RPi-Monitor: Version 1.4 is available

May 30, 2013, 5:27 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Build a multi-sites SSL certificate to improve user experience

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 1.5.
All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 1.4 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview

Package update status with detail.

What's new in this version?

Fix bugs
Add package to be upgraded popover listing
Add firmware version
Increase shared memory to 8kb to support bigger json due to package upgrade status list
Add warning before closing or refreshing sheelinabox page to avoid unwanted connection closing
Remove graph without real meaning (voltage, cpu_frequency)
Remember last graph displayed (to make update easier just by clicking Statistics menu)

Installation
Download it from the official repository in Github:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/MQg0v -O rpimonitor_1.4-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command:
sudo apt-get install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_1.4-1_all.deb

Usage
Browse your http://RPiIpAddress:8888/.

↧

RPi-Monitor: Build a multi-sites SSL certificate to improve user experience

June 3, 2013, 8:17 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 1.5 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 1.4 is available

This post comes in addition to my previous post: RPi-Monitor: Security and authentication with a reverse proxy.
You may notice that your browser do not trust the certificate we generate consider it as insecure. In this post we will see how to create our own certificate and certificate authority. We will also see own to configure our browser to trust our certificate authority and consider the associated certificates as secure.

Thanks to this actions, we will then move from ~~https~~ :-( to https :-) and remove the security warning.

Note: Certificate generation has been extracted from a very interesting doc found in http://zepala.free.fr/?q=book/export/html/49.

Create a multi-sites certificate
To create the certificates we will need to execute numerous commands. These commands have been gathered into scripts that can be download from RPi-Monitor repository on Github

Downloads make_ca.sh, make_cert.sh, openssl.cnf from Github directly on you RPi:

wget http://goo.gl/amRwq -O make_ca.sh
chmod +x make_ca.sh
wget http://goo.gl/ERmln -O make_cert.sh
chmod +x make_cert.sh
wget http://goo.gl/PCSkE -O openssl.cnf

Customize openssl.cnf and update the fields related to identity and network.

Execute make_ca.sh and answer to the questions to create the CA ROOT

Execute the following command and choose server then answer to the questions to create the certificate.

make_cert.sh RPi-Experiences

Install the certificate on server
Copy certificates for nginx and shellinabox:

sudo cp sslcert/private/RPi-Experiences-key.pem \
sslcert/public/RPi-Experiences-cert.pem \
/etc/ssl/localcerts/
sudo sh -c "cat sslcert/private/RPi-Experiences-key.pem \
sslcert/public/RPi-Experiences-cert.pem > \
/var/lib/shellinabox/certificate.pem"

Copy the cacert.pem and certificate.p12 into RPi-Monitor web root:

sudo cp sslcert/public/cacert.pem \
/usr/share/rpimonitor/web/
sudo cp sslcert/public/RPi-Experiences-bundle.p12 \
/usr/share/rpimonitor/web/certificate.p12

Restart nginx and shellinabox

sudo service nginx restart
sudo service shellinabox restart

Install CA ROOT and certificate with Google Chrome under Linux*

* Note: I tried to install certificate on Windows but I didn't success. As I don't use Windows as my day to day OS, I stopped my investigation. I'm sorry for the 80% of people not using Linux... It is maybe time to jump into the open world! :-). If you succeed to install this certificate on Windows or other operating system your comments are welcome. A good starting point for such a thing would be to read CA Cert documentation.

The first step will consist to download certificate and CA ROOT. This can be done from your server at the following addresses:
https://RPiIpAddress/rpimonitor/cacert.pem

https://RPiIpAddress/rpimonitor/certificate.p12

The content of cacert.pem will be displayed in screen, save is as a file named cacert.pem

Now, open Google Chrome and select settings:

At the bottom of the settings page, click on Show advanced settings...:

Click on the button Manage certificates...:

Select the tab Authorities and click on Import...:

Select the file cacert.pem previously downloaded and import it. The following message box will appear.

Check Trust this certificate for identify website and click OK.

The Certificate Authority is now installed. We will now install the certificate which will authenticate our web site. Select the tab Trust Certificates and click on Import....

Import the file certificate.pk12 previously downloaded.

Note: In this screenshot, the certificate has already been imported

Now the certificate the the CA ROOT are imported. Restart Google Chrome and connect to RPi-Monitor. You should have the security warning and the https lock icon should be green.

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 1.5 is available

June 5, 2013, 12:59 pm

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Advance usage and customization

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Build a multi-sites SSL certificate to improve user experience

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.0.
All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 1.5 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview. This version come with bug fixes to allow the usage of RPi-Monitor with an external web server.

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-nc-nd by P_Breen

What's new in this version?

Fix bugs highligthed by validator.w3.org
Fix bugs avoiding RPi-Monitor to work properly with an external web server

Installation
Download it from the official repository in Github:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/1nLpA -O rpimonitor_1.5-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command:
sudo apt-get install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_1.5-1_all.deb

Usage
Browse your http://RPiIpAddress:8888/.

↧

RPi-Monitor: Advance usage and customization

June 5, 2013, 1:15 pm

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.0 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 1.5 is available

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.0.
All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

This article as been replaced by: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.0 advance usage and customization

RPi-Monitor is designed to be flexible and configurable. But how should I do if I want to:

Customize RPi-Monitor to fit a particular needs?
Use it with my own Web Server?
Add "friends" linking RPi-Monitor running on different platform together?
Use it into another Linux distribution than Raspbian?
Add other graphs from additional sources (other mount point or external temperature probe)?
Customize graph to display bandwidth (from an idea from tduval shared in Github issue)

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-nc-nd by WingedWolf

All these questions will be answered into this post and as a bonus, we will also see how to install a little electronic DS18B20 temperature probe.

Customize RPi-Monitor to fit a particular needs

If you want to customize RPi-Monitor in a way not described bellow you just have to know 2 things:

The man page is explaining how to use rpimonitord.
The configuration file is documented to let you customize to your need.

You will find bellow some example of customization.

Warning: Be sure to use Linux filefeed format with line ending with LF (and not CR/LF like in Windows).

Use it with my own Web Server

In this example I will use nginx server. You could use the same tactic with your preferred web server.

Let's first update the configuration file to disable the embedded web server. Edit the file /etc/rpimonitord.conf and set noserver=1.

Then restart RPi-Monitor with the command:
sudo service rpimonitor restart

The embedded server is no more running so, we will need to configure another server to access the data.

For nginx we will create the file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/rpimonitor with the following content:
server {
listen 80;
index index.html;
root /usr/share/rpimonitor/web;
}

and restart the server with the command:

sudo service nginx restart

Now you can reach RPi-Monitor with your favorite browser on your favorite web server.

Add "friends" linking RPi-Monitor running on different platform together

Friends is a notion that comes in version 1.2. A friend is simply another computer running RPi-Monitor. Configuring friends will add a drop down list on the right of the top menu with a links to RPi-Monitor sitting on the other computer.

Friends menu is visible on the top right

In /etc/rpimonitord.conf, Comment starting by #> are specific comments. These comments will be processed by rpimonitord and integrated into the json sent to the server in the form of an array having the name specified into the section. The data are not processed by rpimonitord. The server will parse and use them.

Here is an example of configuration for 3 friends:
#>[friends]
#>"192.168.0.123:8888=Raspberry Pi"
#>"192.168.0.2:8888=Shuttle"
#>"127.0.0.1:8888=Laptop"

Use it into another Linux distribution than Raspbian

RPi-Monitor has been designed to run into a Raspberry Pi but as it is using only standard Linux resources, it is not hardware dependent. A simple configuration update can make it run on Ubuntu, CentOS or any other distribution.

Ubuntu is a Debian based distribution as Raspbian. The installation can then be done using the deb package available for each releases. Download and install the package as described in this previous post.

