Extra sensor renaming

[Grahame Rob]

After years away from from this site after my old weather station died I have returned after buying a Ecowitt GW1000 and a few sensors. I have just installed Cumulus MX onto a Raspberry Pi4 and I love the difference between it and the Cumulus 1 I was running in 2011. I am wondering if its possible to rename the extra sensors so they show the name of the room they are in instead of Sensor1, Sensor2 etc as I have 4 extra sensors and its a bit confusing working out/remembering which is which without looking at the WS View app. if it is possible to change the names could someone please point me in the right direction on how its done.

[mcrossley]

What you need is "strings.ini". There is a samplestrings.ini in the root CumulusMX folder. Copy that to strings.ini, edit the fields you want (if you like, you can delete the entries you do not need - just for clarity). Then restart Cumulus MX.

[Grahame Rob]

Great and thanks for the reply, is there a wiki on how to do this? I'm not very experienced with the Raspberry Pi, this is my first one and I took the easy route and installed CMX using the pre-built image,

[mcrossley]

I don't think there is anything in the Wiki about doing this specifically.

But if you install WinSCP or Filezilla on your windows machine, you should be able to connect it up to your raspberry pi and copy the samplestrings.ini file to your local windows. Rename it there, edit the file, then use WinSCP/Filezilla to copy the renamed file back to your rPi.

[sfws]

What you need is "strings.ini". There is a samplestrings.ini in the root CumulusMX folder. Copy that to strings.ini, edit the fields you want (if you like, you can delete the entries you do not need - just for clarity). Then restart Cumulus MX.

The Wiki has had https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Strings.ini to explain this concept ever since November 2009, indeed some updates of that page were contributed by you, Mark.
This renaming/configuration is also discussed on MX on Linux page, at Extra Sensor customisation, and on a few other Wiki pages, so where ever anyone starts, this concept is well documented.

A new page https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Samplestring.ini was added last January to offer yet another entry point, after a request last year to document every folder/file included in MX release distributions.

Great and thanks for the reply, is there a wiki on how to do this? I'm not very experienced with the Raspberry Pi, this is my first one

If you are unsure about editing your Raspberry Pi files remotely, have a read of Upgrading on a Raspberry Pi computer by commands from a Microsoft Windows computer. It refers to using a Microsoft Windows PC with remote terminal sessions or file transfers, giving access to the Raspberry Pi files.

Of course, if you want to write up into the Wiki, some new text, reporting what you discover, in an easier way, to help others in future, see Freddie's message in the pink area. Put it on a new page if you are unsure where is best existing page,(or ask Ken True, the person who hosts the Wiki via saratogaWX for advice).

Did you read Mark's https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Raspberry_Pi_Image page?
When you feel up to reading more about RPi, try https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Raspberry_Pi_computer_page and other parts of the MX on Linux and Upgrading pages mentioned above. Obviously, take it slowly, reading only parts of these pages selected from table of contents!

I don't think there is anything in the Wiki about doing this specifically.

As linked above, there is now.

Of course, Wiki can be improved further, and that is why there is always an appeal for more Wiki contributors to help. It is hard work to:
1) expand Wiki coverage, (The Wiki is lacking information about Davis, and Ecowitt, hardware, and other items mentioned in https://cumuluswiki.org/a/How_you_can_contribute)
2) keep existing Wiki information up to date as MX transforms/develops so quickly ( MX has drastically altered in last 2 years)
3) rewrite pages so that the new style of simple information for novices (people used to use Cumulus 1 help for that) is put first on pages, before the more technical information (people used to depend on Wiki for that with Cumulus 1).
4) various formerly long pages have had some content moved elsewhere, so information is arranged more logically, and more of that is needed.

[Grahame Rob]

I don't think there is anything in the Wiki about doing this specifically.

But if you install WinSCP or Filezilla on your windows machine, you should be able to connect it up to your raspberry pi and copy the samplestrings.ini file to your local windows. Rename it there, edit the file, then use WinSCP/Filezilla to copy the renamed file back to your rPi.

Thanks mark for the instructions, I have downloaded Filezilla and connected to my Rpi but when I try and open the root folder it brings up the message
Error: Directory /root: permission denied
Error: Failed to retrieve directory listing

I take it is the root folder samplestrings.ini is in?

[freddie]

I take it is the root folder samplestrings.ini is in?

Not quite. You are looking in the root users home folder on your pi. What Mark said was that it is in the root folder of your MX installation. Therefore, if MX is in the usual installation location on the pi (/home/pi/CumulusMX) then it is here that you need to look. If you've installed it elsewhere then you will need to look in that location.

[sfws]

Freddie, Grahame

The relevant folder for samplestring.ini in the pre-built image is /opt/Cumulus MX.

[Grahame Rob]

All done! Thank you everyone for your help its greatly appreciated.