Is WeeWx 5.0 beta stable enough for non-experts to fool around with?

[DR]

I have looked gitHub and see there is a 5.0 beta out there.


I am wondering if it is stable enough for a casual user to fiddle around
with it before official release, or should only experts be using it now
to test and give feedback to the developers?


Just curious.  Dale

[Tom Keffer]

It's pretty stable. Most of the work now is about smoothing out the installation process. 

-tk

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[DR]

Thanks.  Dale

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[Graham Eddy]

my experiments with multiple instances and topologies have been very smooth with pip install - that is quite elegant.

i tried the documented github install and fell on my face, even after working out to select V5 to clone. i’m not github-savvy (but i look at the source code a lot) so ‘here be dragons’ might be a useful comment in the github install notes

⊣GE⊢

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[Jon Fear]

From what I can see, looks promising however I think I will wait. I will need to run two instances to capture from both the Wittboy and a Davis Vue in the near future, I will do that once released. It will be good to be able to compare datasets based on the same location.

Is there a time line for release or is it "when it is ready"? I see there is a new version of the Divumwx skin which will be ready about the time of release. I would like to try that Beta though...

Best wishes

Jon

[Tom Hogland]

I'm thinking of moving to v5. I have a Tempest and VP2 setup and running a custom weewx-multi. Seems like two venv setups would be a very simple way to replicate this...

[Graham Eddy]

in V5 i am assuming a single station can be created but separate weewx.conf’s used, as in V4 weewx-multi config, with the downside that they share same extensions.py i.e. not utilising V5’s design change

in my case, i want same codebase and python modules available to all weewx instances but each with own extensions.py, so i have in mind to have a weewx user whose home dir has a single venv (shared codebase with pip install), and station create each instance (has its own extensions.py)

i can see the case for separate venv for each station (conflicts, independence) but i don’t require that

⊣GE⊢

[Tom Keffer]

The intention with V5 is to cleanly separate the WeeWX code base from "user data." The latter is things such as weewx.conf, skins, the database, and, yes, any user extensions. 

So, instances can share the code base, but each have their own user data area, with their own extensions (and extension.py; sorry about the name overload). 

Answering an earlier question on timelines: the weather is still too nice here in Oregon to spend major amounts of time on V5. Expect a release a few weeks after the rains start. :-)

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[vince]

FWIW, I have a github repo (here) with a bash script that automates the v5 pip install, installs and configures nginx and my 'mem' extension, hooks weewx into the nginx web, and starts it all up.  I use this on pi and vagrant virtual machines to fiddle with the v5 beta.

Works for me as a one-step installer on a 'clean' sacrificial system and it's tested on several os variants.

 Please read the toplevel readme file and do a quick read of the example logfile it generates to see what it does step-by-step.

[Matthias Manhart]

Thanks Vince for the script - very helpful for testing. I could rebuild my weewx on a test raspberry pi 4 with the extensions cmon, mqtt, mqtt-subscribe and the Belchertown skin.

[WindnFog]

That works great, Vince.  It seems to be running smoothly on Debian-12. Now for the dumb question.  It looks like the web page is under /root/weewx-data/public_html/ . . . how does a person view the web page using a browser?  I'm just using the Simulator for now on a Pi 4B.

- Paul VE1DX

[vince]

[...long answer follows just so it can be searched for in the future...]

Multiple ways to connect weewx and nginx up under the hood:

• edit weewx.conf to set the document root to point to nginx's location
• edit nginx/sites-enabled/default to point the document root to the weewx location
• or symlink them in one direction or the other so weewx writes to the nginx tree, or so nginx reads from the weewx tree

I tend to use symlinks because then I don't need to change either nginx 'or' weewx config files.  But there's no wrong way probably.

So since I use a symlink to connect weewx and nginx, for me the url would be http://yourhostname/weewx with one caveat....there's currently an error in the script that I need to fix.  On line 138 it creates a symlink to link the weewx public_html into the nginx server's document root.