With CentOS and withe any non Debian based distribution it will required to perform a manual installation.
After installing the perl dependencies: HTTP::Daemon (perl-libwww-perl) and RRD (rrdtool-perl), download the archive from github using the following command:
wget http://goo.gl/5vbYu -O Version-1.5.zip

Then unpack it.
unzip Version-1.5.zip

Finally install rpimonitor manually:
su -
mv RPi-Monitor-Version-1.5/rpimonitor /usr/local

You can now start RPi-Monitor with the following commands:
cd /usr/local/rpimonitor
./rpimonitird

Note: I will not describe here how to configure the auto startup since each distribution has its own way to do so. An upstart script is available into RPi-Monitorgithub tools directory, it may help you in such an action.

Once the installation is done you can start RPi-Monitor and connect to it with your favorite browser.
You may notice that some values are not presents or displayed as NaN (Not a Number). To fix these issues, you will have to update the configuration file (/etc/rpimonitord.conf or /usr/local/rpimonitor/rpimonitor.conf).
The current version is not fully customization through the configuration file. It could then be required for experts to dive into the code to customize the pages. Javascripts doing the rendering are available in the sub directory js. Improvement are planned for version 2.0.

RPi-Monitor running on Ubuntu (before custimization)

Add other graphs from additional sources: other mount point

Lets start with something simple and see how to add graphs for additional mount point.

To add a graph to RPi-Monitor statistic, we need to create a new section. Let's call it [ExternalHDD].
Then we have to declare the new data names HDD_Free, we will get that with the command df associated with the correct regular expression. To defined the exact command, it is advised to test the command before adding it into the configuration file. This can be done easily like this:

COMMAND | perl -ne '/REGEXP/' and print "$1\n"'

Where COMMAND will give the source of information to process and REGEXP will extract the information for RPi-Monitor. Let get an example with the command df:

pi@raspberrypi~ $ df -t ext3
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb1 140340132 192128 133019124 1% /media/storage

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ df -t ext3| perl -ne '/sdb1(?:\s+\d+){2}\s+(\d+)/ and print "$1\n"'
133019124

The command to execute is df -t ext3 and the regular expression to apply is sdb1(?:\s+\d+){2}\s+(\d+). Note: I'll note explain regular expression here, there are many site on the Internet about this subject.
The configuration line will then be:
HDD_FREE=df -t ext3=sdb1(?:\s+\d+){2}\s+(\d+)

To have a new graph into statistic we will add the following configuration at the end to /etc/rpimonitord.conf:
[ExternalHDD]
HDD_FREE=df -t ext3=sdb1(?:\s+\d+){2}\s+(\d+)

To complete the installation we have to restart RPi-Monitor and refresh the statistics page into our browser.
sudo service rpimonitor restart

Graph of External HDD

Add other graphs from additional sources: external temperature probe

Let's build a little electronic device to measure the room temperature and add this in the temperature graph.
Do do that, you will need:

1 x DS18B20
1 x 4.7k resistor

Plug them as described in the following schema extracted from Adafruit Lesson 11:

Lets first load the kernel module required to get the information from this probe:
sudo modprobe gpio
sudo modprobe w1-gpio

sudo modprobe w1-therm

First we have to identify the id of our probe:
ls /sys/bus/w1/devices/
28-000004fe1847 w1_bus_master1

the id is: 28-000004fe1847. Let's now check if we can get the temperature:
cat /sys/bus/w1/devices/28-000004fe1847/w1_slave
5a 01 4b 46 7f ff 06 10 a3 : crc=a3 YES
5a 01 4b 46 7f ff 06 10 a3 t=21625

It looks to work. So now we need to extract the the numbers ending the second line (21625). The regular expression will then be t.(\d+)$. I'll not do a course about what a regexp is there are many site on the internet explaining it.

Note: In version 1.x of RPi-Monitor it is prohibited to use = in regular expression.

To add a graph to RPi-Monitor statistic, we need to create a new section. Let's call it [room_temperature]. Then we have to declare the new data name room_temp, its source /sys/bus/w1/devices/28-000004fe1847/w1_slave and the associated regular expression t.(\d+)$. The line to append will look like that:
# Room temperature
[room_temperature]
room_temp=/sys/bus/w1/devices/28-000004fe1847/w1_slave=t.(\d+)$

Restart RPi-Monitor with the following command and it is done:

sudo service rpimonitor restart

A new graph is available in statistics (wait a little bit to have data and drawing):

Use zoom feature to see the freshly added data.

If you want to add a curve into the Temperature graph, it is possible by adding the KPI line into the section [temperature] as describe bellow:
[temperature]
soc_temp=/sys/devices/virtual/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp=(.*)
home_temp=/sys/bus/w1/devices/28-000004fe1847/w1_slave=t.(\d+)$

It will then be required to delete the associated rrd file:
sudo rm /usr/share/rpimonitor/web/stat/temperature.rrd

Restarting RPi-Monitor will regenerate this file with the two describes temperature. After waiting some time to let data to be added, you will have a graph with two temperatures as in the screenshot bellow:

soc_temp and home_temp drawn on the same graph

Customize graph to display bandwidth

Some users (only one for the moment) have already share customization made like tduval who wrote the following in Github issue.

I made a custom script to add Network Traffic Statistics.
Here is the script shell : http://pastebin.com/XPnQN0J5
and in the /etc/rpimonitord.conf, I add this at the end of the file:

# Network Traffic
[networktraffic]
net_in=sh /usr/share/rpimonitor/web/custom/netTraffic.sh=rx.(.*)
net_out=sh /usr/share/rpimonitor/web/custom/netTraffic.sh=tx.(.*)

After a service rpimonitor restart, I've got this: http://hpics.li/de06f90

Bandwidth generated with the script netTraffic.sh

Thanks to him for sharing this customization.

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.0 is available

June 28, 2013, 1:10 pm

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.x advance usage and customization

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Advance usage and customization

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.1.
All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.0 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-sa by bovinity

What's new in this version?

A lot of changes have been done in the code of RPi-Monitor. Most of these changes are invisible from a first look except maybe a better look'n feel...
RPi-Monitor is now fully configurable. Everything displays in status page or in statistics page can be modified, tuned and customized to your needs. You can see the manpages of rpimonitord and rpimonitord.conf for deepers details.

Here is the changelog of version 2.0:

Add the possibility to draw static values
Remove update package status update after apt-get command. Update command will have to be executed manually.
Add redirection for shellinabox for url /shellinabox
Add a manpage dedicated to configuration: man rpimonitord.conf
Change in configuration files to make status and statistic pages fully configurable
Add post-process formula to have more readable values
Curves displayed in graph are now fully configurable
Remove Legend position and timezone from graphs
Make legend of graph configurable

Installation

Download it from the official repository in Github:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/CkP3U -O rpimonitor_2.0-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command:
sudo apt-get install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libjson-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_2.0-1_all.deb

Important notices:

RPi-Monitor 2.0 depends on libjson-perl which need to be install in addition to RPI-Monitor 1.x dependencies
Configuration file and RRD of RPI-Monitor version 2.0 are not compatible with version 1.x. If you previously used version 1.x, it is advised to remove RPi-Monitor before installing this version.

Customization

RPi-Monitor is now fully configurable so if the displayed information doesn't match you need, customize it.
Everything display in status page or in statistics page can be modified, tuned and customized to your needs.

To see how to customize it, use the command
man rpimonitord
and
man rpimonitord.conf

Man pages are also available in the wiki.

You will find some examples of customisation in RPi-Monitor articles.

Usage

Once RPi-Monitor is configured as you wished, browse http://RPiIpAddress:8888/ to access to the web interface.

Note: The graphs rendering may have strange behavior on Google-Chrome on Windows while it works fine on Linux. Internet Explorer is even not able to display statistics, it is then advised to use Firefox on Windows or better... switch to Linux! ;-).

