Weewx 4.0.0b16 finally up and running on my new Raspberry Pi

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Mike Revitt

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Mar 28, 2020, 10:52:55 AM3/28/20
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For those that are interested, I have completed the port of my weewx installation from my iMac to a new Raspberry Pi 4.

I have weeks running as a service via systemctl, and I am publishing the website up to an AWS S3 bucket every 5 minutes via BOTO3 and backing up the database also to an S3 bucket once per day again using BOTO3. And thanks to another post I found I am also monitoring the CPU temperature and mapping that in the Sensor Status sub section.

A huge thank you to everyone that helped me with my various issues whilst I was doing this.

The website can be viewed here https://weather.cougar.eu.com/index.html and if anyone wants to know how I did any of this reach out and I will try to help. 

Mike

mukbar

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Oct 13, 2021, 1:23:29 PM10/13/21
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Hey Mike,

First, just wanted to say thank you for your posts here and also your website. If you have noticed any traffic from Belize recently, that's me. I really appreciate all the time you've taken to document and share how you built your set up. Thank you!

Second, I'm in the early stages of my weewx life. The next big step is for me to publish my weather station data via weewx to a custom domain. And I want my equipment in Belize to do as little as possible. I would like to learn about cloud computing and this seems like a good opportunity to start.

An overview of what I've got so far:

Weatherflow Tempest
Raspberry Pi 4
Weewx 4.5.1
Belchertown skin (installed but not my default skin)
Sending data via weewx to all the usual suspects: WU, PWSWeather, Weathercloud, WOW, Windy, Weewx map, etc. If you look on the weewx map, my station is the one in Belize. 

All working smoothly. I can access the weewx default skin and belchertown skin on my internal network. I have a few questions for you:

1. I see that the weather page on your site updates automatically every 5 minutes. Is that 5 minutes set by the archive interval in weewx? Could I make it update more frequently if I wanted? 

2. I think you've built a "lighter" custom skin, in part to keep AWS costs down. Is that right? If I disregard costs for the time being, can I skip creating the custom skin? Or, if II set my default skin as Belchertown (or any other skin), will weewx send that to the S3 bucket?

3.  I've never hosted a site on AWS. I own a domain that I would like to use for this project. Is there a useful guide that you recommend that I can study to understand the webhost side of all this?

Thanks!
Mukul

Mike Revitt

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Oct 14, 2021, 8:56:36 AM10/14/21
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Hi Mukul,

 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

    1. I see that the weather page on your site updates automatically every 5 minutes. Is that 5 minutes set by the archive interval in weewx? Could I make it update more frequently if I wanted?
      1. This is a setting in the HTML page   ‘<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="300" />’ is the command that does this

     

      1. I think you've built a "lighter" custom skin, in part to keep AWS costs down. Is that right? If I disregard costs for the time being, can I skip creating the custom skin? Or, if II set my default skin as Belchertown (or any other skin), will weewx send that to the S3 bucket?
        1. I did this because I wanted to learn HTML coding and javascript, although I have since trimed it to reduce AWS costs

       

        1. I've never hosted a site on AWS. I own a domain that I would like to use for this project. Is there a useful guide that you recommend that I can study to understand the webhost side of all this?

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        mukbar

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        Oct 14, 2021, 3:47:32 PM10/14/21
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        Thanks, Mike. Super helpful. Got the domain registered and hosted via Route 53. Set up buckets in S3. Set up IAM account. All good.

        Now stuck on "Enabling S3 Access on rPi". Two questions, both silly, I think:

        1. Python -V returns: Python 2.7.16 

        Do I need to upgrade?

        2. vi ~/.aws/credentials [weewx] returns endless lines of ~ on the terminal. It's not obvious how/where to enter access and secret keys. I'm think I'm doing something really dumb. What is it? 

        Thanks.
        Mukul

        vince

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        Oct 14, 2021, 4:07:41 PM10/14/21
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        1.  Try using "python3" everywhere Mike used 'python' in his writeup.  Look at "Install the Python3 libraries" in the S3 page where it mentions that you need to use python3.

        2. I think you need to learn how to edit a file on a pi.  It can be a little rough for new unix/linux users.   I'd suggest you look in the free edx.org class "https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-linux" at the chapter on editors which should walk you through how to do that.

        Mukul Kanabar

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        Oct 14, 2021, 5:15:37 PM10/14/21
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        Hi Vince.

        Thanks for humoring my basic questions. I was hambugged by the vi editor. Got it now. Website displaying Hello World.

        The aws configure --profile command was also helpful, as outlined in this AWS guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-configure-quickstart.html

        Will report back when I get stuck. Stay tuned.

        mukbar

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        Oct 14, 2021, 7:42:56 PM10/14/21
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        Update: website is live: http://sprweather.com/

        Thank you to everyone who helped me get from zero to that site. I'm grateful.

        Two questions:

        1. If I want to enable https, do I need to use CloudFront? Any tips appreciated.

        2. I have the Belchertown skin installed but not set as my default. I used Mike's guide to add a skin.conf to the new S3 directory. If I set the Belchertown skin as my default in weewx, will weewx push that to my site automatically? Or is it not that easy?

        Thank you.

        Mike Revitt

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        Oct 15, 2021, 6:11:08 AM10/15/21
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        1. If I want to enable https, do I need to use CloudFront? Any tips appreciated.

         

        I had to, don’t know if you still do, but it costs less than $0.01 per month and gives you useful info on access patterns

        Image removed by sender. signature_1577675884

         

        mukbar

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        Oct 15, 2021, 4:05:32 PM10/15/21
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        Thank you. I'm close but need a bit of help.

        I set up Cloudfront to serve HTTPS requests for S3 bucket. 


        Cloudfront distribution domain name looks good but is static: https://dwc3ltsta68nt.cloudfront.net

        Website is static too: https://sprweather.com/

        What did I do wrong?

        Thanks.


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