Setting up a pre-configured station and weewx pi for a remote site

[vince]

I'm helping somebody on the other US coast set up a new Vue and weewx raspi and wanted some thoughts from folks who've set up remote sites before.   The basic story is likely similar to the folks here who've set up sites for schools or park systems etc:

• the recipients will unbox and physically install the gear
• they will be responsible for power and network connectivity
• they will need to do nothing else and it should just-plain-work

Setting up a SD card with Raspbian and Weewx is of course easy, but I need to be able to set the /dev/whatever device name for weewx.conf

• should I buy the USB datalogger for the Vue, or is it still best-practice to use serial datalogger and serial-to-USB converter ?
• is it bet-the-ranch that it'll be /dev/ttyUSB0  if nothing else is plugged into the pi ?

I guess it really comes down to :

• is it wisest to ship all the gear initially for me to set up, and then have me rebox+ship it all to them for re-assemble at their location ?
• or is it reasonable that I can pre-configure the pi SD card and just ship them that and have it 'absolutely' work there ?

Thoughts either way ?

[Dave Webb KB1PVH]

Vince,

  I just did this for someone so all they needed to do is download the image I made and burn to SD then connect the station to the Pi, plug it in and cross fingers. 

Dave-KB1PVH


Sent from my Galaxy S9

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[vince]

On Thursday, June 20, 2019 at 11:58:58 AM UTC-7, Dave Webb KB1PVH wrote:

  I just did this for someone so all they needed to do is download the image I made and burn to SD then connect the station to the Pi, plug it in and cross fingers. 

Yeah - but my particular end user bites fingers when stuff isn't turn-key :-)

I am indeed hoping I can just send'em a SD card and get the other gear straight-shipped to them.

Was the datalogger /dev/ttyUSB0 hopefully ?

[Dave Webb KB1PVH]

Correct on the datalogger being /dev/ttyUSB0

Dave-KB1PVH


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[gjr80]

On Friday, 21 June 2019 05:49:08 UTC+10, vince wrote:

Yeah - but my particular end user bites fingers when stuff isn't turn-key :-)

Buy them one of those fake rubber hands from a joke shop.

Sorry, couldn't help myself, late night/early morning.

Gary

[Chris Richmond]

Only my humble opinion, but weewx isn't quite plug-and-play in the sense of sending someone an sd card to install

and hoping for the best.  You'd have to get all the details right up-front.  If the receiver isn't up to the job of finishing the

job, then at *least* enable some sort of remote access.  If it were me, I'd get everything setup, then ship the whole thing

so it is just applying power and network.  I've got a VP2 and a Vue now, and both are on serial ports.  The Vue's RPi even

has an RTC for fun, since it's going to end up in my own remote location.  I'd be happy to send my details if that's helpful.

Chris

[Mickael Hoareau]

Hi vince,

I am doing exactly that : I setup raspberry+weewx for other, and it must be turn-key.
After 4 years of enhancing my system, it works very well and yes, it is possible.

I use Davis dataloggers for all the stations of our nonprofit organisation.

Some old station have serial datalogger + serial-to-USB converter, but quite honestly, USB datalogger are not less stable than serial ones, and we buy exclusively USB dataloggers now.

From my experience, all the problem I did see with the USB datalogger is linked to Windows OS for users of the old Davis weatherlink software, not really the USB. When I migrated these stations from PC/Windows/USB/Weatherlink to Raspberry Pi/Raspbian/USB/Weewx, USB dataloggers works like a charm ...

I did try the datalogger from Belfryboy once, it worked well until it didn't respond at all ... :-/ .. I finally replaced it with a Davis USB datalogger.

Concerning the port of the driver, I always use this for security :

[Vantage]
    ...
    port = /dev/vp2

But for this to works and understand the following, you must take a look at this section of the documentation : http://weewx.com/docs/usersguide.htm#udev_script

I created the file /etc/udev/rules.d/vpro.rules with this content :

# Automount USB cable to port /dev/vp2

# Different versions of Davis dataloggers
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="ea60", MODE="0660", GROUP="weewx", SYMLINK+="vp2", TAG+="systemd", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}="weewx.service"

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="ea61", MODE="0660", GROUP="weewx", SYMLINK+="vp2", TAG+="systemd", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}="weewx.service"

# Datalogger clone by Belfryboy
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6015", MODE="0660", GROUP="weewx", SYMLINK+="vp2", TAG+="systemd", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}="weewx.service"

With this, it works out-of-the box for me, when I plug the USB datalogger, it automatically shows under /dev/vp2.
So if for any reason, there is another USB device connected, it is not a problem.

But in the future, it could be new versions of dataloggers showing up and I would have to add new lines in /etc/udev/rules.d/vpro.rules and make it work, even far away !

For this, I had setup a VPN server dedicated to this purpose.

When the raspberry pi are alive, they try to connect at boot on the VPN. So if there is a weewx/skin/system configuration problem for any reason, I can SSH it on the VPN and solve the issue. ;)

But I will insist on the fact that the end-user MUST know that this VPN exists, it gives you access to his network, so it is important that the user accepts it, some users asked me to turn it off and I did.

Hope I helped a bit.

Mickael

[vince]

On Thursday, June 20, 2019 at 8:18:41 PM UTC-7, Mickael Hoareau wrote:

Concerning the port of the driver, I always use this for security :

[Vantage]
    ...
    port = /dev/vp2

[...]

I created the file /etc/udev/rules.d/vpro.rules with this content :

# Automount USB cable to port /dev/vp2

# Different versions of Davis dataloggers
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="ea60", MODE="0660", GROUP="weewx", SYMLINK+="vp2", TAG+="systemd", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}="weewx.service"

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="10c4", ATTRS{idProduct}=="ea61", MODE="0660", GROUP="weewx", SYMLINK+="vp2", TAG+="systemd", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}="weewx.service"

# Datalogger clone by Belfryboy
ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="tty", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0403", ATTRS{idProduct}=="6015", MODE="0660", GROUP="weewx", SYMLINK+="vp2", TAG+="systemd", ENV{SYSTEMD_WANTS}="weewx.service"

With this, it works out-of-the box for me, when I plug the USB datalogger, it automatically shows under /dev/vp2.

Thanks a bunch - excellent example !

FWIW, I've run weewx for many years, just with a usb-to-serial adaptor on my VP2.  Waaaaaay back in time computers actually had serial adaptors :-)

My only real concern is console-to-pi connectivity as I can't get remote access and I only fly home to the other coast yearly or so. This'll help a lot.  Thanks.