-vehicle (sentinels w/ latest sdk and microhard network) set up working and I'm noticing weird behavior when I try to connect to multiple vehicles in QGC. They (the vehicles) all have distinct mavlink sys ids and static ips on the same subnet but I noticed they're all using the same udp port to connect to the groundstation (hard coded in voxl-mavlink-server to 14550). I set up separate comm links in QGC for each vehicle with server address = <voxl-microhard-ip>:14550.
When I start up qgc with 4 vehicles running and I try to connect to one of the vehicles it randomly connects to two additional vehicles. Then when I try to connect the remaining vehicle it switches the first vehicles that connect to a "secondary comm link" and the connection profile name gets mapped to the wrong vehicles. When I restart QGC after that it connects to all vehicles at once regardless of which connection profile I connect to and the comm link profile names don't get shown next to the vehicle.
I'm assuming this is happening because they're all sending messages to the same udp port on the gcs pc. Doesn't seem like a big deal at the moment but I feel like it could lead to unexpected behavior if I try to interact with any of the vehicles through QGC. I'm not sure how QGC establishes the connection if it's actually binding a socket to the server address or just broadcasting locally on the designated port
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@jmltt This sounds more like a QGC issue. Are you sure QGC supports what you are trying to do?
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@Eric-Katzfey I'm just trying to connect to and monitor multiple vehicles, yes QGC supports that
I tested a modified voxl-mavlink-server with the configurable gcs udp port and assigned separate ports for each vehicle and it resolved the issue.
I don't think it's a qgc issue unless their link manager is designed to differentiate multiple vehicles publishing to the same udp port on the ground station. I can raise the issue on their forum as well though
I'm assuming 14560 - 14580 is a safe range, but is there any way to verify there are no conflicts short of going through every voxl service to check which publish/receive over udp?
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I just realized you could also probably resolve this issue by leaving the gcs ip addresses blank in the config file for voxl-mavlink-server. That would force QGC to make a server side connection because there wouldn't be any heartbeats on the local port (I think QGC link manager checks local udp port first, hence the auto connection issue).
