Wireless Weather Station V1 - Using Raspberry Pi Pico and Pi Zero 2W

vrishabkakade/wireless_weatherstation_v1: This repository contains all the code for the weather station (github.com)

The complete instructions along with screenshots is available in the attached document "Wireless Weather Station Build v1.pdf"

This project aims to construct a wireless personalized weather station capable of measuring various atmospheric and environmental parameters. The station will monitor and display the following:

1.   Temperature

2.   Humidity

3.   Barometric Pressure

4.   Wind Speed

5.   Wind Direction

6.   Rainfall

7.   Dew Point

The project is inspired by the Raspberry Pi Foundation's “Build your own weather station”. However, this project will make the sender wireless and integrate the sender and receiver hardware with WeeWX: open source weather software.

I have previously deployed the Raspberry Pi's weather station following their instructions and the live real-time data can be viewed at Betta Forecast. I have also integrated RPi weather station with Weewx.

Version 1 of the wireless weather station is a proof of concept that will be executed on a breadboard and indoors. This project aims to understand how the architecture works before going to more complex prototype builds.

Subsequent versions will build a prototype that will be deployed on the field.

This project has the potential to provide valuable insights into local weather conditions and environmental factors. It can be used for various applications such as personal weather forecasting, gardening, and scientific research. By making the sender wireless, the station can be placed in remote locations or areas with difficult access to power outlets. The integration with WeeWX allows for easy data storage, visualization, and sharing.

To ensure the success of this project, careful planning and execution are necessary. This includes selecting the appropriate sensors, designing the wireless communication system, and integrating the hardware with WeeWX. The project also involves data analysis and visualization to make the weather data meaningful and accessible.

Overall, this project is an exciting opportunity to create a customized weather station that meets specific needs and preferences. It combines hardware, software, and data analysis to provide a comprehensive understanding of local weather conditions.

The data gathered from the deployed sensors can be utilized in various ways. One exciting application is feeding the data into advanced AI models like Google DeepMind's GraphCast. GraphCast is a powerful AI system that can perform graph-based forecasting. By leveraging GraphCast, we can generate accurate and granular forecasts of local weather conditions. This has the potential to revolutionize weather forecasting, providing real-time and hyper-local predictions that can be tailored to specific geographic areas.

Another potential open-source application that can use this data is Microsoft's FarmVibes.AI: Multi-Modal GeoSpatial ML Models for Agriculture and Sustainability

The integration of sensor data with AI models like GraphCast opens up a wide range of possibilities. Here are some examples of how this combination can enhance weather forecasting:

1. Improved Accuracy: By incorporating real-time sensor data, AI models can learn from the latest observations and make more accurate predictions. This can help mitigate the limitations of traditional weather forecasting models, which often rely on historical data and may not capture sudden changes in weather patterns.
2. Granular Forecasting: The combination of sensor data and AI enables the generation of highly granular forecasts. Instead of relying on broad regional forecasts, users can access localized predictions for specific neighborhoods or even streets. This level of detail is particularly valuable for applications such as agriculture, transportation, and disaster management.
3. Real-Time Monitoring: With the continuous flow of data from the sensors, AI models can perform real-time monitoring of weather conditions. This allows for the detection of rapidly changing weather patterns, such as thunderstorms or sudden wind shifts, providing timely alerts and warnings to affected communities.
4. Climate Analysis: The long-term collection of sensor data can be used for climate analysis. By studying the historical data, scientists and researchers can gain insights into climate patterns, identify trends, and assess the impact of climate change on local weather conditions.
5. Smart City Applications: In smart cities, real-time weather data can be integrated with urban infrastructure to improve traffic management, energy efficiency, and public safety. For example, data from weather sensors can be used to adjust traffic signals in response to changing weather conditions, reducing congestion and improving overall mobility.

By leveraging the power of open-source and advanced AI models, this project has the potential to transform weather forecasting, offering more accurate, granular, and timely predictions that can benefit individuals, communities, and organizations worldwide.

The full instructions can be downloaded in the attached pdf file

Parts

Buy Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Online at Robu.in x 1

Raspberry Pi Pico W (robu.in) x 1 (Pico also will work)

Buy 2.54MM pitch 40 Pin Male Double Row (2x20) Pin Header Strip Breakable-10pcs (robu.in)

SX1278 LoRa Module Ra- 02 433MHZ Wireless Spread Spectrum Transmission – Robocraze x 1

5V 3A ERD Power Adapter with Micro USB cable × 1

BME280 Temperature Sensor Module × 1

Weather Meter Kit SparkFun x 1

HASTHIP® Wire Crimping Tool Wire Cutter Ratchet Wire Crimper Set with 1550PCS Dupont Connectors Male/Female Pin 0.1-1.0mm² for 2.54/3.96mm KF2510 Connector 28-18AWG x 1

SanDisk Ultra 64GB microSDXC UHS-I, 140MB/s R, Memory Card, 10 Y Warranty, for Smartphones x 1

Buy 24 AWG Jumper Cable 150mm Red at the Best Price Online in India (robu.in) x 1

Buy GL-12 840 Points Solderless Breadboard online at the best price in India|Robu.in x 1

Buy 50 CM Micro USB Cable Online at Robu.in x 1

4.7k Ohm 0.5W Metal Film Resistor (Pack of 50) (Only 1 is needed)

Plusivo Soldering Kit With Diagonal Wire Cutter × 1

💻Hardware Setup

The BME280, Wind Vane, Anemometer, Rain Gauge and LoRa transmitter are connected to Raspberry Pi Pico W (Pico without the wireless option can be used as well). The Pico will transmit the data wirelessly to a LoRa-connected Raspberry Pi (in my case I use Pi Zero 2 W, but any version of Pi can be used) which will act as a receiver and process the data received.

🔳 Software Setup

Data storage will be managed using the Weewx platform, while data visualisation will be achieved through customisable skins.

1. Raspberry Pi OS: Raspberry Pi OS Lite, Release date: March 15th 2024, System: 32-bit, Kernel version: 6.6, Debian version: 12 (bookworm). I'm picking a non-desktop variant as I only need this to run the weather station and nothing else as the Zero 2 W hardware isn't very powerful
2. Pico W Firmware: Raspberry Pi Pico W (RPI_PICO-20240602-v1.23.0.uf2)
3. WeeWX: v5.0.2
4. Apache: v2.4

1.   Download and install the Raspberry Pi Imager from Raspberry Pi OS – Raspberry Pi for Windows

2. Insert the microSD card into the PC and launch the imager. The imager can download the required software and do the work, but in my case, I’ve downloaded the software ahead of time as I have internet restrictions at times.

Download the 32 bit Lite version software from Operating system images – Raspberry Pi

32-bit and lite version should do as I don’t need a desktop and I’m using Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W which only has 512 MB of memory. So 64 bit isn’t required and I don’t want to overhead of running GUI. I’m only going to run the weather station software on this hardware.

3. Click on choose device and select Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

4. Next click on Choose OS -> Use custom (Select a custom .img from your computer

Select the 2024-03-15-raspios-bookworm-armhf-lite.img.xz file that was previously downloaded.

Select the storage

Click Next

Edit Settings

Enable SSH

Click Save. Say Yes to apply customization and you will see the below screen. Say Yes

Once this is complete, remove the microSD card and insert it into the Pi.

🖥️Configure the OS

Now the Raspberry Pi is ready to be booted up. Plug it into the power source.

Using putty or any other terminal application, login. In my case the hostname is bettaforecastpi

🔳 Check for Updates

Update process hangs during a fresh installation of Raspberry Pi OS - Raspberry Pi Forums

There’s an issue where the processes can hang and run out of memory as the RAM on the pi zero is just 512M and swap by default is 100M. Increase the swap to 1024M by editing the below file

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~ $ sudo vi /etc/dphys-swapfile 

change CONF_SWAPSIZE=100 to 1024

Reboot for the changes to take effect.

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~ $ sudo reboot

Check for any updates

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~ $ sudo apt update

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~ $ sudo apt upgrade 

🛠️Configure the Pi to enable certain options

Run the command

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~ $ sudo raspi-config 

Select “8 Update”

Then run the below option to enable interfaces

3 Interface Options

Enable SPI, I2C, Serial Port, 1-Wire and Remote GPIO. Click Finish once done.