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.x advance usage and customization

June 28, 2013, 1:25 pm

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.1 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.0 is available

Edit: RPi-Monitor version 2.7 introduce a change in configuration name and location:

/etc/rpimonitor d.conf becomes /etc/rpimonitor/daemon.conf
/etc/rpimonitord.conf.d becomes /etc/rpimonitor/data.conf
/etc/rpimonitord.conf.d/*.conf becomes /etc/rpimonitor/*.conf

In this article we will see how to do the things described in RPi-Monitor: Advance usage and customization and maybe, a little bit more...

We will then answer the same questions : How should I do if I want to...

Customize RPi-Monitor v2.x to fit a particular needs?
Use it with my own Web Server?
Add "friends" linking RPi-Monitor v2.x running on different platform together?
Use it into another Linux distribution than Raspbian?
Add other graphs from additional sources (other mount point or external temperature probe)?

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-nc-sa by blogjunkie

Note: A prerequisite is to install the latest version of RPi-Monitor v2.x
Customize RPi-Monitor v2.x to fit a particular needs

If you want to customize RPi-Monitor in a way not described bellow you just have to know 2 things:

The man pages rpimonitord and rpimonitord.conf explains how to use and configure RPi-Monitor.
The configuration file is documented to let you customize to your need.

You will find bellow some example of customization showing you the capababilities of RPi-Monitor v2.x

Use it with my own Web Server

In this example I will use nginx server. You could use the same tactic with your preferred web server.

Let's first update the configuration file to disable the embedded web server. Edit the file /etc/rpimonitord.conf and set daemon.noserver=1.

Then restart RPi-Monitor with the command:
sudo service rpimonitor restart

The embedded server is no more running so, we will need to configure another server to access the data.

For nginx we will create the file /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/rpimonitor with the following content:

and restart the server with the command:

sudo service nginx restart

Now you can reach RPi-Monitor with your favorite browser on your favorite web server.

To go further, you can read the article RPi-Monitor: Build a multi-sites SSL certificate to improve user experience.

Add "friends" linking RPi-Monitor running on different platform together

Friends menu is visible on the top right

In /etc/rpimonitord.conf.d/default.conf, each friend is identified by its and is described by the 2 following parameters:

Here is an example of configuration for 3 friends:

Use it into another Linux distribution than Raspbian

RPi-Monitor has been designed to run into a Raspberry Pi but as it is using only standard Linux resources, it is not hardware dependent. A simple configuration update can make it run on Ubuntu, CentOS or any other distribution.

Ubuntu is a Debian based distribution as Raspbian. The installation can then be done using the deb package available for each releases. Download and install the package as described in this previous post.

With CentOS and withe any non Debian based distribution it will required to perform a manual installation.
First install the perl dependencies: HTTP::Daemon (perl-libwww-perl), RRD (rrdtool-perl) and JSON(perl-JSON)

Connect to github and select the latest stable branch on the top left dropdown list.
Then download the code as zip file from the link "Download zip" visible at the bottom of the right menu.

Unpack it.
unzip Version-2.x.zip

Finally install rpimonitor manually:
su -
mv Version-2.x/rpimonitor /usr/local

You can now start RPi-Monitor with the following commands:
cd /usr/local/rpimonitor
./rpimonitird -c rpimonitor.conf -c default.conf

Note: I will not describe here how to configure the auto startup since each distribution has its own way to do so. An upstart script is available into RPi-Monitor github tools directory, it may help you in such an action.

Once the installation is done you can start RPi-Monitor and connect to it with your favorite browser.
You may notice that some values are undefined or displayed as NaN (Not a Number). To fix these issues, you will have to update the configuration file (rpimonitord.conf or default.conf in /etc/ + /etc/rpimonitord.conf.d or /usr/local/rpimonitor/ depending on your installation).

CentOS 6.3 before configuration file customisation

Add other graphs from additional sources: other mount point

For this section we will take the example of an additional disk on sda as described previous article RPi-Monitor: Advance usage and customization.

The disk have a disk with two partition /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda3.
The command and regular expression will be the following:

sda1 disk size command : df -t ext2, regular expression: sda1\s+(\d+)
sda1 used space command : df -t ext2, regular expression: sda1\s+\d+\s+(\d+)
sda3 disk size command : df -t ext4, regular expression: sda3\s+(\d+)
sda3 used space command : df -t ext4, regular expression: sda3\s+\d+\s+(\d+)

First we need to configure the extraction of partitions sizes which are extracted once at RPi-Monitor startup. We will create a file /etc/rpimonitord.conf.d/custo.conf with the data configured as static data like this:

The id of the KPIs start at 10 since in my configuration files the previous KPI was 9. This comment is the same for next ids.
The post processing is configured to transform kB into MB by dividing the extracted result by 1024.

For dynamic values extracted every 10 seconds, the configuration will be:

Now we will add a status line for this disk whit the following icon:

Disk icon has been found here

This icons has to be installed into the img directory of RPi-Monitor which is by default /usr/share/rpimonitor/web/img/.

The configuration to add a new status strip will then be the following:

The configuration may need some explanation:
We do configure 4 lines. Each line is describing a javascript line using some predefined functions: KMG, Precent and ProgressBar. This function are called by the browser while rendering the page. Some variable coming from the extracted data are also used. These variables are starting by the keyword 'data.'. For deeper detail about this configuration execute the command man rpimonitord.conf

To see our modification we need to restart RPi-Monitor and refresh the statistics page into our browser.
sudo service rpimonitor restart

The result of the configuration is at the bottom of the following screenshot:

The status page is working, let's now add a graphic of the disk usage. This is done with the following configuration:

web.statistics.1.content.9.name=Storage1 web.statistics.1.content.9.graph.1=storage1_total web.statistics.1.content.9.graph.2=storage1_used web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.storage1_total.label=Storage1 total space (MB) web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.storage1_total.color="#FF7777" web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.storage1_used.label=Storage1 used space (MB) web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.storage1_used.lines={ fill: true } web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.storage1_used.color="#7777FF"  web.statistics.1.content.10.name=Storage2 web.statistics.1.content.10.graph.1=storage2_total web.statistics.1.content.10.graph.2=storage2_used web.statistics.1.content.10.ds_graph_options.storage2_total.label=Storage2 total space (MB) web.statistics.1.content.10.ds_graph_options.storage2_total.color="#FF7777" web.statistics.1.content.10.ds_graph_options.storage2_used.label=Storage2 used space (MB) web.statistics.1.content.10.ds_graph_options.storage2_used.lines={ fill: true } web.statistics.1.content.10.ds_graph_options.storage2_used.color="#7777FF"

The configuration may also need some explanation
We do configure 2 graphs each having 2 curves. The first curve represent the total and is using static data extracted previously. This curve will be represented as a light red line.
The second curve is representing the usage of disk and is represented as a light blue line filled. The parameters defining the curve are define by the keyword ds_graph_options. Details of this parameter can be found in javascriptrrd help page. Restart rpimonitor to activate the new graph.

After waiting a little time to let the system extract data you will see this kind of graph.

1 x DS18B20
1 x 4.7k resistor

Plug them as described in the following schema extracted from Adafruit Lesson 11:

Lets first load the kernel module required to get the information from this probe:
sudo modprobe gpio
sudo modprobe w1-gpio

sudo modprobe w1-therm

First we have to identify the id of our probe:
ls /sys/bus/w1/devices/
28-000004fe1847 w1_bus_master1

the id is: 28-000004fe1847. Let's now check if we can get the temperature:
cat /sys/bus/w1/devices/28-000004fe1847/w1_slave
5a 01 4b 46 7f ff 06 10 a3 : crc=a3 YES
5a 01 4b 46 7f ff 06 10 a3 t=21625

It looks to work. So now we need to extract the the numbers ending the second line (21625). The regular expression will then be t=(\d+)$. I'll not do a course about what a regexp is there are many site on the internet explaining it.

