Concord 4 Home Automation Daemon

This package implements a Linux/Unix system daemon that communicates with the Home Automation Module for a Concord 4 alarm system.

Other programs can use the daemon to perform actions on the alarm system using a D-Bus based API, documented here.

This project includes a command-line utility to allow for easy scripted control over the alarm system. Eventually, more complicated client programs may be implemented, such as CoAP servers.

This project is a work-in-progress and not all documented features are yet implemented. Some documented features work differently than how they are currently implemented. That being said, it does work well for arming, disarming, and signaling of alarms.

You should make sure that the power to the computer you run this daemon on will last for at least as long as the alarm system panel battery. The easiest way to do this is to run the daemon on a small low-power computer (like a Raspberry Pi) that is powered directly from the 12v source from the panel. Otherwise, a large-ish UPS will be needed.

Have a look at at the concordd configuration file (concordd.conf in src/concordd) to see what sorts of configuration options and hooks are available, as well as comments describing how to use them.

Getting Help

If you are having trouble with concordd, you can file an issue on github.

Dependencies

concordd depends on DBus and optionally libreadline. If you are on Raspbian, you can get both by doing this:

$ sudo apt-get install libdbus-1-dev libreadline-dev

Getting the sources

Now that you've got your dependencies sorted out, you can get the source code in one of two ways:

Getting the sources using Git

Clone the repository and enter the directory:

$ git clone git://github.com/darconeous/concordd.git
$ cd concordd

If you have all of the autoconf tools installed, you can run the bootstrap script to get the configure script up and running:

$ ./bootstrap.sh

Alternatively, if you don't have autoconf installed or running that script simply didn't work, you can skip it by doing the following instead:

$ git archive origin/autoconf/master | tar xvm
  # Next line is a work-around for timestamp problems
$ touch aclocal.m4 && touch configure && touch `find . -name '*.in'`

Getting the sources from the zip

You can download a ZIP file of the latest version here, which includes the configure script.

Building, installing, and running

After you have obtained the sources, you can run the configure script, make, and install:

$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

You should then copy concordd.conf over from /usr/local/etc to /etc and edit it to your liking:

$ sudo cp /usr/local/etc/concordd.conf /etc/concordd.conf
$ sudo nano /etc/concordd.conf

You can then start concordd:

$ sudo /usr/local/bin/concordd -c /etc/concordd.conf -s /dev/ttyUSB0

Note the sudo. You may also need to restart DBus:

$ sudo systemctl restart dbus

If you now open up another terminal, you should be able to use concordctl to interact with the alarm system:

$ sudo concordctl
concordctl:1> help
Commands:
   partition                  Get info about partition
   system                     Get info about the system
   arm                        Read or change the partition arm level
   refresh                    Refresh alarm system state scoreboards
   panic                      Trigger a panic alarm of the specified type
   keypad                     Emulate a touchpad on this terminal
   keypad-input               Simulate button presses on the keypad
   zone                       Prints out info for one or more zones
   light                      Prints out info for one or more lights
   output                     Prints out info for one or more outputs
   log                        Prints out changes to the system as they occur
   quit                       Terminate command line mode.
   help                       Display this help.
   clear                      Clear shell.
concordctl:1> system
[
    "panelType" => 20
    "hwRevision" => 1793
    "swRevision" => 16530
    "serialNumber" => 21320841
    "acPowerFailure" => false
    "acPowerFailureChangedTimestamp" => 0
]
concordctl:1> zone
               Zone Name | Id |Par|Typ| Grp|Trp|Byp|Tro|Alr|Flt|Last Changed
-------------------------+----+---+---+----+---+---+---+---+---|------------
              FRONT DOOR |  1 | 1 | 0 | 10 |   |   |   |   |   | 37.5m ago
      LIVING ROOM MOTION |  2 | 1 | 0 | 17 |   |   |   |   |   | 1.3m ago
          KITCHEN MOTION |  3 | 1 | 0 | 17 | T |   |   |   |   | 1.0s ago
          KITCHEN WINDOW |  4 | 1 | 1 | 13 |   |   |   |   |   | 11.8h ago
          HALLWAY MOTION |  5 | 1 | 0 | 17 |   |   |   |   |   | 24.4m ago
              PATIO DOOR |  6 | 1 | 0 | 13 |   |   |   |   |   | 2.7d ago
   MASTER BEDROOM MOTION |  7 | 1 | 0 | 17 |   |   |   |   |   | 1.1m ago
             GARAGE DOOR |  8 | 1 | 1 | 11 |   |   |   |   |   | 1.3d ago
8 zones total.
concordctl:1>

Note that the interactive console shown above will only be available if libreadline was available. Without it you will need to enter the commands on the same command line as concordctl:

$ sudo concordctl system
[
    "panelType" => 20
    "hwRevision" => 1234
    "swRevision" => 12345
    "serialNumber" => 12312312
    "acPowerFailure" => false
    "acPowerFailureChangedTimestamp" => 0
]

Setting up concordd to run as a daemon at startup is left as an excercise for the reader.

Using concordctl without sudo

If you want make it so that you don't need to be root or use sudo to be able to use concordctl, you can do the following:

1. Create a group named concordd-admin.
2. Add any users to that group that you want to be able to use concordctl.
3. For any user that you just added to that group, you MUST log out and log back in before concordctl will work without sudo.

If you are using Raspbian, you can do the above with the following shell commands:

$ sudo groupadd concordd-admin
$ sudo usermod -a -G concordd-admin ${USER}
$ logout

Once you log back in, you should be able to use concordctl without sudo. Note that if you are logged into the GUI directly on the RPI, you will need to manually log out of that before you will be able to skip using sudo. If in doubt, a reboot will surely do the trick.

License

The structure of this project is loosely inspired by that of wpantund, and shares the implementation for a few files, with a few files being direct derivatives. As such, those files have retained their original copyright notices, and this project is released under the same license: the Apache 2.0 license. Unless otherwise marked, all files in this project are covered under that license.

Links

• Home Automation Protocol Document (alt link)