🛠️Install Pip

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~ $ mkdir weather-station/

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~ $ cd weather-station/

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~/weather-station $ sudo apt install python3-pip

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~/weather-station $ pip --version

pip 23.0.1 from /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip (python 3.11)

We get the below error when we try to install anything with pip.

error: externally-managed-environment

× This environment is externally managed

╰─> To install Python packages system-wide, try apt install

   python3-xyz, where xyz is the package you are trying to

   install.

   If you wish to install a non-Debian-packaged Python package,

   create a virtual environment using python3 -m venv path/to/venv.

   Then use path/to/venv/bin/python and path/to/venv/bin/pip. Make

   sure you have python3-full installed.

   For more information visit http://rptl.io/venv

note: If you believe this is a mistake, please contact your Python installation or OS distribution provider. You can override this, at the risk of breaking your Python installation or OS, by passing --break-system-packages.

hint: See PEP 668 for the detailed specification.

Solution: https://www.makeuseof.com/fix-pip-error-externally-managed-environment-linux/

Remove the EXTERNALLY-MANAGED EXTERNALLY-MANAGED file

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/usr/lib/python3.11 $ cd /usr/lib/python3.11

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/usr/lib/python3.11 $ sudo mv EXTERNALLY-MANAGED EXTERNALLY-MANAGED.orig

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/usr/lib/python3.11 $ cd ~/weather-station/

💿Flashing the Image

Source: MicroPython - Raspberry Pi Documentation

I will be using Micropython to write the code.

Download the correct MicroPython UF2 file for your board:

• Raspberry Pi Pico
• Raspberry Pi Pico W with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth LE support

Documentation introducing working with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on Raspberry Pi Pico W with C/C++ or MicroPython is presented in the Connecting to the Internet with Raspberry Pi Pico W book. Full details of supported Bluetooth protocols and profiles are Blue Kitchen BTStack Github repository.

Note: MicroPython distributions for other RP2040-based boards are available on the MicroPython download page.

Then go ahead and:

1. Push and hold the BOOTSEL button and plug your Pico into the USB port of your Raspberry Pi or other computer. Release the BOOTSEL button after your Pico is connected.
2. It will mount as a Mass Storage Device called RPI-RP2.
3. Drag and drop the MicroPython UF2 file onto the RPI-RP2 volume. Your Pico will reboot. You are now running MicroPython.
4. You can access the REPL via USB Serial.

The Raspberry Pi Pico Python SDK book contains step-by-step instructions for connecting to your Pico and programming it in MicroPython using both the command line and the Thonny IDE.

🎐 Setup the Weather Meter

Follow the instructions at Weather Meter Hookup Guide - SparkFun Learn to set up the wind vane, anemometer and rain gauge.

🎐 Connect the sensors and LoRa to Pico - Sender

Follow the wiring diagram and connect the components – BME280, LoRa, Wind Vane, Anemometer (this doesn’t connect directly but connects to the wind vane), and Rain Gauge. The Pico will act as the sender that will transmit the weather data to the Pi zero.

In my case, I have stripped the RJ 11 jacks from the rain gauge and Wind Vane as it was hard for me to procure RJ 11 female jacks. So I connect the wires directly to the board using Dupont connectors. 4 wires come from the wind vane (2 for the wind vane and 2 for the anemometer) and 2 from the rain gauge. They are color-coded as shown in the diagram. The polarity doesn’t matter.

🎐 Connect LoRa to Pi - Receiver

Connect the LoRa receiver as per the below diagram to the Raspberry Pi. 

🔳 Setup the software code (Program)

Reference: What you will need | Build your own weather station | Python | Coding projects for kids and teens (raspberrypi.org)

🛠️Pico

Download the code from GitHub Pico Code from GitHub

Install Thonny, Python IDE for beginners if not already done so.

Once the Pico is connected to the PC, Thonny should be able to recognize it automatically. If it doesn’t recognize the Pico, ensure the settings are correct.

Copy the files main.py, bme280.py and ulora.py using Thonny IDE to Pico. Pico will automatically run main.py every time it is powered up.

At this point hit run and you should see the packets being sent.

Refer to the full pdf for inline screenshots.

Source: Debian - WeeWX 5.0

Tell your system to trust weewx.com.

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~/weather-station $ sudo apt install -y wget gnupg

wget -qO - https://weewx.com/keys.html | \

   sudo gpg --dearmor --output /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/weewx.gpg

Tell apt where to find the WeeWX repository.

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~/weather-station $ echo "deb [arch=all] https://weewx.com/apt/python3 buster main" | \

   sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/weewx.list

Install

Use apt to install WeeWX. The installer will prompt for a location, latitude/longitude, altitude, station type, and parameters specific to your station hardware. When you are done, WeeWX will be running in the background.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install weewx

Provide answers on the screen. Install the simulator. We will change it later to use our driver. 

🕸️Install Apache Web Server

Source: How To Install the Apache Web Server on Ubuntu | DigitalOcean

🕸️Step 1 — Installing Apache

Apache is available within Ubuntu’s default software repositories, making it possible to install it using conventional package management tools.

Begin by updating the local package index to reflect the latest upstream changes. Then, install the apache2 package:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo apt update

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo apt install apache2 

🧱Step 2 — Adjusting the Firewall

Before testing Apache, it’s necessary to modify the firewall settings to allow outside access to the default web ports. If you followed the instructions in the prerequisites, you should have a UFW firewall configured to restrict access to your server.

During installation, Apache registers itself with UFW to provide a few application profiles that can be used to enable or disable access to Apache through the firewall.

List the ufw application profiles by running the following:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo ufw app list 

Available applications:

 Apache

 Apache Full

 Apache Secure

 OpenSSH

As indicated by the output, there are three profiles available for Apache:

• Apache: This profile opens only port 80 (normal, unencrypted web traffic)
• Apache Full: This profile opens both port 80 (normal, unencrypted web traffic) and port 443 (TLS/SSL encrypted traffic)
• Apache Secure: This profile opens only port 443 (TLS/SSL encrypted traffic)

Allow on HTTP and HTTPS

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo ufw allow 'Apache Full' 

Rules updated

Rules updated (v6)

Firewall isn’t active

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo ufw status 

Status: inactive

🖥️Step 3 — Checking your Web Server

At the end of the installation process, Ubuntu starts Apache. The web server will already be up and running.

Make sure the service is active by running the command for the systemd init system:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo systemctl status apache2 

● apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server

    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)

    Active: active (running) since Fri 2024-04-12 06:06:06 UTC; 3min 12s ago

      Docs: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/

  Main PID: 9806 (apache2)

     Tasks: 55 (limit: 2220)

    Memory: 5.0M

       CPU: 59ms

    CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service

            ├─9806 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

            ├─9807 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

            └─9808 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

Apr 12 06:06:06 cloud009.annaiservers.com systemd[1]: Starting The Apache HTTP Server...

Apr 12 06:06:06 cloud009.annaiservers.com apachectl[9805]: AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using cloud009.annaiservers.>

Apr 12 06:06:06 cloud009.annaiservers.com systemd[1]: Started The Apache HTTP Server.

Test the page http://127.0.0.1 (or your local IP/hostname)

After installing Apache, the default Weewx page is accessible from

http://[IP_OR_HOSTNAME_OF_PI]/weewx

👩‍🔧Raspberry Pi driver for Weewx

Source: BYOWS_RPi/bin/user/byows_rpi.py at master · jardiamj/BYOWS_RPi · GitHub

BYOWS_RPi/README.md at master · jardiamj/BYOWS_RPi (github.com)

I have modified the BYOWS_RPI driver to include LoRa communication.

Installation

download the latest release from GitHub into your WeeWx directory https://github.com/vrishabkakade/weatherstation/blob/main/Pi%20Zero%20code/BYOWS_RPi_LoRa-v1.zip

wget https://github.com/vrishabkakade/wireless_weatherstation_v1/blob/0f4f853722ce6556a7ca550df5c1a6cfaac60785/Pi%20Zero%20code/BYOWS_RPi_LoRa-v1.zip

Once it is downloaded, run the WeeWX Extension installer. This will install the driver and add the default configuration items to your WeeWX.conf file

sudo weectl extension BYOWS_RPi_LoRa-v1.zip

🛠️ Configuration

To enable the byows_rpi_lora driver modify the weewx.conf file and change the "station_type" variable to "BYOWS_LORA" in the "[Station]" section. Configure the driver by looking for the BYOWS stanza at the end of the file.

weewx@bettaforecastpi:~ $ cd /etc/weewx/

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/etc/weewx $ sudo vi weewx.conf

The driver automatically adds the below parameters.

