Moving CumulusMX Windows to Linux

[oldeflyer]

Hello,
After performing several searches for running MX on Linux I need some help.

Windows uses Com ports. What do I put in in place of a Com port in Linux? I have looked at the devices and researched online for USB serial devices names. TTY is what I found.
By using "dmesg" I have determined that my USB cable from the weather station console is seen as ttyUSB0.
The connection from my Vue Pro 2 works as Com3 on the Windows computer.

Second part of this is when I start CumulusMX on the Linux computer, it says the station is undefined, as it should.
But then it won't let me connect with a browser to run the wizard. It just sits at the spinning circle. This occurs with a local window or remote connection.

I know the host is reachable from my remote computer as I can get to the Apache2 default web page.

Wayne

[broadstairs]

I no longer have my Davis VP but certainly running CMX in Linux should be straight forward. I gather you have CumulusMX started in a console window and you have entered the correct url in the format http://localhost:8998 or by IP address which should be in the form 192.168.0.6 in place of localhost for example. That should just work. I assume you have Apache running on the same Linux PC as CMX as that is the only way it will work.

Stuart

[freddie]

Windows uses Com ports. What do I put in in place of a Com port in Linux? I have looked at the devices and researched online for USB serial devices names. TTY is what I found.
By using "dmesg" I have determined that my USB cable from the weather station console is seen as ttyUSB0.
The connection from my Vue Pro 2 works as Com3 on the Windows computer.

You should replace COM3 with the following:

Code: Select all

/dev/ttyUSB0

[mcrossley]

I assume you have Apache running on the same Linux PC as CMX as that is the only way it will work.

You do not need Apache or any web server to run Cumulus, only if you want to host your own website.

@OP when moving from Windows to Linux, you can just copy the whole folder over, then edit Cumulus.ini either via a text editor or via the Cumulus Dashboard interface to make the COM port change. That way you will retain all your original configuration, history, and records.

This does assume that you have the same locales configured on both machines.

[oldeflyer]

Thanks for all the replies.
broadstairs - Except for the Apache what you wrote is what I thought should happen. I only mentioned the Apache server so it would indicate the Linux was reachable.

freddie - That is exactly the information I was looking for. I am sort of technical when comes to computers and programs. Gotta know how these things work inside:-)

Mark - I was going to move all my data sub-directory over after I got the thing at least talking to the console. I knew MX had it's on web host, just mentioned the Apache server so it would indicate the Linux was reachable.

I think I'm going to start over with a reboot and re-extract the MX files from the zip.

[broadstairs]

My bad I'd not checked to see CMX did not need Apache, I've always had it running so didn't check.

Stuart

[oldeflyer]

Stuart - np. When I first started with MX on Windows I installed Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) because I thought I need a web server. Didn't need it at all.

I am running the Raspberry OS on an old Acer laptop. Originally used pi login and unzipped the distro to /home/pi/CumulusMX.
Interesting point about totally undoing the unzip for CumulusMX though. Several of the directories/files were owned by root and in the root group. The cleanup was NOT straight forward. Had to change owner so I could delete all the distro. Restarted the Linux machine.

Got the distro removed and re-added. Rebooted. Ran "sudo mono Cumulus.exe -debug" from the CumulusMX directory.
Started as expected with the station not set message. Was able to get to the MX wizard page this time. The program was smart enough (unlike installer ) to know it was on Linux and put the /dev/ttyUSB0 in the com port line. Thanks for that Mr. Programmer.

Shutdown MX. Had to do the chown again to get my data files into the root owned data directory.
Copied over my Cumulus.ini file and edited the com port line.

Fired up program again and it caught up the console archive and is displaying current data as well as all my data from the first of the year.

Thanks for all the help.
Wayne

[oldeflyer]

Hello again,
Trying to run CumulusMX as a service seemed to work... at first.
I set the service up as per posts on here and the Wiki. It worked until shutdown the RPi4 to move it from it's test location to its permanent spot.
Now I'm getting a could not resolve host " raspberrt4" message in the status message.
This is a home network with a DSL modem that gives out addresses (DHCP). The hostname of the computer is raspberry4, which was set when I installed the OS. The Linux dnsdomainname command returns Home.
I have set the MAC address in the DHCP to always give the same IP address to the RPi4 computer.
There is no domain name server on this LAN, just a couple of Windows computers.

Why am I getting this message now and why doesn't service start when it ran before? Any help would be appreciated. Even a url that might point me in the right direction,
BTW, CumulusMX will still run interactively.

Thanks,
Wayne

[freddie]

Could you please post your MXdiags log containing logging of the startup? Also the messages logged to your systemctl log. Plus your cumulusmx.service file.

[mcrossley]

Sounds like after moving the install the service for hasn't been changed and registered. The logs and service file requested by freddie will be useful

[oldeflyer]

Mark,
This is AFTER I moved the software and got it running.
I shutdown and moved the RPi computer.

Freddie,
After I restarted the RPi computer I checked the cumulusmx service status using 'systemctl status cumulusmx' and got this.
● cumulusmx.service - CumulusMX service
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/cumulusmx.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Fri 2022-04-22 15:07:17 EDT; 3h 12min ago
Docs: https://cumuluswiki.org/a/Main_Page
Process: 563 ExecStart=/usr/bin/mono-service -d:/home/pi/CumulusMX CumulusMX.exe -service (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 566 (mono)
Tasks: 11 (limit: 4915)
CPU: 9min 49.465s
CGroup: /system.slice/cumulusmx.service
└─566 /usr/bin/mono /usr/lib/mono/4.5/mono-service.exe -d:/home/pi/CumulusMX CumulusMX.exe -service

Apr 22 15:07:17 raspberry4.Home systemd[1]: Starting CumulusMX service...
Apr 22 15:07:17 raspberry4.Home systemd[1]: Started CumulusMX service.
Apr 22 15:07:21 raspberry4.Home mono[566]: CumulusMX.exe: Could not resolve host 'raspberry4.Home'

Wayne

PS. Had to add '.txt' to service file for attachment

[oldeflyer]

This WAS running as a service.
All I did was shut it down, unplugged everything, moved the hardware, rerouted the cables and restarted.
That is what has me so confused.
I thought I was getting the hang of this Linux stuff.

[freddie]

Nothing wrong with the systemd unit file or your logs. To be honest, I think the service started up just fine - based on what is in the logs and your systemctl status log messages. I wouldn't worry about the "could not resolve host" log message - it appears that start-up was successful, and there would be no requirement to resolve a hostname in order to start the service.

[oldeflyer]

Freddie,
Thanks for looking at that for me.
I could not find the service using 'topc' and the CumulusMX dashboard would not connect from the browser.
When I ran the systemctl program it looked like the service started then quit.

Maybe I needed to use a different tool to find out if the service is running.
I will look into that.

Thanks again,
Wayne

[freddie]

journalctl -xe should have some details.