The following configuration have to be added at the end of /etc/rpi-monitord.conf.d/custo.conf. It will extract the temperature measured by the external probe:

We will then add the livingroom temperature as Ambient temperature into the existing Temperature status strip by adding the following line at the end of the file custo.conf:

After restarting RPi-Monitor, you will see the Ambient temperature into the status page as in the screenshot bellow:

We will then add the Ambiant temperature into the existing Temperature graph by adding the following line to custo.conf:

After restarting RPi-Monitor, you will see the Ambient temperature as an additional curve into the Temperature graph of the statistics page as in the screenshot bellow:

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.1 is available

July 9, 2013, 9:45 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Use a DHT11 or DHT22 humidity and temperature sensor

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.x advance usage and customization

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.2.

All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.1 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-nc-sa by matthileo

What's new in this version?

This version brings small improvement and extends the customisation capabilities.

Here is the changelog of version 2.1:

Precheck result before adding in RRD to improve graphs
Add the possibility to customize axis with graph_options parameter
Add timeout for KPI reading to avoid possible hang when reading external sensors
Change keywork ds_graph_opts by ds_graph_options to be consistant with javascriptrrd and flot documentation. Keep that in mind if you did some customisation.
Fix Issue #6: a stranger rpimonitor.conf

Installation

Download it from the official repository in Github:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/NLVKa -O rpimonitor_2.1-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command:
sudo apt-get install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libjson-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_2.1-1_all.deb

Customization

RPi-Monitor is now fully configurable so if the displayed information doesn't match you need, customize it.
Everything display in status page or in statistics page can be modified, tuned and customized to your needs.

To see how to customize it, use the command
man rpimonitord
and
man rpimonitord.conf

Man pages are also available in the wiki.

You will find some examples of customisation in RPi-Monitor articles.

Usage

Once RPi-Monitor is configured as you wished, browse http://RPiIpAddress:8888/ to access to the web interface.

Note: The graphs rendering may have strange behavior on Google-Chrome on Windows while it works fine on Linux. Internet Explorer is even not able to display statistics, it is then advised to use Firefox on Windows or better... switch to Linux! ;-).

Future article

RPi-Monitor has some hidden feature. We will see in a future article how to add a second axis to the graph to represent the humidity given by an external sensor (DHT11 or DHT22). Stay tuned ;-)

↧

RPi-Monitor: Use a DHT11 or DHT22 humidity and temperature sensor

July 11, 2013, 1:08 pm

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.2 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.1 is available

In this post we will see how to connect a DHT11 or DHT22 Temperature and Humidity sensor and configure RPi-Monitor to present and draw the outputs.

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-nc-nd by Ham Hock

This article will also explain another capability of RPi-Monitor 2.x: the dual-axis.

Adafruit created a very good tutorial explaining how to use DHT11 or DHT22 . This tutorial is available at this address: http://learn.adafruit.com/dht-humidity-sensing-on-raspberry-pi-with-gdocs-logging/wiring.

Electronic assembly
This electronic assembly is quite simple and will need:

1 x DHT11 or 1 x DHT22
1 x 4.7k resistor

Plug them as described in the following schema:

Schema extracted from Adafruit but using GPIO #27 instead of GPIO #4

Software installation
Thanks to Adafruit ( again ;-) ) the installation is quite simple and can be done with two command lines.
Download Adafruit_DHT form Adafruit's github repository and copy is in /usr/bin as follow:

wget http://goo.gl/oadpl -O Adafruit_DHT
sudo cp Adafruit_DHT /usr/bin/

To test the electronic assembly and the software installation execute the following command (for DHT11):

pi@raspberrypi~ $ sudo Adafruit_DHT 11 27
Using pin #17Data (40): 0x28 0x0 0x18 0x0 0x40
Temp = 24 *C, Hum = 40 %

You should see the information about temperature and humidity displayed as shown upper.

Note: The DHT11 and DHT22 sensors will only respond every second so if you are not getting data, be sure to wait few seconds before trying again.

RPi-Monitor configuration

Warning: Be sure to use Linux linefeed format with line ending with LF (and not CR/LF like in Windows).

Let's now use this information and add humidity graphs on existing temperature graph.

We first have to extract the data. This is done like this:
As the unit are different than the one existing on the initial axis, we will add a second axis for the percentage of humidity. This is the purpose of the two last lines of the configuration bellow.
The first line is defining the usage of axis number 2 for the humidity.
The last line is defining how this graph should be drawn: On the right, starting from 0 up to 100.

graph_options can have other usefull option. They are described in the documentation of javascriptrrd.

After restarting RPi-Monotor with the command:

service rpimonitor restart

You will see a new curve in Temperature graph as shown in the screenshot bellow:

Graph with 2 Y axis: °C in left axis and % humidity (fixed from 0% to 100%) on right axis

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.2 is available

July 21, 2013, 11:38 am

≫ Next: A LCD display my RPi and RPi-Monitor

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Use a DHT11 or DHT22 humidity and temperature sensor

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.3.

All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.2 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-nc-sa by jacqueline-w

What's new in this version?

This version comes with bug fix, optimization and extends the customization capabilities by adding multiple pages for status and statistics.

Here is the changelog of version 2.2:

Add the possibility to create multiple status and statistics pages
Add process respawner to improve reliability of rpimonitord
Add HTML5 cache for json data to speedup page display and offload RPi
bug fix: Embedded server won't start on 443 or 80 ports (issue #8)
bug fix: cleanup code according to comment described in issue #7

Installation

Download it from the official repository in Github:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/miZ79 -O rpimonitor_2.2-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command:
sudo apt-get install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libjson-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_2.2-1_all.deb

Customization

RPi-Monitor is fully configurable so if the displayed information doesn't match you need, customize it.
Everything display in status pages or in statistics pages can be modified, tuned and customized to your needs.

To see how to customize it, use the command
man rpimonitord
and
man rpimonitord.conf

Man pages are also available in the wiki.

You will find some examples of customisation in RPi-Monitor articles.

About multiple pages

This version of RPi-Monitor introduce the notion of pages. Adding a new page can be done in configuration file by setting the parameter named <page id>.

RPi-Monitor will automatically interpret this new id and create the associated page. The new page will be accessible by a drop down menu as shown in the screenshot bellow.

RPi-Monitor showing multiple status pages

RPi-Monitor showing multiple graph pages

The file custo.conf available in github shows how to configure additional pages from information gathered from external sensors. This is the configuration file used for the examples shows in upper screenshots.

Usage

Once RPi-Monitor is configured as you wished, browse http://RPiIpAddress:8888/ to access to the web interface.

Note: The graphs rendering may have strange behavior on Google-Chrome on Windows while it works fine on Linux. Internet Explorer is even not able to display statistics, it is then advised to use Firefox on Windows or better... switch to Linux! ;-).

↧

A LCD display my RPi and RPi-Monitor

August 1, 2013, 2:14 pm

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.3 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.2 is available

I saw on the internet that it is possible to use a LCD to display information from the Raspberry Pi. RPi-Monitor is gathering a lot of information and it could be interesting to have such an information available without a computer. So I decided to purchase a PCD8544 from dx.com.

Photo from Flickr

cc-by by arduinolabs

This post is describing how to acquire, connect and use such a component with he Raspberry Pi and gives an example showing how to connect it with RPi-Monitor.

Step 1: The acquisition

I found on the Internet a site reselling the PCD8544 for few euros (dx.com). After a moment of hesitation, I decided to give a try and I purchased it. It was the 16th of may.

The 27th of may, I received a e-mail saying that my purchase was partially shipped, one element is no more available (I've been reimbursed) and a last element will be sent later...

I finally received all my good 4 weeks after the initial purchase order. This site doesn't contradict its reputation: It delivers the good but you have to be patient... very patient ;-).