The sender sends the data every 5 seconds to conserve power. This collection frequency can be altered on the Pico side by changing the sleep to the required time.

[BYOWS_LORA]

   # [REQUIRED]

   # The driver to use.

   driver = user.byows_rpi_lora

   loop_interval = 5

Install numpy as the signal strength calculation uses it.

sudo pip3 install numpy

👩‍🔧CUSTOMIZATION

I couldn’t get Weewx to run as a non-root user through the service. It works fine from the command line. To run it as root, comment out the user and group from the below file.

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/etc/weewx/bin/user $ sudo cp /lib/systemd/system/weewx.service /lib/systemd/system/weewx.service.orig

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/etc/weewx/bin/user $ sudo vi /lib/systemd/system/weewx.service

Comment

#User=weewx

#Group=weewx

Reload the service and check the status.

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/etc/weewx/bin/user $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/etc/weewx/bin/user $ sudo systemctl start weewx

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/etc/weewx/bin/user $ sudo systemctl status weewx

At this point, you will get a basic weather station dashboard working with Weewx

You can do this step if you want to publish the data in real time to a dedicated server on the internet. You can see an example of this on my site Bettamugilalam, TN, India Weather Conditions (bettaforecast.in).

I do this as I’m unable to access my Pi directly from the internet due to complications with getting a public IP on a mobile network and I don’t want to open up access directly to the Pi from the internet.

🕸️ Setup The VPS Server to act as Webserver

I have procured a VPS from Annai Tech. I will use this to act as the webserver to display the front end.

DISTRIB_ID: Ubuntu

DISTRIB_RELEASE: 22.04 

🧑Create Username

Create a username called weewx that we will use to install the web server

Source: How to Create Users in Linux (useradd Command) | Linuxize

root@cloud009:~# useradd weewx

root@cloud009:~# id weewx 

uid=1000(weewx) gid=1000(weewx) groups=1000(weewx)

Create user password

root@cloud009:~# passwd weewx 

New password:

Retype new password:

passwd: password updated successfully

Since -m option wasn’t passed when creating the user, run the below command to add home directory for the weewx user

root@cloud009:~# mkhomedir_helper weewx 

🔳 Change the default shell of weex to bash

$ echo $SHELL 

/bin/sh

$ cat /etc/shells 

# /etc/shells: valid login shells

/bin/sh

/bin/bash

/usr/bin/bash

/bin/rbash

/usr/bin/rbash

/usr/bin/sh

/bin/dash

/usr/bin/dash

/usr/bin/tmux

/usr/bin/screen

$ chsh 

Password:

Changing the login shell for weewx

Enter the new value, or press ENTER for the default

       Login Shell [/bin/sh]: /bin/bash

$ echo $SHELL 

/bin/sh

🔳 CHANGE SHELL COLOR FOR WEEWX TO GREEN

This will help identify if I’ve logged in as root or weewx

weewx@cloud009:~$ cp .bashrc .bashrc.orig

weewx@cloud009:~$ vi .bashrc 

Add the below

export PS1="\e[0;31m[\u@\h \w]\$ \e[m"

source ~/.bashrc

🔳 CHANGE SHELL COLOR FOR ROOT TO RED

root@cloud009:~# cp .bashrc .bashrc.orig

root@cloud009:~# vi .bashrc 

Add the below

export PS1="\e[0;32m[\u@\h \w]\$ \e[m"

source ~/.bashrc

Here is a reference of all the colour codes that can be used.

Color Code

Color

0;30

Black

0;31

Red

0;32

Green

0;33

Brown

0;34

Blue

0;35

Purple

0;36

Cyan

0;37

White

🔑 SETUP KEYPAIR FOR WEEWX TO LOGIN WITHOUT A PASSWORD.

Use Puttygen to generate the keypair

Click on “Generate”

Move your mouse randomly inside the box.

Save the public and private keys to a file in a secure location.

Copy the public key to the server.

Login as weewx

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ cd ~

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ mkdir .ssh

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ cd .ssh

[weewx@cloud009 ~/.ssh]$ vi authorized_keys 

Copy the public key generated

Create a session in putty

Pass the private key file

Save

🦾Add weewx to sudo

Source: How To Create A New Sudo Enabled User on Ubuntu | DigitalOcean

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ groups 

weewx

root@cloud009:~# usermod -aG sudo weewx

root@cloud009:~# su - weewx 

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".

See "man sudo_root" for details.

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ groups 

weewx sudo

Source: How to Point a Domain Name to VPS (hostinger.in)

I have purchased a domain called bettaforecast.in from Hostinger

To use a custom domain name with a virtual private server (VPS), you must make a few DNS changes. Otherwise, your website will become inaccessible since the DNS server can’t resolve your domain into its IP address.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to point a domain name to VPS using three methods – changing the A record, configuring Cloudflare, or using custom nameservers.

If you purchased the domain from Hostinger, you can easily change the DNS record entries via hPanel:

1. Navigate to hPanel → Domains and select the domain in question.
2. Click DNS/Nameserver on the sidebar.
3. In the DNS record tab, go to the Manage DNS records section.
4. Find an existing A and CNAME record type in the DNS zone and replace their value with your VPS IP address.

You can test by clicking on intoDNS: bettaforecast.in - check DNS server and mail server health

🖥️Step 5 — Setting Up Virtual Hosts (Recommended)

I’m setting up apache on a remote server to display reports.

When using the Apache web server, you can use virtual hosts (similar to server blocks in Nginx) to encapsulate configuration details and host more than one domain from a single server. We will set up a domain called bettaforecast.

Apache on Ubuntu has one server block enabled by default that is configured to serve documents from the /var/www/html directory. While this works well for a single site, it can become unwieldy if you are hosting multiple sites. Instead of modifying /var/www/html, create a directory structure within /var/www for a bettaforecast site, leaving /var/www/html in place as the default directory to be served if a client request doesn’t match any other sites.

The permissions of your web root should be correct if you haven’t modified your umask value, which sets default file permissions. To ensure that your permissions are correct and allow the owner to read, write, and execute the files while granting only read and execute permissions to groups and others, you can input the following command:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo mkdir /var/www/bettaforecast

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /var/www/bettaforecast/

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/bettaforecast/

 Next, create a sample index.html page

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo vi /var/www/bettaforecast/index.html 

<html>

   <head>

       <title>Welcome to Betta Forecast!</title>

   </head>

   <body>

       <h1>Success! The bettaforecast virtual host is working!</h1>

   </body>

</html>

In order for Apache to serve this content, it’s necessary to create a virtual host file with the correct directives. Instead of modifying the default configuration file located at /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf directly, make a new one at /etc/apache2/sites-available/bettaforecast.conf:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo vi /etc/apache2/sites-available/bettaforecast.conf 

<VirtualHost *:80>

   ServerAdmin vrishabkakade@gmail.com

   ServerName bettaforecast.in

   ServerAlias www.bettaforecast

   DocumentRoot /var/www/bettaforecast

   ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log

   CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Notice that we’ve updated the DocumentRoot to our new directory and ServerAdmin to an email that the bettaforecast site administrator can access. We’ve also added two directives: ServerName, which establishes the base domain that will match this virtual host definition, and ServerAlias, which defines further names that will match as if they were the base name.

Save and close the file when you are finished.

Now enable the file with the a2ensite tool:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo a2ensite bettaforecbettaforecast.conf 

Enabling site bettaforecast.

To activate the new configuration, you need to run:

 systemctl reload apache2

Disable the default site defined in 000-default.conf:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf 

Site 000-default disabled.

To activate the new configuration, you need to run:

 systemctl reload apache2

Next, test for configuration errors:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo apache2ctl configtest 

AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using cloud009.annaiservers.com. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message

Syntax OK

Restart Apache to implement your changes:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo systemctl restart apache2 

So far the weather station has only been accessible from the LAN. Now it is time to set up the connectivity to the webserver we created in the previous section.

