I want to set up location sharing for my family/friends, but

  • without having a closed source app having access to my location/sensors all the time
  • be able to choose when I want to share

Any recommendations?

Edit for those who find this later: I ended up choosing Traccar suggested by @[email protected], but big thanks to everyone who brought some ideas to the table! I’ll leave my configs here.

My Docker Compose file

My traccar.xml

  • @[email protected]OPEnglish
    4•3 months ago

    OwnTracks setup was a bit confusing to me and I never got it working. traccar looks pretty nice though, I’ll check it out!

    • @[email protected]English
      1•3 months ago

      I’m using OwnTracks in HTTP mode as I couldn’t be bothered with MQTT. For that, you only need the HTTP(S) endpoint/URL to log to, optionally user credentials and then it’s a “TrackerID”, “UserID” and “DeviceID” so the receiving server knows who’s talking.

      Side note: Traccar uses different ports to receive different protocols. For OwnTracks protocol, the correct port is 5144.

      My OwnTracks configuration is basically like this:

      • TrackerID: 1
      • DeviceID: Phone
      • UserID: mb
      • URL: https://mytraccarserver.com:5144 (the port itself is HTTP-only IIRC, but I’ve mapped Traefik Proxy in front of it which handles HTTPS)
      • @[email protected]OPEnglish
        2•3 months ago

        I tried both MQTT and just the plain HTTP variant, and I couldn’t get either to work. I’ve fully settled on the latter you mentioned, Traccar. it’s pretty much what I’ve wanted: self-hosted, easy to set up, beautiful web interface. Thanks for the suggestions!