PCD8544 LCD screen

Step 2: The connection

The PCD8544 comes in two parts (the lcd screen and the pins) that need to be soldered together. Once done, it can be installed in the breadboard as shown in the drawing bellow:

Schema made with Fritzing (fritzing.org)

Note: If you want to reproduce this assembly, check carefully the pin order, it may be different.

Step 3: The preparation

My first goal is to test this new display. I look on the internet and find different solution using Python or C. After few tries, I decided to use Python based on the information shared into this post.

To use the PCD8544 display we need to install few software and load a kernel module.

First, let's install wiringpi2 from drogon.net

git clone git://git.drogon.net/wiringPi

cd wiringPi

./build

Once wiringpi is installed, it is possible to test it with the following command:

gpio readall

 +-----+-------+------+----+-Rev2-----+----+------+-------+-----+
 | wPi |  Name | Mode | Val| Physical |Val | Mode | Name  | wPi |
 +-----+-------+------+----+----++----+----+------+-------+-----+
 |     |  3.3v |      |    |  1 || 2  |    |      | 5v    |     |
 |   8 |   SDA |   IN | Lo |  3 || 4  |    |      | 5V    |     |
 |   9 |   SCL |   IN | Lo |  5 || 6  |    |      | 0v    |     |
 |   7 | GPIO7 |   IN | Lo |  7 || 8  | Lo | ALT0 | TxD   | 15  |
 |     |    0v |      |    |  9 || 10 | Lo | ALT0 | RxD   | 16  |
 |   0 | GPIO0 |   IN | Hi | 11 || 12 | Hi | OUT  | GPIO1 | 1   |
 |   2 | GPIO2 |   IN | Lo | 13 || 14 |    |      | 0v    |     |
 |   3 | GPIO3 |   IN | Hi | 15 || 16 | Lo | OUT  | GPIO4 | 4   |
 |     |  3.3v |      |    | 17 || 18 | Lo | OUT  | GPIO5 | 5   |
 |  12 |  MOSI | ALT0 | Hi | 19 || 20 |    |      | 0v    |     |
 |  13 |  MISO | ALT0 | Hi | 21 || 22 | Hi | IN   | GPIO6 | 6   |
 |  14 |  SCLK | ALT0 | Hi | 23 || 24 | Lo | ALT0 | CE1   | 10  |
 |     |    0v |      |    | 25 || 26 | Lo | ALT0 | CE1   | 11  |
 +-----+-------+------+----+----++----+----+------+-------+-----+

Now, install the python binding of wiringpi:

sudo apt-get install python-dev python-imaging python-imaging-tk python-pip

sudo pip install wiringpi2

The program we will use require spidev to be activated. The kernel module should then be activated.
To do so, comment the line blacklist spi-bcm2708 by adding a heading # in the file /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf then reboot the Raspberry Pi to activate this module.

Finally install spidev python library:

sudo pip install spidev

The prerequisite are now installed. In next chapter we will see how to install the python library in charge of driving the PCD8544 LCD and how to use it.

Step 4: The installation

Into Raspberry Pi forum, an interesting post catch my attention. I used it as the base to control the LCD.
The library written Richard Hull's is also interesting I then took this as a example to create module that can be directly installed on the Raspberry Pi.
This pcd8544 library resulting is available into its own dedicated repository in github.
To install it, execute the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/XavierBerger/pcd8544.git

cd pcd8544

./setup.py clean build

sudo ./setup.py install

You can now test the installation with the proposed examples:

cd examples

./pi_logo.py

If installation works properly, you should see the following screen:

You can try to execute other examples to see what the library is capable to do with this LCD.

Step 5: The utilization

As I said in introduction, RPi-Monitor is gathering a lot of information and some of them may be interesting to have without having to start a PC. Information are made available from the embedded web server. To get and display the information we then just have to create a web client and use the library to display.

For people interesting about learning development I did comment my code:

#!/usr/bin/env python import httplib, time, os, sys, json import pcd8544.lcd as lcd  # class Process dedicated to process data get from Client # and send information to LCD and console class Process:   # Process constructor   def __init__(self):     # Initialize LCD     lcd.init()     # Turn the backlight on     lcd.backlight(1)    def run(self, jsonString):     # Parse data as json     data = json.loads( jsonString )     # Try to get data from json or return default value      try:       rpi_temperature = data['living_room_temp']     except:       rpi_temperature="--.---"     try:       rpi_humidity = data['humidity']     except:       rpi_humidity = "--"     # Construct string to be displayed on screens     temperature = "Temp: %s C" % rpi_temperature     humidity = "Humidity: %s %%" % rpi_humidity     lcd.gotorc(0,1)     lcd.text("RPi-Monitor")     lcd.gotorc(2,0)     lcd.text(temperature)     lcd.gotorc(3,0)     lcd.text(humidity)     # Also print string in console     os.system("clear")     print " RPi-Monitor "     print     print temperature     print humidity     print     time.sleep(1)  # Class client design to work as web client and get information  # from RPi-Monitor embedded web server class Client:   # Client constructor   def __init__(self):     # Create a Process object     self.process = Process()    def run(self):     # Infinite loop     while True:      try:        # Initiate a connection to RPi-Monitor embedded server        connection = httplib.HTTPConnection("localhost", 8888)        # Get the file dynamic.json        connection.request("GET","/dynamic.json")        # Get the server response        response = connection.getresponse()        if ( response.status == 200 ):          # If response is OK, read data          data = response.read()          # Run process object on extracted data          self.process.run(data)        # Close the connection to RPi-Monitor embedded server        connection.close()      finally:        # Wait 5 secondes before restarting the loop        time.sleep(5)  # Main function def main():   try:     # Create a Client object     client = Client()     # Run it     client.run()   except KeyboardInterrupt:     # if Ctrl+C has been pressed     # turn off the lcd backlight     lcd.backlight(0);      # exit from the program      sys.exit(0)  # Execute main if the script is directly called if __name__ == "__main__":     main()

This code is dedicated to extract the living room temperature and humidity from RPi-Monitor information.
Copy this code into a file (rpimonitor-testlcd.py) the make this file executable (chmod +x rpimonitor-testlcd.py) then execute (./rpimonitor-testlcd.py) it to see:

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.3 is available

August 18, 2013, 9:38 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.4 is available

≪ Previous: A LCD display my RPi and RPi-Monitor

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.4.

All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.3 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-nc-sa by reidab

What's new in this version?

This version mainly comes with bug fixes and few optimisation.

Here is the changelog of version 2.3:

Add small improvement given by a feedback in RPi-Experiences blog
Use javascript to resize correctly shellinabox iframe even in Firefox
Fix issue #9: Wrong calculation of used memory
Fix issue #11: adding friends link missing colon

Installation

Download it from the official repository in Github:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/lkfPJL -O rpimonitor_2.3-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command:
sudo apt-get install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libjson-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_2.3-1_all.deb

Customization

RPi-Monitor is fully configurable so if the displayed information doesn't match you need, customize it.
Everything display in status pages or in statistics pages can be modified, tuned and customized to your needs.

To see how to customize it, use the command
man rpimonitord
and
man rpimonitord.conf

Man pages are also available in the wiki.

You will find some examples of customisation in RPi-Monitor articles.

Usage

Once RPi-Monitor is configured as you wished, browse http://RPiIpAddress:8888/ to access to the web interface.

Note: The graphs rendering may have strange behavior on Google-Chrome on Windows while it works fine on Linux. Internet Explorer is even not able to display statistics, it is then advised to use Firefox on Windows or better... switch to Linux! ;-).

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.4 is available

September 7, 2013, 1:51 am

≫ Next: Add WiFi to Raspberry Pi and monitor it with RPi-Monitor

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.3 is available

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.5.

All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.4 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

Photo from Flickr by Le Yéti

cc-by-nc

What's new in this version?