🔁Setup Rsync from Weewx to Webserver

Source: [StdReport] - WeeWX 5.0

While this "report" does not actually generate anything, it uses the report machinery to upload files from directory HTML_ROOT to a remote webserver using rsync. Fast, efficient, and secure, it does an incremental update, that is, it only synchronizes those parts of a file that have changed, saving the outgoing bandwidth of your Internet connection.

If you wish to use rsync, you must configure passwordless ssh using public/private key authentication from the user account that WeeWX runs, to the user account on the remote machine where the files will be copied.

enable

Set to true (the default) to enable rsync. Set to false to disable.

server

Set to the name of your server. This name should appear in your .ssh/config file. Required. No default

user

Set to the ssh username you use for your rsync connection to your web server. The local user that WeeWX runs as must have passwordless ssh configured for user@server. Required. No default.

path

Set to the path where the weather data will be stored on your webserver (e.g., /var/www/html/weather). Make sure user has write privileges in this directory. Required. No default.

port

The port to use for the ssh connection. Default is to use the default port for the ssh command (generally 22).

delete

Files that don't exist in the local report are removed from the remote location.

Warning

USE WITH CAUTION! If you make a mistake in setting the path, this can cause unexpected files to be deleted on the remote server.

Valid values are 1 to enable and 0 to disable. Required. Default is 0.

🔐Setup passwordless SSH

The weather station Raspberry Pi needs to login without a password to the webserver. I will set it up for root as I run Weewx as root. I couldn’t get it to run as non-root user even though it is supported.

vrishabkakade@freedompi.local:~/.ssh$ sudo su

root@freedompi:/home/vrishabkakade/.ssh# cd ~

root@freedompi:~# ls -lrat 

total 40

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 161 Jul 9 2019 .profile

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 571 Apr 11 2021 .bashrc

drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Mar 15 20:29 .ssh

drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Mar 15 20:47 .vnc

drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Apr 1 19:20 .cache

-rw------- 1 root root 2143 Apr 4 21:01 .mysql_history

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 180 Apr 5 18:42 .wget-hsts

drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 Apr 9 20:48 ..

-rw------- 1 root root  20 Apr 9 20:48 .lesshst

drwx------ 5 root root 4096 Apr 9 20:48 .

root@freedompi:~# cd .ssh

root@freedompi:~/.ssh# vi config 

Host bettaforecat.in

   HostName bettaforecast.in

   User weewx

   IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

root@freedompi:~/.ssh# chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config 

root@freedompi:~/.ssh# ssh-keygen 

Generating public/private rsa key pair.

Enter file in which to save the key (/root/.ssh/id_rsa):

Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):

Enter same passphrase again:

Your identification has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa

Your public key has been saved in /root/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Login to bettaforecast.in

On remote server, add the public key

[weewx@cloud009 /var/www/bettaforecast]$ cd

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ cd .ssh/

[weewx@cloud009 ~/.ssh]$ vi authorized_keys 

Add the public key

🔛ENABLE RSYNC

Back on the Raspberry Pi

vrishabkakade@freedompi:~ $ cd /etc/weewx/

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/etc/weewx $ cp weewx.conf weewx.conf.`date +%Y%m%d` 

Under [StdReport]

   [[RSYNC]]

       # rsync'ing to a webserver is treated as just another report.

       skin = Rsync

       # If you wish to use rsync, you must configure passwordless ssh using

       # public/private key authentication from the user account that weewx

       # runs to the user account on the remote machine where the files

       # will be copied.

       #

       # If you wish to use rsync, set "enable" to "true", then

       # fill out server, user, and path.

       # The server should appear in your .ssh/config file.

       # The user is the username used in the identity file.

       # The path is the destination directory, such as /var/www/html/weather.

       # Be sure that the user has write permissions on the destination!

       enable = true

       server = bettaforecast.in

       user = weewx

       path = /var/www/bettaforecast

       # To upload files from something other than what HTML_ROOT is set

       # to above, specify a different HTML_ROOT here.

       #HTML_ROOT = /var/www/html/weewx

       # Rsync can be configured to remove files from the remote server if

       # they don't exist under HTML_ROOT locally. USE WITH CAUTION: if you

       # make a mistake in the remote path, you could could unintentionally

       # cause unrelated files to be deleted. Set to 1 to enable remote file

       # deletion, zero to allow files to accumulate remotely.

       delete = 0

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/etc/weewx $ sudo systemctl restart weewx

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/etc/weewx $ sudo systemctl status weewx 

● weewx.service - WeeWX

    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/weewx.service; enabled; preset: enabled)

    Active: active (running) since Fri 2024-04-12 16:09:48 IST; 5s ago

      Docs: https://weewx.com/docs

  Main PID: 16834 (python3)

     Tasks: 10 (limit: 4444)

       CPU: 470ms

    CGroup: /system.slice/weewx.service

            └─16834 python3 /usr/share/weewx/weewxd.py /etc/weewx/weewx.conf

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO weewx.restx: WOW: Data for station 00ef03c0-7cf6-ee11-a81c-0022489bcb24 will be posted

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO weewx.restx: AWEKAS: Posting not enabled.

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO user.windy: version is 0.7

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO user.windy: Data will be uploaded to https://stations.windy.com/pws/update

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO weewx.engine: 'pyephem' detected, extended almanac data is available

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO __main__: Starting up weewx version 5.0.2

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO weewx.engine: Using binding 'wx_binding' to database 'weewx.sdb'

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO weewx.manager: Starting backfill of daily summaries

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO weewx.manager: Daily summaries up to date

Apr 12 16:09:48 freedompi weewxd[16834]: INFO weewx.engine: Starting main packet loop.

Source: How To Secure Apache with Let's Encrypt on Ubuntu | DigitalOcean

Back on the webserver bettaforecast.in

Let’s Encrypt is a Certificate Authority (CA) that facilitates obtaining and installing free TLS/SSL certificates, thereby enabling encrypted HTTPS on web servers. It streamlines the process by providing a software client, Certbot, that attempts to automate most (if not all) of the required steps. Currently, the entire process of obtaining and installing a certificate is fully automated on both Apache and Nginx.

In this guide, you’ll use Certbot to obtain a free SSL certificate for Apache on Ubuntu and make sure this certificate is set up to renew automatically.

This tutorial uses a separate virtual host file instead of Apache’s default configuration file for setting up the website that will be secured by Let’s Encrypt. We recommend creating new Apache virtual host files for each domain hosted in a server because it helps to avoid common mistakes and maintains the default configuration files as a fallback setup.

❗Prerequisite

To follow this tutorial, you will need:

• One Ubuntu server set up with a non-root user with sudo administrative privileges and firewall enabled. You can set this up by following our initial server setup for Ubuntu tutorial.
• A fully registered domain name. This tutorial will use your_domain as an example throughout. You can purchase a domain name on Namecheap, get one for free on Freenom, or use the domain registrar of your choice.
• Both of the following DNS records set up for your server. You can follow this introduction to DigitalOcean DNS for details on how to add them.
• An A record with your_domain pointing to your server’s public IP address.
• An A record with www.your_domain pointing to your server’s public IP address.
• Apache installed by following How To Install Apache on Ubuntu. Be sure that you have a virtual host file for your domain. This tutorial will use /etc/apache2/sites-available/your_domain.conf as an example.

🎖️Step 1 — Installing Certbot

To obtain an SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt, you need to install the Certbot software on your server. You’ll use the default Ubuntu package repositories for that.

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo apt update

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo apt isudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-apache 

Certbot is now installed on your server. In the next step, you’ll verify Apache’s configuration to make sure your virtual host is set appropriately. This will ensure that the certbot client script will be able to detect your domains and reconfigure your web server to use your newly generated SSL certificate automatically.

🖥️Step 2 — Checking your Apache Virtual Host Configuration

To automatically obtain and configure SSL for your web server, Certbot needs to find the correct virtual host within your Apache configuration files. Your server domain name(s) will be retrieved from the ServerName and ServerAlias directives defined within your VirtualHost configuration block.

