aprs2rrd-se

A piece of software to fetch, parse and store data from APRS weather stations into RRD files, MySQL database and on generated HTML website. Currently the software supports communication with APRS-IS servers using standard text-based protocol (it can monitor two different stations at once), communication directly with the APRS radio network using KISS TNC modem connected to the serial port and communication with the Holfuy cloud API to download data collected by stations manufactured by this company.

Value of each monitored parameter could come from different source, so for instance temperature could be fetched from primary APRS-IS station, pressure could come from secondary APRS-IS station and the rest could be collected from Holfuy cloud API. Data processing chain involves such steps:

1. Parsing data incoming from APRS-IS connection and Serial port.
2. Downloading data from Holfuy cloud API if it is enabled.
3. Merging data from differenct sources into one dataset.
4. Applying the slew limitation to rub out any peaking measurement noise.
5. Applying the wind direction correction if it is enabled, to remove known offset coming from wind sensor misalignment.
6. Calculating differences for the same parameters between different data sources according to a user configuration.
7. Storing results in RRD files and optionally in MySQL database.
8. Generating set of plots from RRD files with a simple HTML file.

The most recent release version of APRS2RRD is 1.6, which should be coosen from git repository using command 'git checkout 1.6'. Please be aware that master branch is used to daily development and 'mainline' source coud even not compile in certain situations.

APRS2RRD can be used standalone, but actually it is a part of bigger weather stations system which is formed by:

1. API: https://github.com/SP8EBC/meteo_backend
2. Firmware for APRS weather station controller and it's design: https://github.com/SP8EBC/ParaTNC
3. Android application: https://github.com/SP8EBC/MeteoSystem

APRS2RRD is intended to be used in Linux environment and it is developed and tested using this operating system. APRS2RRD uses Boost C++ library instead of platform specific calls hence compilation under Windows environment should be theoretically possible, unless apropriate binary version of Boost C++ will be avaliable.

System requiremenets:

1. g++ and make
2. libboost and libboost-dev, version 1.58 or newer (pakages: asio, thread, date-time, regex, system)
3. libconfig++ and libconfig++-dev, version 1.5
4. libmysql++ and libmysql++-dev, version 3.2.2
5. libxerces-c and libxerces-c-dev
6. libcurl and libcurl-dev
7. screen
8. rrdtool

If system has xerces-c in version 9.1 installed (like Debian 9 or Ubuntu 16.04/16.10) please use configuration Debug or Relese. If You are using xerces-c 9.2 (like Ubuntu 20.xx / Debian 10) please build using Debug_xerces_3_2 or Release_xerces_3_2

Information about installing in Debian 10: If You want to upgrade Your Debian 9 installation, or install APRS2RRD in fresh and current installation You will very quickly see that libmysql++ is no longer avaliable in the Debian 10. Thankfully this isn't something which don't have any workaround, but You need to install libmysql++ manually. First at all visit https://tangentsoft.com/mysqlpp/home and download the tarball containing all sources needed like this one: https://tangentsoft.com/mysqlpp/releases/mysql++-3.2.5.tar.gz.

Then check if You have all libmysql++ dependiences installed. Use aptitude and check 'aptitude show default-libmysqlclient-dev' if this metapackage is in the system and install it if not. Then decompress the tarball and configure sources with './configure --prefix=/usr' When sources are configured w/o errors just type standard make and then make install. If everything is OK You can proceed to APRS2RRD.

Actually the APRS2RRD cannot run in background as a daemon so 'screen' command must be used to start it in background. Please look into 'doc' directory where example rc.aprs2rrd and rc.skrzyczne startup scripts are placed, along with example configuration files. It is strongly advised to run APRS2RRD as a separate non-root user with minial privileges required. Please remember that APRS2RRD executable must have a read-write access to all RRD files and directory where they are stored and also to directory where it will generate HTML and PNG files with plots.

Mateusz Lubecki email: sp8ebc@interia.pl

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