Here is the changelog of version 2.4:

Change shared memory management to fix issue #12 and define the shmkey in configuration file
Added the possibility to define the default timeline to be display in statistics page
Add -s (show) option to show configuration as loaded (useful for advanced customization)
Added WiFi icon

Installation

Download it from the official repository in Github:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/P4Bl6I -O rpimonitor_2.4-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command (be careful, the file in red is a new dependency):
sudo apt-get install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libjson-perl libipc-sharelite-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_2.4-1_all.deb

Customization

RPi-Monitor is fully configurable so if the displayed information doesn't match you need, customize it.
Everything display in status pages or in statistics pages can be modified, tuned and customized to your needs.

To see how to customize it, use the command
man rpimonitord
and
man rpimonitord.conf

Man pages are also available in the wiki.

You will find some examples of customization in RPi-Monitor articles.

↧

Add WiFi to Raspberry Pi and monitor it with RPi-Monitor

September 17, 2013, 12:05 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.5.1 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.4 is available

For internet connection, it could be interesting to add a WiFi connection to the Raspberry Pi.

Raspberry Pi with WiFi 802.11n dongle

This article is explaining how to configure WiFi n a Raspberry Pi and how to monitor this new network interface with RPi-Monitor.

Installing the WiFi network

I did purchase a dongle Ralink on the Internet for few euros.

Once plugged, the dongle automatically appears in usb list:

pi@raspberrypi~ $ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9512 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 148f:5370 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT5370 Wireless Adapter

The new WIFI interface is also visible in network configuration:

pi@raspberrypi~ $ ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: eth0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN mode DEFAULT qlen 1000
link/ether b8:27:eb:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode DORMANT qlen 1000
link/ether 7c:dd:90:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

To see the network present and validate the WiFi connection, lets use the command iwlist

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo iwlist wlan0 scan

You should see a lot of information about all the WiFi network present in your environment.

The network can be configured manually with the command iwconfig but it is more interesting modify the network configuration file to have the WiFi connection configured automatically at startup.

Here are the line to add to the configuration file /etc/network/interfaces:

auto wlan0

iface wlan0 inet static

wpa-ssid XxXxXxXxX

wpa-psk xXxXxXxXx

wireless-power off

address 192.168.0.123

netmask 255.255.255.0

network 192.168.0.0

broadcast 192.168.0.255

gateway 192.168.0.254

You can see the static network configuration address, network, netmask and gateway.

The parameters wpa-ssid, wpa-psk and wireless-power are specific to the WiFi configuration:

wpa-ssid : The name of your network
wpa-psk : The password of the network
wireless-power off : To turn off the power management which, for a server, could cause some network latency and connection loss.

Once the configuration is done, you can start your new network with the following command:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo ifup wlan0

And check the configuration:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ ip address

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN

link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00

inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo

2: eth0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN qlen 1000

link/ether b8:27:eb:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

inet 10.42.0.123/24 brd 10.42.0.255 scope global eth0

3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP qlen 1000

link/ether 7c:dd:90:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

inet 192.168.0.123/24 brd 192.168.0.255 scope global wlan0

Configuring RPi-Monitor to manage this new network interface

Adding the new information and graph is done by the following configuration:
Warning: Be sure to use Linux filefeed format with line ending with LF (and not CR/LF like in Windows).


########################################################################
# Graph WLAN
########################################################################
dynamic.17.name=wifi_received
dynamic.17.source=/sys/class/net/wlan0/statistics/rx_bytes
dynamic.17.regexp=(.*)
dynamic.17.postprocess=$1*-1
dynamic.17.rrd=DERIVE

dynamic.18.name=wifi_send
dynamic.18.source=/sys/class/net/wlan0/statistics/tx_bytes
dynamic.18.regexp=(.*)
dynamic.18.postprocess=
dynamic.18.rrd=DERIVE

web.status.1.content.9.name=WiFi
web.status.1.content.9.icon=wifi.png
web.status.1.content.9.line.1="WiFi Sent: <b>"+KMG(data.wifi_send)+"<i class='icon-arrow-up'></i></b> Received: <b>"+KMG(Math.abs(data.wifi_received)) + "<i class='icon-arrow-down'></i></b>"

web.statistics.1.content.9.name=WiFi
web.statistics.1.content.9.graph.1=wifi_send
web.statistics.1.content.9.graph.2=wifi_received
web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.net_send.label=Upload bandwidth (bits)
web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.net_send.lines={ fill: true }
web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.net_send.color="#FF7777"
web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.net_received.label=Download bandwidth (bits)
web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.net_received.lines={ fill: true }
web.statistics.1.content.9.ds_graph_options.net_received.color="#77FF77"

This configuration is basically a copy of eth0 configuration. the value in blue have been updated:

The name of the data extracted have been changed as well as the interface to monitor
Status row has been updated to use the WiFi icon and to display WiFi as title
The graph are configured to use the newly extracted values
Finally, the indexes have been updated to follow the existing ones

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.5.1 is available

October 15, 2013, 4:42 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.6 is available

≪ Previous: Add WiFi to Raspberry Pi and monitor it with RPi-Monitor

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.6.

All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.5.1 of RPi-Monitor has been released (replacing the version 2.5 due to issue #22).

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

Photo from Flickr by todbot

cc-by-nc

What's new in this version?
Some users have pushed their Raspberry Pi to its limits and found some side effect in RPi-Monitor. This version comes with improvement to fix such side effects. Thanks to allo the contributoirs which help me to improve RPi-Monitor.

Here is the changelog of version 2.5.1:

Update rrd graph with unkown data if fetched information is not a valid number
Fix issue #22 : empty.rrd file not properly generated

And changelog of version 2.5:

Fix issue #16: (v2.4) Network Graph displaying Bytes/s not in bits/s (wrong Legend) (From deMattin)
Update configuration to be compatible with NOOBS as proposed in issue #17 (From deMattin)
Implement modification for small screen proposed in issue #18 (From deMattin)
Change footer to better fit with small screens
Implement pull request #20: Counting buffers and cache as available memory (From Harbulot)
Add the possibility to set Min and Max values for rrd graphs in configuration file (issue #19 #21)

Installation

Download it from the official repository in Github:
sudo wget http://goo.gl/yv46v3 -O rpimonitor_2.5.1-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command (be careful, the file in red is a new dependency):
sudo apt-get install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libjson-perl libipc-sharelite-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_2.5.1-1_all.deb

Upgrade

If you are doing an upgrade and want to remove the strange peak you may see in network graphs, you should adjust the min and max values of RRD database storing network information.
This can be done with the two following commands:

rrdtool tune /usr/share/rpimonitor/web/stat/net_received.rrd -a net_received:0
rrdtool tune /usr/share/rpimonitor/web/stat/net_send.rrd -i net_send:0

Customization

RPi-Monitor is fully configurable so if the displayed information doesn't match you need, customize it.
Everything display in status pages or in statistics pages can be modified, tuned and customized to your needs.

To see how to customize it, use the command
man rpimonitord
and
man rpimonitord.conf

Man pages are also available in the wiki.

You will find some examples of customization in RPi-Monitor articles.

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.6 is available

March 16, 2014, 7:16 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor Interactive Configuration Helper

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.5.1 is available

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.7.

All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.6 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

What's new in this version?
This version is coming with few improvement and bug fixes.

