IVAN Data access

Data Access

This section of the network will guide you to access the online data of IVAN.
The data includes Network Servers details, Voice Servers details, and a listing of connected Pilots and ATC users.

permitted use:

An explicit written permission from the IVAO-NA is required.
Permission will only be granted to:

  • member-VA's or other associates for display on their website
  • Freeware applications.

files:

The data provided by IVAO are snapshots of the network, computed every X minutes.
To access the data, you need to download some files:
The first one is:

http://www.ivao.aero/whazzup/status.txt

The file status.txt contains some general settings, and must be downloaded ONE TIME ONLY, when your application starts.
If you use a server to download these data (for example an ASP or CGI application running on a web server) you should download the status.txt file ONCE A DAY, store it locally, and then use the local copy for your server application use.
You better also store a local copy of this file, so you can use in its data, in case the main web-server is down.

The file network-data.txt contains all data related to all clients connected to the IVAO network, and is stored into different locations, whose addresses are shown into status.txt file.
To balance the load between servers, you need to retrieve the network-data.txt from a different location every time you download it, choosing a location RANDOMLY between locations stored into status.txt file.
The file network-data.txt is updated every X minutes, as shown by the RELOAD directive. You can download it at the time interval you prefer, but obviously it's useless to download it with an interval that is less than the value of the RELOAD directive.

All files are in pure ascii format, with one record per row. Each record ends with a carriage return+line feed couple, each field is variable length and fields are separated by ":" character (without quotes).
Also the last field is followed by a : character.
Comments start with the ";" character (without quotes).

IMPORTANT NOTE: it could happen that the network-data.txt file doesn't exist when you try to download it.
This could happen because the data server that generates this file uploads it into a temporary file, then delete the old network-data.txt file, and then rename the temporary file to network-data.txt.
So, if you try to download the file after it has been deleted and before it has been renamed (a little seconds time), you can get a file not found http error.
Your application should treat this case accordingly by retrying the download.

You are welcome to read these data files for your applications and tools.
We only ask you to fully implement the load balance mechanism to download data as described, so that we can split load between more mirrored servers.

Thank you and enjoy! :-)

Locator file (status.txt) data

  • 110166:NOTCP
    This is a setting used by WhazzUp by Enrico Schiratti only. You can ignore it.
  • msg0 : This line contains a message that should be shown when your application starts. It's used by WhazzUp, but it's better if you can implement it in your application so that we can display a message to clients when they connect, if needed. To display the message you should open a message box and put the text "A message from IVAN administrators:" and then the message.
  • url0 : This line contains the URL where you can download the data file. There may be more than one "url0" lines: in such case you should download the data file choosing a random location from URLs listed. To balance the load it's better than you choose a different location every time you make a download. All locations have the same data file.
  • url1: This line contains the URL where you can download the voice data file. There may be more than one "url1" lines: in such case you should download the data file choosing a random location from URLs listed. To balance the load it's better than you choose a different location every time you make a download. All locations have the same data file.
  • moveto0 : This line contains the URL where you can download a more updated status.txt file. If the "moveto0" line is present, you should download the updated status.txt file from that location and use it. The next time your application starts you must download the updated status.txt file directly, so you need to save this new location into your application permanent settings. However, if you don't find the new location data file, you need to download again this original status.txt file, and get the location listed into "moveto0" if present. This mechanism will allow us to move the status.txt file wherever we need in future. The url format in this field is without the file name and without the trailing slash, so for example if the moveto0 field contains http://www.newsite.com/new-status-location you need to download the file http://www.newsite.com/new-status-location/status.txt
  • metar0 : This line contains the URL where you can download METARs. Depending on the parameter you will append after the URL, you will get different results. For example if the URL is "http://www.ivao.aero/network/metar.asp" you can retrieve metars using the URLs:
    http://www.ivao.aero/network/metar.asp?id=KB this will retrieve all METARs that have ICAO code starting with KB (regional metars)
    http://www.ivao.aero/network/metar.asp?id=EGLL this will retrieve METAR for the selected ICAO code only (in this example EGLL).
    Specifying no parameter will give you a full list of all available data.
  • taf0 : This line contains the URL where you can download TAFs. Depending on the parameter you will append after the URL, you will get different results. For example if the URL is "http://www.ivao.aero/network/taf.asp" you can retrieve tafs using the URLs:
    http://www.ivao.aero/network/taf.asp?id=KB this will retrieve all TAFs that have ICAO code starting with KB (regional TAFs)
    http://www.ivao.aero/network/taf.asp?id=EGLL this will retrieve TAF for the selected ICAO code only (in this example EGLL).
    Specifying no parameter will give you a full list of all available data.
  • shorttaf0 : This line contains the URL where you can download shortime TAFs. Depending on the parameter you will append after the URL, you will get different results. For example if the URL is "http://www.ivao.aero/network/shorttaf.asp" you can retrieve tafs using the URLs:
    http://www.ivao.aero/network/shorttaf.asp?id=KB this will retrieve all short term TAFs that have ICAO code starting with KB (regional TAFs)
    http://www.ivao.aero/network/shorttaf.asp?id=EGLL this will retrieve short term TAF for the selected ICAO code only (in this example EGLL).
    Specifying no parameter will give you a full list of all available data.
  • User0 : This line contains the URL where you can link to a users details. Depending on the parameter you will append after the URL, you will get different results. For example if the URL is "http://www.ivao.aero/members/person/details.asp" you can link to his info using the URLs:
    http://www.ivao.aero/members/person/details.asp?id=100002
  • atis0 : This line contains the URL where you can download atis. For example if the URL is "http://www.ivao.aero/network/atis.asp" you can retrieve ATIS using the URL: http://www.ivao.aero/network/atis.asp?callsign=EBBU_CTR this will retrieve ATIS of the selected ATC (in this example EBBU_CTR).

Network-data

This data file contains all data related to all clients connected.
It's organized in different sections (the sections order may vary), each one containing different data.
Every section starts with the "!" character (without quotes) followed by the section name.
There are tree sections:

  • !GENERAL contains general settings
  • !CLIENTS contains informations about all connected clients
  • !SERVERS contains a list of all FSD running servers to which clients can connect

Find more details on these here

Metar-data

  • parameter Id=XXXX, where XXXX is ICAO-code.
    less characters work as wildcard

© 1998-2006 - IVAO - All Rights Reserved