If you followed the virtual host setup step in the Apache installation tutorial, you should have a VirtualHost block set up for your domain at /etc/apache2/sites-available/bettaforecast.conf with the ServerName and also the ServerAlias directives already set appropriately.

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo apache2ctl configtest 

AH00558: apache2: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using cloud009.annaiservers.com. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message

Syntax OK

You should receive Syntax OK as a response. If you get an error, reopen the virtual host file and check for any typos or missing characters. Once your configuration file’s syntax is correct, reload Apache so that the changes take effect:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo systemctl reload apache2 

With these changes, Certbot will be able to find the correct VirtualHost block and update it.

Next, you’ll update the firewall to allow HTTPS traffic.

SKIP SETP 3 as no FIREWALL

🔐Step 4 — Obtaining an SSL Certificate

Certbot provides a variety of ways to obtain SSL certificates through plugins. The Apache plugin will take care of reconfiguring Apache and reloading the configuration whenever necessary. To use this plugin, run the following:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo certbot –apache 

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

Enter email address (used for urgent renewal and security notices)

 (Enter 'c' to cancel): vrishabkakade@gmail.com

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Please read the Terms of Service at

https://letsencrypt.org/documents/LE-SA-v1.4-April-3-2024.pdf. You must agree in

order to register with the ACME server. Do you agree?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Y)es/(N)o: Y

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Would you be willing, once your first certificate is successfully issued, to

share your email address with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a founding

partner of the Let's Encrypt project and the non-profit organization that

develops Certbot? We'd like to send you email about our work encrypting the web,

EFF news, campaigns, and ways to support digital freedom.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(Y)es/(N)o: N

Account registered.

Which names would you like to activate HTTPS for?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1: bettaforecast.in

2: www.bettaforecast

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Select the appropriate numbers separated by commas and/or spaces, or leave input

blank to select all options shown (Enter 'c' to cancel): 1

Requesting a certificate for bettaforecast.in

Successfully received certificate.

Certificate is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/fullchain.pem

Key is saved at:        /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/privkey.pem

This certificate expires on 2024-07-11.

These files will be updated when the certificate renews.

Certbot has set up a scheduled task to automatically renew this certificate in the background.

Deploying certificate

Successfully deployed certificate for bettaforecast.in to /etc/apache2/sites-available/bettaforecast-le-ssl.conf

Congratulations! You have successfully enabled HTTPS on https://bettaforecast.in

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If you like Certbot, please consider supporting our work by:

 * Donating to ISRG / Let's Encrypt:  https://letsencrypt.org/donate

 * Donating to EFF:                   https://eff.org/donate-le

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Your certificate is now installed and loaded into Apache’s configuration. Try reloading your website using https:// and notice your browser’s security indicator. It should indicate that your site is properly secured, typically by a lock icon in the address bar.

You can use the SSL Labs Server Test to verify your certificate’s grade and obtain detailed information about it, from the perspective of an external service.

In the next and final step, you’ll test the auto-renewal feature of Certbot, which guarantees that your certificate will be renewed automatically before the expiration date.

🎖️Step 5 — Verifying Certbot Auto-Renewal

Let’s Encrypt’s certificates are only valid for ninety days. This is to encourage users to automate their certificate renewal process, as well as to ensure that misused certificates or stolen keys will expire sooner rather than later.

The certbot package you installed takes care of renewals by including a renew script to /etc/cron.d, which is managed by a systemctl service called certbot.timer. This script runs twice a day and will automatically renew any certificate that’s within thirty days of expiration.

To check the status of this service and make sure it’s active, run the following:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo systesudo systemctl status certbot.timer 

● certbot.timer - Run certbot twice daily

    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/certbot.timer; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)

    Active: active (waiting) since Fri 2024-04-12 10:55:33 UTC; 11min ago

   Trigger: Fri 2024-04-12 13:27:07 UTC; 2h 19min left

  Triggers: ● certbot.service

Apr 12 10:55:33 cloud009.annaiservers.com systemd[1]: Started Run certbot twice daily.

To test the renewal process, you can do a dry run with certbot:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo certbot renew --dry-run 

Saving debug log to /var/log/letsencrypt/letsencrypt.log

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Processing /etc/letsencrypt/renewal/bettaforecast.in.conf

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Account registered.

Simulating renewal of an existing certificate for bettaforecast.in

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Congratulations, all simulated renewals succeeded:

 /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/fullchain.pem (success)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

If you don’t receive any errors, you’re all set. When necessary, Certbot will renew your certificates and reload Apache to pick up the changes. If the automated renewal process ever fails, Let’s Encrypt will send a message to the email you specified, warning you when your certificate is about to expire.

Other good docs (but not needed for my setup)

Source: Home · evilbunny2008/weeWXWeatherApp Wiki · GitHub

➕Step 1, install the Inigo extension for weeWX.

This has to be done on the Raspberry Pi as that is where Weewx is installed.

vrishabkakade@freedompi:~ $ cd /tmp

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ wget -O inigo-metric.tar.gz https://github.com/evilbunny2008/weeWXWeatherApp/releases/download/1.0.17/inigo-metric.tar.gz

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ sudo weectl extension install inigo-metric.tar.gz 

Using configuration file /etc/weewx/weewx.conf

Install extension 'inigo-metric.tar.gz' (y/n)? y

Extracting from tar archive inigo-metric.tar.gz

Saving installer file to /etc/weewx/bin/user/installer/Inigo

Saved copy of configuration as /etc/weewx/weewx.conf.20240412182619

Finished installing extension Inigo from inigo-metric.tar.gz

🌝Step 2, Almanac (optional)

If you would like to see moon rise/set in the app, you just need to install pyephem.

sudo apt -y install python3-ephem 

🔂Step 3, Restarting weeWX

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ sudo systemctl restart weewx

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ sudo systemctl status weewx 

● weewx.service - WeeWX

    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/weewx.service; enabled; preset: enabled)

    Active: active (running) since Fri 2024-04-12 18:28:42 IST; 7s ago

      Docs: https://weewx.com/docs

  Main PID: 17971 (python3)

     Tasks: 10 (limit: 4444)

       CPU: 502ms

    CGroup: /system.slice/weewx.service

            └─17971 python3 /usr/share/weewx/weewxd.py /etc/weewx/weewx.conf

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO weewx.restx: WOW: Data for station 00ef03c0-7cf6-ee11-a81c-0022489bcb24 will be posted

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO weewx.restx: AWEKAS: Posting not enabled.

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO user.windy: version is 0.7

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO user.windy: Data will be uploaded to https://stations.windy.com/pws/update

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO weewx.engine: 'pyephem' detected, extended almanac data is available

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO __main__: Starting up weewx version 5.0.2

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO weewx.engine: Using binding 'wx_binding' to database 'weewx.sdb'

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO weewx.manager: Starting backfill of daily summaries

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO weewx.manager: Daily summaries up to date

Apr 12 18:28:43 freedompi weewxd[17971]: INFO weewx.engine: Starting main packet loop.

📃Step 4, create inigo-settings.txt

You need to change the inigo-settings.txt to provide details about your weather stations. Full details are available in the wiki

Once you're happy with your changes press ctrl+x to exit and save.

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ sudo wget -O /var/www/html/weewx/inigo-settings.txt https://github.com/evilbunny2008/weeWXWeatherApp/releases/download/1.0.3/inigo-settings.txt

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ sudo vi /var/www/html/weewx/inigo-settings.txt

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ cat /var/www/bettaforecast/inigo-settings.txt 

data=https://bettaforecast.in/inigo-data.txt

radtype=image

radar=https://embed.windy.com/embed2.html?lat=-34&lon=151&zoom=11&level=surface&overlay=radar&menu=&message=true&marker=&calendar=&pressure=true&type=map&location=coordinates&detail=&detailLat=-34&detailLon=150&metricWind=km%2Fh&metricTemp=%C2%B0C&radarRange=-1

fctype=met.no

forecast=https://api.met.no/weatherapi/locationforecast/2.0/compact?altitude=1181&lat=12.359722&lon=77.879722

#webcam=http://mx.cafesydney.com:8888/mjpg/video.mjpg

#custom=http://m.bom.gov.au/nsw/sydney/radar/

☔Step 5, using offset rain times (optional)

Historically rainfall is measured in Australia at 9am, so it's useful for comparison reasons to be able to display rain records matching time of day with the Bureau of Meteorology. To enable this simply edit /etc/weewx/since.tmpl and paste the following into it:

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/etc/weewx $ vi /etc/weewx/since.tmpl 

#if $varExists('since')

$since($hour=9).rain.sum.formatted|$since($hour=9,$today=False).rain.sum.formatted|9am|#slurp

#else

|||#slurp

#end if

📱Step 6, installing the app

You can now get the app from Google Play.