Here is the changelog of version 2.6:

Add version.json, menu.json and friends.json generation to fix issue #25
Check is file is executable (instead of existing) to define if it should be executed
Warning: a new perl dependency has been added: File::Which
Generate empty.rrd at each request to fix issue #23
Generate empty.rrd at each start workaround for issue #23 when using an external web server
Note: empty.rrd need to be generated each time a static data need to be drawn into a graph. The embedded server does that. With external server, it is not possible. Restarting RPI-Monitor periodically will improve the accuracy but not fix the bug.
Improve shellinabox management <IP>/shellinabox forwards to https://<IP>:4200
Add RPi-Monitor Interactive Configuration Helper

Installation

Download it from the official repository in Github with the command:
wget http://goo.gl/WdK354 -O rpimonitor_2.6-1_all.deb

If you have issue with GnuTLS: A TLS warning alert coming from Github you can download it with the following command:
curl -L http://goo.gl/WdK354 -o rpimonitor_2.6-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command (use command apt-get if aptitude is not available on your target system):
sudo aptitude install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libjson-perl libipc-sharelite-perl libfile-which-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_2.6-1_all.deb

Complete the installation with the command:
sudo apt-get update && sudo service rpimonitor update

Upgrade

If you are doing an upgrade you should add the new perl dependency before installing RPi-Monitor package:
sudo aptitude install libfile-which-perl

RPi-Monitor interactive configuration helper

This version of RPi-Monitor introduce a new feature named "Interactive Configuration Helper". This new feature is accessible with the commend:
rpimonitord -i

The interactive configuration helper will ask you to enter information and will help you to define the correct configuration. I'll will write a post dedicated to this feature, until now, you can just give a try and follow the instructions... Your comments are welcome to improve this new feature.

About shellinabox

Shellinabox allow you to access to the shell of your Raspberry Pi through a web interface. You can activate this feature into the configuration dialog box.
By default, the link is set to '''/shellinabox'''. When RPi-Monitor will reciee this request, it will automatically do a redirect to http://RPiIpAddress:4200/. You can modify this address to point to your shellinabox address. This address is used inside the iframe of shellinabox page.

Customization

RPi-Monitor is fully configurable so if the displayed information doesn't match you need, customize it.
Everything display in status pages or in statistics pages can be modified, tuned and customized to your needs.

To see how to customize it, use the command
man rpimonitord
and
man rpimonitord.conf

Man pages are also available in the wiki.

To define the configuration you can use RPi-Monitor Interactive Configuration Helper whit the command:
rpimonitord -i

You will find some examples of customization in RPi-Monitor articles.

↧

RPi-Monitor Interactive Configuration Helper

March 22, 2014, 9:03 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor join the PiStore

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.6 is available

Version 2.6 introduced a new feature named RPi-Monitor Interactive Configuration Helper. This article is detailling how to use it to monitor a ntfs volume.

First execute the following command:

rpimonitord -i

Press Enter

Enter : df -t ntfs

RPi-Monitor will tell you how it will process the source.
In our example, it will execute the command df.
If it is correct, press Enter, if not, enter no ( or No or n or N ) to go back to previous screen.

RPi-Monitor show you the ouput of the command as defined as source. If the output is the one expected press Enter, if not, RPi-Monitor will ask you to define the source again.

By default the regulare expression is (.*). This will return all the data given by the source.

In the following screen you will see how we will find the regular expression extracting the available space of our ntfs drive step by step.

Step one, hit Enter to see what is given by the source by default.

The output is not the one expected hit Enter to define a new Regular expression.

The data is located after sda1. Lets enter the following regular expression: sda1(.*) to get what is after sda1.

The output is not the one expected yet hit Enter to define a new Regular expression.

The data is located after sda1 after some spaces \s+, some numbers \d+, some spaces \s+, some numbers \d+, some spaces \s+ and is composed of numbers (\d+).

Enter then the following regulare expression: sda1\s+\d+\s+\d+\s+(\d+)

The result is now the one expected , enter Yes ( or yes or Y or y )

We want the value in MB while is it given in kB. We then need to devide it by 1024.

The formula is then: $1/1024

This is the expected value, enter yes

The value extracted is variable so dynamic so enter No.

RPi-Monitor gives you the template of configuration. You now have to copy it into an existing configuration file or add anew file into /etc/rpimonitord.conf.d/ and update the text inside <>.

dynamic.20.name=storage2_available

dynamic.20.source=df -t ntfs

dynamic.20.regexp=sda1\s+\d+\s+\d+\s+(\d+)

dynamic.20.postprocess=$1/1024

dynamic.20.rrd=GAUGE

Once the configuration will be apply, restart RPi-Monitor with the command:

/etc/init.d/rpimonitor restart

I hope this post is detailled enough to help you to configure RPi-Monitor to define the correct sources and regular expression.

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RPi-Monitor join the PiStore

March 29, 2014, 1:54 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.7 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor Interactive Configuration Helper

RPi-Monitor is joining The Pi Store.
The version 2.6 is the 14th release of RPi-Monitor and the first to be available in the store.
Next versions will also be installable from the store...

The dedicated page is available here : http://store.raspberrypi.com/projects/rpi-montor.
RPi-Monitor will continue to be installable using the standard process using the .deb package which have the advantage to not be dependent of any Graphical User Interface.

Here are the instructions (directly extracted from PiStore web site) explaining how to use the PiStore:

Download Client

To download and use apps from the Pi Store you will require the Pi Store application.

If you're using the official operating system image, the Pi Store will already be installed on your Raspberry Pi, but if you need to reinstall it you can download it from the official repository.

Open a terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install pistore

Why do you need the Pi Store application?

Silent installs: Enable this feature and you don't have to worry about clicking through an installer! Download the app and next thing you know you'll have a notification saying it's ready to go.

Product updates: Get automatic updates to the items in your library as soon as they're released.

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RPi-Monitor: Version 2.7 is available

August 17, 2014, 3:12 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Use labels to show servers status

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor join the PiStore

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.8.

All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.7 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

Photo from Flickr

cc-by-sa by Adrienne Yancey

What's new in this version?
This version is coming with internal changes, improvement and bug fixes.

Here is the changelog of version 2.7:

Change directory storing configuration to /etc/rpimonitor/
Change configuration file name to better names
Create a template directory for configuration files
Change location of RRD storage to /var/lib/rpimonitor
Add xbian support and distribution automatic detection in debian package
Cleanup shellinabox menu display and configuration
Change ownership of empty.rrd to activate on demand regeneration Fixing issue #23
Update raspbian.conf to make it compatible with NOOBS installation
Update jquery (v2.1.1) and bootstrap (v2.3.2)
Update disk usage formula for better compatibility
Add 'Label' function for status page

Installation

Download it from the official repository in Github with the command:
wget http://goo.gl/Alzgej -O rpimonitor_2.7-1_all.deb

If you have issue with GnuTLS: A TLS warning alert coming from Github you can download it with the following command:
curl -L http://goo.gl/Alzgej -o rpimonitor_2.7-1_all.deb

Install the dependencies by executing the following command (use command apt-get if aptitude is not available on your target system):
sudo aptitude install librrds-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libjson-perl libipc-sharelite-perl libfile-which-perl

Installation or upgrade can be done with the command:
sudo dpkg -i rpimonitor_2.7-1_all.deb

Complete the installation with the command:
sudo apt-get update && sudo service rpimonitor update

Upgrade

This version of RPi-Monitor introduce some changes in the internal file organisation. This new organisation is described in detail into PACKAGING.md.
RPi-Monitor package is designed to automatically make the migration from previous version.
To avoid any loss, it is still recommended to backup the directories /usr/share/rpimonitor/web/stat/, /etc/rpimonitord.conf and /etc/rpimonitord.conf.d/*. In case of issue, refer to PACKAGING.md to see where files should be restaured and how.

Label function to reflect status

This version of RPi-Monitor introduce a new function dedicated to show the status of a service. This function is named "Label". I'll write a dedicated post to present this function. If you can't wait, you can have a look to the manpage and the to file template/services.conf which is showing how to use it.

About shellinabox

Shellinabox allow you to access to the shell of your Raspberry Pi through a web interface. You can activate this feature into the configuration dialog box.
By default, the link is set to '''/shellinabox'''. When RPi-Monitor will recieve this request, it will automatically do a redirect to http://RPiIpAddress:4200/. You can modify this address to point to your shellinabox address. This address is used inside the iframe of shellinabox page.

