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Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

From build 3044 the development baton passed to Mark Crossley. Mark has been responsible for all the Builds since. He has made the code available on GitHub. It is Mark's hope that others will join in this development, but at the very least he welcomes your ideas for future developments (see Cumulus MX Development suggestions).

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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by mcrossley »

Best to post a new thread as this is a bit off topic for this one.
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by wishmeluck »

mcrossley wrote: Sat 29 Feb 2020 8:44 pm Best to post a new thread as this is a bit off topic for this one.
Understood and thanks for your help. Strangely enough I left for a while and came back, restarted putty and I now have a connection to the web interface! Hopefully it'll be logging data to the pi.

Thanks for all who took the time to contribute input.
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by franmiele »

Is there a specific reason why the instruction show setting up a cron to reboot every day?
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by MagnusGallstad »

franmiele wrote: Thu 14 May 2020 7:01 pm Is there a specific reason why the instruction show setting up a cron to reboot every day?
Dont know why ....

My settings in cron is

7 3 * * 0 sudo reboot

Vist https://crontab.guru if you need a guide to set up a reboot on your demands
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by sutne »

There is normally no need. My Raspberry runs for months.
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by ExperiMentor »

franmiele wrote: Thu 14 May 2020 7:01 pm Is there a specific reason why the instruction show setting up a cron to reboot every day?
I've answered this before. There is no specific need, but periodic reboots are a good idea for any system that is running continuously. The operating system and any programs are unlikely to behave perfectly, and a reboot just ensures that any issues that might be building up are automatically sorted out. That would include things like system stacks gradually overfilling, buffers overfilling.

I'd recommend it unless you are frequently monitoring your system and able to intervene manually.

At the moment I'm away from home until COVID-19 is fully sorted out. I have left a Pi Zero W running each of my 2 weather stations. One is continuing fine after 2 months, the other crashed permanently soon after I left. Can't win!
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by franmiele »

Thank you for the responses.
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by Rylands »

Thanks for the excellent and comprehensive instructions on how to install this.

I only started reading this forum a couple of weeks ago, and after initially not knowing what a Raspberry was, after a bit of research I felt like I couldn't do without one. So I have been eagerly reading, and rereading these instructions, whilst waiting for my Raspberry to arrive (which it did today).

However I fear that I must be doing something very basically wrong, as I can hardly get past the first instructions!!

I have downloaded and installed to my PC Raspberry Pi Imager v1.2, selected Raspberry Pi OS Full (32 bit), and 'written' it to my new and empty SDHC card.

Here are where the problems start however. :groan:
Continue from here if you used 'Raspberry Pi Imager' installation
• Physically remove the SD card from your PC and then straight away reinsert it so that the content can be viewed in File Explorer
• TWO drives will now be visible for the SD card. You will likely see a warning that one of the drives needs to be formatted before it can be used. ‘Cancel’ that warning and ignore that drive.
After receiving the message that Raspberry Pi OS Full (32 bit) has been written to the card, I then remove it, and reinsert it. However instead of seeing 2 drives, all File Explorer is showing me is a folder called overlays, and another 37 various files.

Can anybody help this NOOB with where he is going wrong?

Thanks in advance.
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by ExperiMentor »

That's probably ok. That is a new process and I've only done it once, maybe without adequate notes. Can you post a screenshot or photo showing the folder with 37 files or even both of these? If many of the files are named BCM.... that'll be the one you want
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by Rylands »

Here's most of the files.. The only ones missing at the bottom are called start*.elf
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by ExperiMentor »

Yes, that's the one, all looks correct.
Put the next 2 files (SSH and wpa_supplicant.conf) in that folder (the one that you have shown with the BCM.... files, not in Overlays).

I'll recheck the instructions when I can, in case I got something wrong.

CHECKED: my fault. The new installer no longer creates a 2nd partition which is visible to Windows yet inaccessible. Looks like they found a way to make it invisible. I'll adjust the instructions.
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by Rylands »

AAAHH. All good, and seem to have everything up and running perfectly.

A few little hiccups along the way, but managed to work out what the problem was, and fix (I'll provide some suggestions for us dummies on how you could un-dummy the instructions further, once I have everything set up)

One last question though in relation to this instruction....
# Reboot each day at 0253 53 02 * * * sudo reboot
When I go to type in the * (presuming this is an asterisk) the text editor, it is bringing up a different menu, and not allowing the entering of the *.

I thought maybe I could edit this file using notepad, and then upload it again by ftp, but the directory doesn't seem to show up when I look at the list of files on the pi using filezilla.

From reading the forum, I guess it's not essential that I reboot, but then again, I did read another comment justifying why, and agree.

Is there a hint to what I am doing wrong here?
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by HansR »

Not sure if its correct to break in here, but

1) I see you still say you're running Windows which apparently is Raspbian on the Pi.
2) Assuming you run Raspbian Buster - which I use as well - I found that reboot from crontab does not work anymore. You have to use

Code: Select all

systemctl reboot
Reboot only seems to exist on the interactive shell level.
My complete crontab line is

Code: Select all

5 3 1 * * systemctl reboot > cronreboot.log 2>&1
(and a similar one on the 15th)
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by ExperiMentor »

Hans - reboot from crontab works perfectly for me on a system with the latest Raspberry Pi OS as well as previous Raspbian. My understanding is that apart from nice things in the graphical interface (not used by Cumulus), little has changed. (Maybe you could PM me to explain what your line 'systemctl reboot > cronreboot.log 2>&1' means? I'm lost after the first 2 words!)

Rylands - the symbol is an asterisk, and should not give any problem in the 'nano' text editor on the Pi, which is what you should be using.

Did you choose one of the other text editors when you ran 'sudo crontab -e' the first time? If so, you can get back to the menu to choose nano by entering

Code: Select all

sudo select-editor
Let me take this step by step. First thing I notice is that the line you quote should be split into 2 lines as below. Any line starting with # is a comment and all content will be ignored.

Code: Select all

# Reboot each day at 0253
53 02 * * * sudo reboot
What I expect you to do, to avoid retyping, is:
From this message (in Windows on your PC), select the first line and Copy it (eg Ctrl-C)
Move the cursor in nano when editing crontab to the end of the file (press 'Down Arrow' multiple times)
Right-click to paste into crontab. Press 'Return' to move to the next line.
From this message (in Windows on your PC), select the second line and Copy it (eg Ctrl-C)
In nano, Right-click to paste in the second line
Press Ctrl-X then Y then 'Return' to save the edited contab
See response 'New crontab installed'

If you really wanted to type that 2nd line, it reads: 53 space 02 space asterisk space asterisk space asterisk space sudo space reboot
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Re: Instructions: Installing CumulusMX on Raspberry Pi

Post by peterbent55 »

I'm new to the Raspberry Pi, but managed to follow the detailed installation instructions provided and now CumulusMX will run on the Pi. But I have a couple of problems which I hope someone can help me with. I'm using a Pi 3B+, with the latest updates for Rasbian Buster and Mono installed.
I access the Pi using PuTTY on my Windows 10 machine, I can start CumulusMX, I can access the interface and it uploads to my website, BUT after starting the programme the command prompt does not reappear. If I close PuTTY, then CumulusMX also closes. What am doing wrong? Screenshot attached shows how my PuTTY screen looks after starting CumulusMX.

The second problem is that the gauges on my website are there but not showing data, just the message "error: Not Found" in the bar above the gauges. The gauges worked OK on my previous installation using Cumulus 1.9.4 (build 1099) on my Windows 10 PC. Suggestions please!
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