On first boot the app will prompt you for the URL to your inigo-settings.txt file, this is usually https://bettaforecast.in/inigo-settings.txt, once entered click save and in a few seconds you should be up and running.

Once saved the settings are cached by the app. If you need to tell the app to re-download the settings, you swipe from the left side of any screen to open the settings pane.

I really like this skin for all the customization options, documentation and real-time updates. In this section I will go through all the setup.

🌧️AerisWeather Forecast API (optional)

Source: GitHub - poblabs/weewx-belchertown: A clean and modern weewx skin with real time streaming updates, forecast data and interactive charts. View it in action at BelchertownWeather.com

AerisWeather's Forecast API is where the current observations and forecast data comes from. The skin will work without this integration, however it is used to show current weather observations and icons as well as the forecast.

You must sign up to use their service. This skin does not provide any forecast data. You need to join their website and get a free developer key. In order to get a free developer key, you have to send your weather data to pwsweather.com - which is an integration built into weewx. You just need to activate it! Once enabled, by default the skin will download and cache every hour.

• If you haven't already; sign up for pwsweather at https://www.pwsweather.com/register
• Add a new station, and configure your weewx.conf to start sending your weather data to pwsweather.
• Then sign up for a free AerisWeather developer account by linking your pwsweather account here https://www.aerisweather.com/signup/pws
• Once you are logged in, you should make a Demo Project as part of the sign up process, then go to https://www.aerisweather.com/account/apps and and save these keys as forecast_api_id and forecast_api_secret.
• The rest of the options can be found below in the Forecast Options table.

Following the instructions on the website, I obtain my key.

📃Install Weewx-Belchertown Skin

1.    Download the latest release.

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ wget https://github.com/poblabs/weewx-belchertown/releases/download/weewx-belchertown-1.3.1/weewx-belchertown-release.1.3.1.tar.gz 

vrishabkakade@freedompi:~ $ sudo weectl extension install weewx-belchertown-release.1.3.1.tar 

Using configuration file /etc/weewx/weewx.conf

Install extension 'weewx-belchertown-release.1.3.1.tar' (y/n)? y

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "/usr/share/weewx/weectl.py", line 74, in

main()

File "/usr/share/weewx/weectl.py", line 66, in main

namespace.func(namespace)

File "/usr/share/weewx/weectllib/init.py", line 121, in dispatch

namespace.action_func(config_dict, namespace)

File "/usr/share/weewx/weectllib/extension_cmd.py", line 116, in install_extension

ext.install_extension(namespace.source, no_confirm=namespace.yes)

File "/usr/share/weewx/weecfg/extension.py", line 143, in install_extension

raise InstallError(f"Unrecognized type for {extension_path}")

weecfg.extension.InstallError: Unrecognized type for weewx-belchertown-release.1.3.1.tar

v1.3.1 Threw errors constantly. So I installed 1.3

wget https://github.com/poblabs/weewx-belchertown/releases/download/weewx-belchertown-1.3/weewx-belchertown-release-1.3.tar.gz

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ sudo weectl extension install weewx-belchertown-release-1.3.tar.gz 

Using configuration file /etc/weewx/weewx.conf

Install extension 'weewx-belchertown-release-1.3.tar.gz' (y/n)? y

Extracting from tar archive weewx-belchertown-release-1.3.tar.gz

Saving installer file to /etc/weewx/bin/user/installer/Belchertown

Saved copy of configuration as /etc/weewx/weewx.conf.20240413114922

Finished installing extension Belchertown from weewx-belchertown-release-1.3.tar.gz

Since I installed as sudo it changed it to root. Change permissions to weewx user

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/tmp $ cd /etc/weewx/

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/etc/weewx $ sudo chown weewx:weewx weewx.conf

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/etc/weewx $ cp weewx.conf weewx.conf.`date +%Y%m%d` 

vrishabkakade@freedompi:~ $ sudo systemctl restart weewx

vrishabkakade@freedompi:~ $ sudo systemctl status weewx

I got the below error after the installation

Uncaught TypeError: Highcharts.chart is not a constructor

   at Object.<anonymous> (belchertown.js?1712999116:2407:25)

   at Function.each (jquery.min.js:2:2623)

   at Object.success (belchertown.js?1712999116:1462:16)

   at u (jquery.min.js:2:27457)

   at Object.fireWith [as resolveWith] (jquery.min.js:2:28202)

   at k (jquery.min.js:2:77651)

   at XMLHttpRequest.<anonymous> (jquery.min.js:2:79907)

After update to highcharts.js today we get Highcharts.chart is not a constructor - Stack Overflow

I changed the code like this:

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/etc/weewx/skins/Belchertown/js $ ls -lrat 

total 304

-rw-rw-r-- 1 weewx weewx   765 Apr 13 11:49 responsive-menu.js

-rw-rw-r-- 1 weewx weewx    14 Apr 13 11:49 index.html

drwxr-sr-x 11 weewx weewx  4096 Apr 13 14:12 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 root weewx 143973 Apr 13 14:51 belchertown.js.tmpl.orig

drwxr-sr-x 2 weewx weewx  4096 Apr 13 14:51 .

-rw-rw-r-- 1 weewx weewx 143973 Apr 13 14:58 belchertown.js.tmpl

vrishabkakade@freedompi:/etc/weewx/skins/Belchertown/js $ vi belchertown.js.tmpl 

Line 2895 comment and duplicate – remove new word as per the solution

           // Finally all options are done, now show the chart

           //var chart = new Highcharts.chart(options);

           var chart = Highcharts.chart(options); 

🪈 MQTT and MQTT Websockets (optional)

Source: How to setup your own MQTT Broker – O'Brien Labs (obrienlabs.net)

From the Author

I wrote this MQTT tutorial to help me out in the future, but hopefully it helps someone else along the way!

For the last few years I’ve been running a custom weather website. This website, in conjunction with weewx, allowed me to have a website which updated itself every 10 seconds. But this bothered me. 10 seconds was far too slow for my liking!

Earlier this year (2018) I started using Home Assistant for home automation (goodbye old unreliable cloud-based automation!) and they opened me up to MQTT. It was great to be able to get data from tiny Arduino sensors around the house – but I knew I could do more with it. That’s when I saw an MQTT extension available for weewx. I knew it was time for a website upgrade!

The result was a true real time auto updating website with no delay! Every time my weather station sends an update from the backyard (every 2.5 seconds), that data is immediately read by weewx which archives the data, runs some QC checks on it for accuracy, then publishes it to MQTT. Visitors on my website auto-subscribe to the MQTT topic through websockets and JavaScript updates the data on the webpage within milliseconds. It’s really cool!

If you’re not familiar with MQTT, it’s a machine-to-machine internet of things (IoT) communication protocol. Initially designed as a lightweight publish/subscribe method useful for those devices in remote locations with limited internet connectivity. It even works great for Arduino or NodeMCU temperature sensors around the house. The device that needs to send data would publish to a topic, and the device that needs to receive that data would subscribe to that topic. Topic names are arbitrary, but they should make sense. For example a topic could be weather/weewx/loop. This could mean it’s the weather parent category, the weewx software, and the loop function. Then you could have weather/weewx/archive for archive data, weather/rain_bucket/current if you had a rain bucket that can talk MQTT. Whatever you want!

I have weewx configured to publish weather loop data to the topic weather/weewx/loop, and my website is configured to subscribe on that topic.

Due to the high nature that weewx publishes weather data (currently my loop is at 2.5 seconds), I couldn’t use a free MQTT broker (or server), and I didn’t want to pay for access to one. Some free ones will handle the frequent data, but offer no uptime reliability, so I decided to install my own broker.

Total time to setup: 5 – 30 minutes. 

This tutorial was created in 2018 using Ubuntu 18.04, so some things may be different after I write this or if you use another operating system.

