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Files — USB offload & decode tables

Scottina's Files screen is how data gets on and off the boat without a laptop: plug a USB stick into any Pi port and a Files tile appears on the Home screen (and disappears again when you pull the stick, like the other device tiles). It does two jobs:

  1. Offload capture logs — everything the tools record lands in /opt/kilodash/captures/ (candump .log, logic-analyser .sr, SDR .cu8 IQ, Kismet, Wi-Fi sniff CSVs). Copy them to the stick one at a time or all at once, then read them on a laptop with the usual tools (PulseView, Wireshark, SavvyCAN, …).
  2. Exchange CAN decode tables — carry DBC files (CAN signal databases) and NMEA2000 definitions on the stick and import them into /opt/kilodash/tables/, the canonical place decoding tools on the Pi (the Node-RED DBC flow, Signal K / canboatjs) read them from. Export goes the other way, so the stick doubles as the backup of your table set.

Copies never delete the originals — captures/ stays authoritative until you clear it yourself (Pi Health shows disk usage).

Using it

  1. Plug in a USB stick (FAT32/exFAT as it comes from the shop is fine; ext4 works too). The Files tile appears on Home.
  2. Tap the tile. The stick is mounted automatically at /media/usb and the screen opens. Top to bottom:
Control What it does
USB stick card Partition name and free space, with a mounted/not-mounted state colour.
Eject / Mount Eject syncs all pending writes and unmounts — wait for the "safe to remove" toast before pulling the stick. After ejecting (or if auto-mount failed) the button becomes Mount.
Copy all logs → USB (n) Copies every capture not already on the stick. The count shows how many are pending; the button reads "All logs on stick ✓" when there's nothing left to do.
Tables ← USB Imports decode tables from the stick into /opt/kilodash/tables/.
Tables → USB Exports /opt/kilodash/tables/ onto the stick (backup / carry to another machine).
Status strip What the current background job is doing, and its result.
Capture list Every file in captures/, newest first, with its size. Tap a row to copy just that file. Rows already on the stick are dimmed and marked ✓ on stick.

Copies run in the background — the UI stays responsive, and a toast reports the result. One job runs at a time.

  1. Tap Eject, wait for "safe to remove", pull the stick. Leaving the screen (Back) also syncs and unmounts, so you can never strand a dirty mount.

Where things go on the stick

<stick>/
└── scottina/
    ├── captures/     ← offloaded logs (same filenames as on the Pi)
    └── tables/       ← exported decode tables

Decode tables: what gets imported

Tables ← USB scans the stick's root folder and scottina/tables/ for these extensions and copies matches into /opt/kilodash/tables/ (existing files with the same name are overwritten — the stick wins):

Extension What it is
.dbc CAN signal database (the industry-standard Vector format)
.kcd, .sym Alternative CAN database formats (Kayak, PCAN)
.n2k, .json, .xml NMEA2000 / canboat PGN definitions

So the workflow for a new boat/vehicle is: put engine.dbc (or a canboat pgns.json) in the root of any stick, plug it in, Tables ← USB, done.

One nuance since the CAN/NMEA2K split (TABLES.md): imported files land in the tables/ inbox, where they are inert. To feed the NMEA2K screen's live decode they must pass validation once — open the Tables tile → converter → Installed tab → Validate & ingest. Tables → USB exports both the inbox and the installed store (tables + manifests, flat) — the SD shape Scottina Light reads — and emits Light's browse index (<name>.index.json + pgn-<num>.json, TABLES.md §5b/§5c) alongside it, so Light's CAN gauge can offer a PGN picker.

Notes & guardrails

  • Rootfs safety: a USB drive that carries a system partition (e.g. an SSD you boot from) is never offered as offload media — only free sticks make the tile appear.
  • Multi-partition / installer sticks: partitions are tried in order and the first that mounts writable wins (an Ubuntu-installer stick's read-only iso9660 partition is skipped automatically). If nothing on the stick is writable it mounts read-only: the card shows read-only, offload/export are disabled, but Tables ← USB still works.
  • Pulled without ejecting? Nothing wedges: the mount is lazily detached on the way out. But any copy that was mid-write is truncated — re-copy it; the source in captures/ is untouched.
  • Only the first USB mass-storage stick found is used; one stick at a time.
  • Hidden working files (dotfiles like .scan.csv) are not listed or copied.