To define the configuration you can use RPi-Monitor Interactive Configuration Helper whit the command:
rpimonitord -i

You will find some examples of customization in RPi-Monitor articles.

↧

RPi-Monitor: Use labels to show servers status

August 17, 2014, 1:11 pm

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.8 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.7 is available

RPi-Monitor version 2.7 introduces a new javascript function named Label.

The goal of this function is to add a colored text reflecting the status of a service.

This post is explaining how this new feature can be used.

Note: In version 2.10, a closing parenthesis ' ) ' is missing in the last line of service.conf .
If you want to use this file as a source of your customisation, remember to add to fix this issue. It is already fixed in github repositories (and future releases).

Label funtion overview

The function Label is designed to write a text highligted by a color.

Label(value, condition, text, level)

This function determine if the label has to be displayed ot not base on a value (extracted by RPi-Monitor) and a condition. The label contains a text to be displayed and a level. 6 levels of labels are available with 6 differences colors:

How to use it?

The file /etc/rpimonitor/template/services.conf is showing an example of Label usage.

In this example, we monitor if the service ssh is listening on port 22 and display a label _OK_ if yes or a lable _KO_ if not.
We do the same for RPi-Monitor on port 8888 and for nginix on port 80 and 443.

######################################################################## # External daemons information added into Raspberry Pi page # icon from: # http://www.iconseeker.com/search-icon/crystal-project-application/daemons.html ######################################################################## dynamic.16.name=ssh dynamic.16.source=netstat -nlt dynamic.16.regexp=tcp .*:(22).*LISTEN  dynamic.17.name=rpimonitor dynamic.17.source=netstat -nlt dynamic.17.regexp=tcp .*:(8888).*LISTEN  dynamic.18.name=http dynamic.18.source=netstat -nlt dynamic.18.regexp=tcp .*:(80).*LISTEN  dynamic.19.name=https dynamic.19.source=netstat -nlt dynamic.19.regexp=tcp .*:(443).*LISTEN  web.status.1.content.9.name=Servers web.status.1.content.9.icon=daemons.png web.status.1.content.9.line.1="<b>ssh</b> : "+Label(data.ssh,"==22","OK","label-success")+Label(data.ssh,"!=22","KO","label-important")+"<b>rpimonitor</b> : "+Label(data.rpimonitor,"==8888","OK","label-success")+Label(data.rpimonitor,"!=8888","KO","label-important")+"<b>nginx http</b> : "+Label(data.http,"==80","OK","label-success")+Label(data.http,"!=80","KO","label-important")+"<b>nginx https</b> : "+Label(data.https,"==443","OK","label-success")+Label(data.https,"!=443","KO","label-important")

How does it work?

Information is extracted from the command netstat.
The regular expression will return the port number if a service is listening on this port or nothing if no service is listenning on this port.
Note: these regular expression may be optimised to return more accurrate result.

The results are accessible into javascript from the variable data. This variable is passed to the Label function as value.
For ssh, the condition is "==22" to check if the value is equal to 22 or "!=22" to check if the value is different form 22. As only one of the condition will be true, only one label will be displayed.

Other ports checking are using the same technic.

Example of Label function used to show server status

As you see, the usage of this new function is quite easy. You can now imagine how to use it for your own needs.

↧

RPi-Monitor: Version 2.8 is available

September 13, 2014, 3:00 am

≫ Next: RPi-Monitor: Version 2.9.1 is available

≪ Previous: RPi-Monitor: Use labels to show servers status

Note: A new version of RPi-Monitor is available: Version 2.9.

All the details about the latest version of Rpi-Monitor are in RPi-Monitor overview

The version 2.8 of RPi-Monitor has been released.

If you don't know yet what RPI-Monitor do, have a look to RPi-Monitor Overview.

Picture from Flickr cc-by by Duncan Hull

What's new in this version?
This version is coming with internal changes, improvement and bug fixes.

Here is the changelog of version 2.8:

Add debian repository using github as repo
Manage configuration indexes unicity per file
Add 'include' parameter to load additionnal configuration file
Split configuration files and use 'include' in default configuration file
Add parameters to customise menu logo, title and page title
Add 'Badge' function for status page (similar to Label)
Simplify and fix startup scripts
Change ownership of cron script to avoid issue with logs
Check if HTML5 localStorage is activated and warn user is not
Improve upgradable packages detection

Installation of the repository and upgrade to 2.8

One of the major improvement of this version is the activation of a debian repository directly into github. This repository will make installation and update of RPi-Monitor accessible with the commands apt-get or aptitude.

To use this repository follow the instruction bellow:

Activate https transport for apt and add certificate authority:

    sudo apt-get install apt-transport-https ca-certificates

Execute the following command to add RPi-Monitor into your list of repository:

    sudo wget http://goo.gl/rsel0F -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/rpimonitor.list

To install RPi-Monitor, execute the following command:

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install rpimonitor

To upgrade RPi-Monitor, execute the following command:

    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get upgrade

Note: The package is not signed, it will be require to accept installation of unauthenticated package.

After installation you should excute the following command to update information about upgradable packages:

sudo /usr/share/rpimonitor/scripts/updatePackagesStatus.pl

Manual installation is still working. Refer to RPi-Monitor Installation page for explaination.

Configuration indexes unicity simplification

Doing customization of RPi-Monitor could become quite complex when you have many data to monitor and doing change, reorder on these configuration files could become a nightmare if you manage multiple files. The reason of this complixity was the unicity constraint of indexes over all configuration file.

This version is removing this constraint. This requirement is now only applicable per file.

This is meaning that when you need to add a new measurment point, you just have to create a new file and add the configuration lines as you would do for the first configuration file. You don't have to care about the existing indexes previously used.

Removing this contrainst open the field of configuration possibilities. A new keyword have been added: include which can be used as follow:

    include=full_path/to/configuration_file.conf

When RPi-Monitor will detect the include keyword, it will add the file to the list of configuration files to be loaded. In other words, the configuration files to load will be appended to the list of file to be loaded wherever is located of include keywork into a file.
If you want to keep the control of the order of information display, it will then be recommanded to create one file per information and the create a file containing a list of configuration file to load. data.conf is now looking like that:

    [...]
include=/etc/rpimonitor/template/version.conf
    include=/etc/rpimonitor/template/uptime.conf
    include=/etc/rpimonitor/template/cpu.conf
[...]

Customise menu logo, title and page title

This new function allow to define a custom logo, custome title and add the hostname of the machine int the title of the browser.

Here are the configuration lines used by default:

web.page.icon='img/avatar.png'
web.page.menutitle='XB-Monitor <sub>('+data.hostname+')</sub>'
web.page.pagetitle='XB-Monitor ('+data.hostname+')'

data.hostname is a value automatically extracted by RPi-Monitor. It is not needed to add a configuration to do such a thing.

The file avatar.png has been added into /usr/share/rpimonitor/web/img/.

Here is the result:

Inside Firefox title bar and tab, the title has been changed and hostmane has been added between parentheses.
Inside RPi-Monitor menu bar, le logo and the title have been changed and hostmane has been added between parentheses.

Badges function to reflect status

This version of RPi-Monitor introduce a new function dedicated to show the status of a service. This function is named "Badge". This function is very similar to the function "Label" introduced in version 2.7. To use this function,you can refer to the article Rpi-Monitor: Use Label to show server status and replace Label by Badge.

About shellinabox

Shellinabox allow you to access to the shell of your Raspberry Pi through a web interface. You can activate this feature into the configuration dialog box.
By default, the link is set to '''/shellinabox'''. When RPi-Monitor will recieve this request, it will automatically do a redirect to http://RPiIpAddress:4200/. You can modify this address to point to your shellinabox address. This address is used inside the iframe of shellinabox page.

To define the configuration you can use RPi-Monitor Interactive Configuration Helper whit the command:
rpimonitord -i

You will find some examples of customization in RPi-Monitor articles.

↧