You can run MQTT on a Raspberry Pi, but I recommend running MQTT on a cloud server because it’s always available, fast and easy. 

Running this on the virtual server

Install Mosquitto

First install Mosquitto, which is the name of the MQTT software.

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo apt update

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo apt-get install mosquitto mosquitto-clients 

Note: Do not use 'localhost'. Use the fully qualified domain name of the MQTT broker host or its IP address.

Source: MQTT for Belchertown skin (google.com)

Setup websockets

If you plan on using your MQTT Broker for a website, like the Belchertown weewx skin, then you need to enable websockets.

Let’s create a custom configuration file that we’ll add this – and other items – to for Mosquitto’s config. Run sudo nano /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/myconfig.conf and update it with the below:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo vi /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/myconfig.con 

persistence false

# mqtt

listener 1883

protocol mqtt

# websockets

listener 9001

protocol websockets

Make sure you have no empty spaces at the end of those lines or Mosquitto may give you an error.

Restart Mosquitto with sudo service mosquitto restart and you should now have a working MQTT server on port 1883 and websockets on port 9001!

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo service mosquitto restart 

Create a user and access control

I locked down my broker so that only those clients who know the password can publish to a topic. You can get super granular here where certain usernames can publish to certain topics only. For my sake I only have 1 user who can publish. All other users who connect to the broker are considered anonymous and can only subscribe. Create a password for publishing with:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo mosqusudo mosquitto_passwd -c /etc/mosquitto/passwd weewx 

Next is to create an MQTT ACL (access control list) so that anonymous users are read only, but the weewx system can read and write to the weather topic. Run sudo nano /etc/mosquitto/acl and enter in:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo vi /etc/mosquitto/acl 

# Allow anonymous access to the sys

topic read $SYS/#

# Allow anonymous to read weather

topic read weather/#

# weewx readwrite to the loop

user weewx

topic weather/#

Add to the custom broker configuration

Now let’s add the authentication and access control to the custom configuration file. Run sudo nano /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/myconfig.conf and enter in:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo vi /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/myconfig.conf 

allow_anonymous true

password_file /etc/mosquitto/passwd

acl_file /etc/mosquitto/acl

Save your file and run mosquitto with mosquitto -c /etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf and with another SSH client, log into your server and check that the MQTT ports are open. Run this command sudo netstat -tulpn | grep 1883 and you should see port 1883 open. Repeat with port 9001 to verify websockets are open. It should look something like:

tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:1883 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 973/mosquitto

If it’s open like above then open 2 more SSH connections to your server to test publish and subscribe.

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo mosquitto -c /etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo netstat -tulpn | grep 1883 

tcp       0     0 127.0.0.1:1883         0.0.0.0:*              LISTEN     114850/mosquitto

tcp6      0     0 ::1:1883               :::*                   LISTEN     114850/mosquitto

Session 1: run this command to subscribe to the weather topic.

mosquitto_sub -h localhost -t weather/#

The # means you want to listen on everything underneath weather. For example weather/topic1, weather/topic2, weather/topic3, etc.

Note: Only use # when troubleshooting. You shouldn’t setup your website or application to publish or subscribe to # in a normal situation.

Session 2: try to publish using this command:

mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t "weather/test" -m "hello world"`

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ mosquitto_mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t "weather/test" -m "hello world"

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ mosquitto_sub -h localhost -t weather/# 

hello world

This command does not use any authentication so it should fail! Your mosquitto_sub window should not show anything. If you do not see anything, so far so good!

Now go back to SSH #2 (with the mosquitto_pub) and run this command which has authentication:

mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t "weather/test" -m "hello world. this is to the weather topic with authentication" -u "<your username from above>" -P "<your password you created>"

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ mosquitto_mosquitto_pub -h localhost -t "weather/test" -m "hello world. this is to the weather topic with authentication" -u "weewx" -P "****"

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ mosquitto_sub -h localhost -t weather/# 

hello world

hello world. this is to the weather topic with authentication

You should see something in your mosquitto_sub window now! If you do, great! If not, back up and try everything again. Sometimes Mosquitto is fussy and requires a full reboot. You can also check the Mosquitto log file at /var/log/mosquitto/mosquitto.log

So if you’ve made it this far you have a working MQTT broker with authentication and websockets!

Setup LetsEncrypt SSL certificate (optional)

Using the SSL cert setup with the website

Add your SSL cert to MQTT config

Update your custom MQTT config file and add the new SSL certificates. Run sudo nano /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/myconfig.conf and update it with the below:

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo vi /etc/mosquitto/conf.d/myconfig.conf 

allow_anonymous true

password_file /etc/mosquitto/passwd

acl_file /etc/mosquitto/acl

persistence false

# mqtt

listener 1883

listener 8883

certfile /etc/mosquitto/certs/cert.pem

cafile /etc/mosquitto/certs/chain.pem

keyfile /etc/mosquitto/certs/privkey.pem

protocol mqtt

# websockets

listener 9001

certfile /etc/mosquitto/certs/cert.pem

cafile /etc/mosquitto/certs/chain.pem

keyfile /etc/mosquitto/certs/privkey.pem

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo ls -lrat /etc/letsencrypt/archive/bettaforecast.in 

total 24

-rw------- 1 root root 1704 Apr 12 16:35 privkey1.pem

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3595 Apr 12 16:35 fullchain1.pem

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1826 Apr 12 16:35 chain1.pem

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1769 Apr 12 16:35 cert1.pem

drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Apr 12 16:35 ..

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 12 16:35 .

I get the below error with the above permissions

1713070124: Error: Unable to load CA certificates. Check cafile "/etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/chain.pem".

1713070124: OpenSSL Error[0]: error:8000000D:system library::Permission denied

1713070124: OpenSSL Error[1]: error:10080002:BIO routines::system lib

1713070124: OpenSSL Error[2]: error:05880002:x509 certificate routines::system lib

Copy the certificates to a new location and change permissions there so that we don’t affect the Apache Letsencrypt certificates.

[root@cloud009 ~]$ cat /etc/mosqu/etc/mosquitto/certs/copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.sh 

#!/bin/bash

SHELL=/bin/bash

export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:$PATH

cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/privkey.pem /etc/mosquitto/certs

cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/fullchain.pem /etc/mosquitto/certs

cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/chain.pem /etc/mosquitto/certs

cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/cert.pem /etc/mosquitto/certs

Put it in the crontab so the script can run everyday.

[root@cloud009 ~]$ crontab -l 

52 *  *  *  *   cd /etc/mosquitto/certs && /usr/bin/sh /etc/mosquitto/certs/copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.sh >> /etc/mosquitto/certs/copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.log 2>&1

0   0 * * 0 /home/weewx/backup_scripts/backup_weewx.sh

Restart your mosquitto server with sudo service mosquitto restart and check that the ports are open with sudo netstat -tulpn | grep -E '8883|9001'. You should see something similar to:

[weewx@cloud009 /etc/mosquitto/certs]$ sudo service mosquitto restart

[weewx@cloud009 /etc/mosquitto/certs]$ sudo netstat -tulpn | grep -E '8883|9001'

tcp       0     0 0.0.0.0:8883           0.0.0.0:*              LISTEN     123262/mosquitto

tcp6      0     0 :::9001                :::*                   LISTEN     123262/mosquitto

tcp6      0     0 :::8883                :::*                   LISTEN     123262/mosquito

Install Mosquito on the Raspberry Pi

We need Mosquito installed on the Raspberry Pi as well since the messages get sent in real-time from the Raspberry Pi to the web server.

weewx@freedompi:~$ sudo apt update

weewx@freedompi:~$ sudo apt-get install mosquitto mosquitto-clients

weewx@freedompi:~$ sudo service mosquitto start 

Test it

mosquitto_pub -h bettaforecast.in -t "weather/test" -m "hello world. this is to the weather topic with authentication 2" -u "weewx" -P "***"

Customize the Graphs

Source: Belchertown Charts Documentation · poblabs/weewx-belchertown Wiki (github.com)

The document is very well written and I have made a lot of customizations. Refer to the below file

weewx@freedompi:/etc/weewx/skins/Belchertown$ ls -lrat graphs.conf 

-rw-r--r-- 1 weewx weewx 23308 Apr 17 09:40 graphs.conf

SCRIPT TO AUTOMATE COPYING OF CERTS FOR MQTT

Below is a script to automate copying over the SSL certs to MQTT

Source certs

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ sudo ls -lrat /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in

total 12

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  43 Apr 12 16:35 privkey.pem -> ../../archive/bettaforecast.in/privkey1.pem

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  45 Apr 12 16:35 fullchain.pem -> ../../archive/bettaforecast.in/fullchain1.pem

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  41 Apr 12 16:35 chain.pem -> ../../archive/bettaforecast.in/chain1.pem

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  40 Apr 12 16:35 cert.pem -> ../../archive/bettaforecast.in/cert1.pem

drwx------ 3 root root 4096 Apr 12 16:35 ..