# for a user 'vagrant'

sudo ln -s /home/vagrant/weewx-data/public_html /var/www/html/weewx

That's good for vagrant/VirtualBox which typically runs as user 'vagrant'.....but a pi user typically would run as user 'pi'....

So for a user 'pi' which I'm guessing you are using on a pi, try this:

# for a user 'pi'

sudo ln -s /home/pi/weewx-data/public_html /var/www/html/weewx

[...shorter answer of what to do...]

• For a user 'pi' run the revised command above and see if "ls /var/www/html/weewx" resolves and shows you all the files weewx created.  If so you're likely good.

• Then try to open http://yourhostname_or_ip/weewx/ and see if the weewx stuff is returned.
  

Note - you 'might' see permission denied messages in your nginx logs initially.  If so that is because the user/group nginx runs as can't read files in the pi user home directory.   One brute-force way to fix it would be "sudo chmod 755 /home/pi" which lets all accounts read stuff in the 'pi' home directory.  That's less than a great production thing to do from a security standpoint, but for a quick test locally it's probably ok.

I need to tweak the script a little to be more flexible and more ok security-wise, but this should get you going.

[vince]

Paul - I updated my script to be more flexible for vagrant vs. running on top of a native os, if you wanted to give the new one a try.

In the updated script I switched gears a little to have weewx write through a symlink into a new /var/www/hmtl/weewx subdirectory which is safer from a security standpoint.   The commands it runs to do so are down around line 160 in the updated script if you wanted to do them manually.  It points weewx at a new subdirectory in nginx's document root.

A little cleanup would be needed to run those commands if you've previously run the earlier version of my script that symlinks the other way (points nginx at weewx $HOME).

A run on a clean system with no $HOME/weewx-data or $HOME/weewx-venv tree will work fine (tested on a pi) with the weewx web pages via http://yourhost_or_ip/weewx as the URL and the actual data being written to /var/www/html/weewx on the filesystem.

[WindnFog]

Thanks, Vince.  It seems to be working well on my "play" system and displaying the site on Firefox.  I've got a few other things to work on for a day or two, so I'll just let it run for now.

- Paul VE1DX

[Greg from Oz]

I am running v5 and I am nowhere near being an expert.

It works fine.

One issue I have is the USB drops sometimes but I have set up monit program to check and restart.

ERROR weewx.drivers.fousb: get_observations failed: [Errno 19] No such device (it may have been disconnected)

https://weather.ubeaut.work/

[WindnFog]

WeeWx v5.0.0b15 seems to be working fine. I want to add Mathew's Sftp extension and put the files on my VPS web server in a non-public directory for now.  I use that extension on my production 4.10.2 weewx version. I need to use keyed SFTP to upload; this extension does what I want on pre-v5 versions.

I can add it using weectl according to the documentation. The question: is the https://github.com/matthewwall/weewx-sftp extension compatible with WeeWx v5?  My guess is it is, but I'd be happier if one of the developers could give me a yes or no.

- Paul VE1DX

On Tuesday, November 21, 2023 at 5:07:19 PM UTC-4 vince wrote:

[vince]

Why not try it as a tester and tell THEM ?

[WindnFog]

It works.  I am still using the old Standard skin, and it seems to be working as well as on v4.10.2. Here's v5.0.0b15:

https://ve1dx.net/v5/

    And here is v4.10.2:

https://ve1dx.net/

We can conclude that  "weectl extension install" works in the venv. Also, I was $day.humidex.max, $month.humidex.max, etc., on the incorrect assumption that the time they occurred would be the same as the corresponding heat index (they are close in time but not necessarily the same.) Thus, Tom's enhancement to include derived parameters in the same manner as measured parameters seems to work well.

I need to clean up those tables on the left side of the page, but that is not a v4 vs v5 issue.  That's my sloppy html . . .

- Paul VE1DX

[WindnFog]

Correction on my typo.  That should be "I was calculating $day.humidex.max, $month.humidex.max, etc.," not "I was $day.humidex.max, $month.humidex.max, etc.,"

- Paul VE1DX

[Aldo B]

Hi,

this would be very interesting to include in the main program, if I understand correctly you found a solution to Fine Offset lock-ups?