Description: Palantir modifies ros_comm that monitors what packages users launch, and records the topics, services, environment, and packages associated with that launch. These packages are stored in /.ros/log and periodically sent to the wiki web server to be uploaded to a database.
Details: Palantir adds the files rosmaster.registration_logger and the rospalantir package to the ros_comm infrastructure. The rosmaster.registration_logger class adds a handler to the logger associated with the argument given, and overloads the emit function. This emit function parses the log and publishes data about what had occured, such as registering a publisher/subscriber or launching a node. Rospalantir subscribes to these publishers and stores the data. When the core is killed, this data is then saved in an xml file in .ros/log. The user can opt out at any time by modifying the roscore.xml file and removing the rospalantir package. In this way, rosmaster.registration_logger publishes interesting data, but rospalantir does not store it, it is simply for the users benefit.
When running rospalantir for the first time, run roscore by itself. You will receive some prompts asking how much data you would like to send. These settings are saved in .ros/palantir_settings. Logs that are sent are moved into the .ros/log/sent_logs folder. If you have any privacy concerns, feel free to e-mail me recommendations on how to alleviate them. ROSPalantir is meant to be as transparent as possible. This is an effort to improve the ROS infrastructure, not to nefariously take advantage of private usage data.
php is required.
How to use: Two installation methods:
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Clone the github repository and add it to your catkin workspace. Once you perform a catkin_make and source, these packages replace the built-in ros_comm. For the cleanest working version of rospalantir, run roscore alone during the first execution (without roslaunch, robot start, etc.)
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(Note: This currently does not wire properly due to ROS_PACKAGE_PATH needing to be set. ROS_PACKAGE_PATH is overwritten during a source as of catkin.)
Add "deb https://github.com/OSUrobotics/palantir-release/raw/master/palantir-0.01/release/ ./" to your sources.list. You can then sudo-apt install python-palantir. It installs palantir to /opt/ros/. In order to use this package, add "opt/ros" to your ROS_PACKAGE_PATH. Add this to your .bashrc for ease.
Bugs and Ideas/Enhancement reporting: https://github.com/OSUrobotics/palantir/issues