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Apr 12 16:35 .

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 692 Apr 12 16:35 README

MQTT Certs

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ ls -lrat /etc/mosquitto/certs

total 28

-rw-r--r-- 1 weewx weewx 130 Nov 19 23:39 README

drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Apr 14 08:43 ..

-rwxr-xr-x 1 weewx weewx 1704 Apr 14 10:24 privkey.pem

-rwxr-xr-- 1 weewx weewx 3595 Apr 14 10:24 fullchain.pem

-rwxr-xr-- 1 weewx weewx 1826 Apr 14 10:24 chain.pem

-rwxr-xr-- 1 weewx weewx 1769 Apr 14 10:24 cert.pem

drwxr-xr-x 2 weewx weewx 4096 Apr 14 22:38 .

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ cd /etc/mosquitto/certs

[weewx@cloud009 /etc/mosquitto/certs]$ vi copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.sh

#!/bin/bash

SHELL=/bin/bash

export PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:$PATH

cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/privkey.pem /etc/mosquitto/certs

cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/fullchain.pem /etc/mosquitto/certs

cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/chain.pem /etc/mosquitto/certs

cp /etc/letsencrypt/live/bettaforecast.in/cert.pem /etc/mosquitto/certs

[weewx@cloud009 /etc/mosquitto/certs]$ chmod 755 copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.sh

[root@cloud009 ~]$ crontab -e

# m h dom mon dow  command

52 *  *  *  *   cd /etc/mosquitto/certs && /usr/bin/sh /etc/mosquitto/certs/copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.sh >> /etc/mosquitto/certs/copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.log 2>&1

In my case I had to restart cron. No jobs were running from any user.

[root@cloud009 /etc/mosquitto/certs]$ sudo systemctl restart cron

Copy the certs to the raspberry pi as well

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/tmp/certs $ ls -lrat /etc/mosquitto/certs

total 28

drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 May 9 20:05 ..

-rwxr-xr-x 1 weewx weewx 1826 May 9 20:16 chain.pem

-rwxr-xr-x 1 weewx weewx 1704 May 9 20:16 privkey.pem

-rwxr-xr-x 1 weewx weewx 130 May 9 20:16 README

-rwxr-xr-x 1 weewx weewx 3595 May 9 20:16 fullchain.pem

-rwxr-xr-x 1 weewx weewx 1769 May 9 20:16 cert.pem

drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 9 20:17 .

🛠️ Install MQTT extension for Weewx

Source: mqtt · weewx/weewx Wiki (github.com)

weewx@freedompi:~$ sudo pip3 install paho-mqtt==1.6.1

weewx@freedompi:~$ wget -O weewx-mqtt.zip https://github.com/matthewwall/weewx-mqtt/archive/master.zip

weewx@freedompi:~$ sudo weectl extension install weewx-mqtt.zip

Windy (Optional)

Source: matthewwall/weewx-windy: uploader for windy.com (github.com)

Install this extension if you want to upload your data to Windy.com

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/var/lib/weewx $ cd /tmp

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/tmp $ wget -O weewx-windy.zip https://github.com/matthewwall/weewx-windy/archive/master.zip

weewx@bettaforecastpi:/tmp $ sudo weectl extension install weewx-windy.zip

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDJAyf007sI

clusterednetworks/sitemap-generator-cron: A script to be run as a cronjob using sitemap-generator-cli (github.com)

lgraubner/sitemap-generator-cli: Creates an XML-Sitemap by crawling a given site. (github.com)

If you want search engines to pick up your site, you will need to generate a sitemap.xml file.

I ended up using this script. Follow the instructions as per the Github page.

poblabs/sitemap-generator (github.com)

Source: Backup & restore - WeeWX 5.0

To back up a WeeWX installation, you will need to make a copy of

·       the configuration information (weewx.conf),

·       skins and templates,

·       custom code, and

·       the WeeWX database.

The location of these items depends on how you installed WeeWX.

Debian

Item

Location

Configuration

/etc/weewx/weewx.conf

Skins

/etc/weewx/skins

Custom code

/etc/weewx/bin/user

Database

/var/lib/weewx/weewx.sdb

It is not necessary to back up the generated images, HTML files, or NOAA reports, because WeeWX can easily regenerate them.

It is also not necessary to back up the WeeWX code, because it can be installed again. However, it doesn't hurt to do so.

Note

For a SQLite configuration, do not make the copy of the database file while in the middle of a transaction! Schedule the backup for immediately after an archive record is written, and then make sure the backup completes before the next archive record arrives. Alternatively, stop WeeWX, perform the backup, then start WeeWX.

Note

For a MySQL/MariaDB configuration, save a dump of the archive database.

Below is my script for backups

On the Pi:

vrishabkakade@freedompi:~/backup_scripts $ cat backup_weewx.sh

cd /mnt/backup

sudo touch weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

sudo chmod 777 weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

sudo tar -zcvf weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.tar /var/lib/weewx /var/www/html/weewx /etc/weewx /etc/apache2 /etc/mosquitto /home/vrishabkakade >> weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

if [ `sudo echo $?` -eq 0 ]

then

 sudo echo "Backup Success" >> weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

else

 sudo echo "Backup failed" >> weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

fi

I run it once a week

vrishabkakade@freedompi:~ $ crontab -l

0   0 * * 0 /home/vrishabkakade/backup_scripts/backup_weewx.sh

ON WEB SERVER

[weewx@cloud009 ~]$ cd backup_scripts/

[weewx@cloud009 ~/backup_scripts]$ vi backup_weewx.sh

[weewx@cloud009 ~/backup_scripts]$

[weewx@cloud009 ~/backup_scripts]$

[weewx@cloud009 ~/backup_scripts]$ chmod +x backup_weewx.sh

[weewx@cloud009 ~/backup_scripts]$ cat backup_weewx.sh

cd /mnt/backup

sudo touch weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

sudo chmod 777 weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

sudo tar -zcvf weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.tar /var/www /etc/apache2 /home/weewx /etc/letsencrypt >> weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

if [ `sudo echo $?` -eq 0 ]

then

 sudo echo "Backup Success" >> weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

else

 sudo echo "Backup failed" >> weewx_bkp_`hostname`_`date +%Y%m%d`.log

fi

I have to run it as root as it keeps prompting for sudo password otherwise

[root@cloud009 ~]$ crontab -l

52 *  *  *  *   cd /etc/mosquitto/certs && /usr/bin/sh /etc/mosquitto/certs/copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.sh >> /etc/mosquitto/certs/copy_ssl_certs_mqtt.log 2>&1

0   0 * * 0 /home/weewx/backup_scripts/backup_weewx.sh

MQTT Won’t work on Firefox

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1324001

Error:

the connection to wss:bettaforecast.in:9001 mqtt was interrupted while the page was loading.

Your page's behavior seems to match a pattern of problems with Firefox attempting to make an SSL connection to MQTT servers via HTTP/2. Users can disable HTTP/2 for Websockets --

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button accepting the risk.

(2) In the search box in the page, type or paste websockets and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click the network.http.spdy.websockets preference to switch the value from true to false (switches Firefox from using HTTP/2 to HTTP/1.1 for WebSockets)

-- but that isn't something the server could dictate to Firefox users.

• https://github.com/eclipse/paho.mqtt.javascript/issues/231
• https://github.com/eclipse/mosquitto/issues/1211

What makes this even stranger is that the Websocket connection the page is making to the radar server is working just fine with the standard setting. ??