/
Building clouddata.dustcloud.org

Building clouddata.dustcloud.org

Feb 02, 2017

We discuss what is behind the clouddata.dustcloud.org server, and how exactly the server is built.

Requirements

Goal

clouddata.dustcloud.org allows a customer to publish sensor data to the Internet less than 5 min after having opened a SmartMesh IP starter kit

This translates into the following requirements:

Gliffy Diagram

Architecture

The solution consists of the PublishToWeb SmartMesh SDK program and the clouddata.dustcloud.org server.

PublishToWeb Smartmesh SDK application

This application is part of the default SmartMesh SDK, and runs on the user's computer. It:

  • connects to the SmartMesh IP Manager

  • subscribes to data notifications

  • forwards all the OAP temperature data readings produced by the SmartMesh IP motes to clouddata.dustcloud.org.

clouddata.dusctloud.org server

The clouddata.dusctloud.org server is built on Ubuntu Server. It has the following internal architecture:

Gliffy Diagram

  • the iptables firewall filters out all external traffic not going to TCP port 80

  • the NGINX load balancer redirects:

  • the clouddata_server script is part of the SmartMesh SDK. It receives data from the PublishToWeb.py application and inserts it into the database. 

  • the influxdb database efficiently stores time series data. In this example, the database is configured to automatically drop data after 12 hours.

  • the grafana data visualization tools offer a clean dashboard for visualizing the data

Installation Steps

Vagrant setup files for the step-by-step guide below are maintained at https://github.com/dustcloud/clouddata-server.

 

Ubuntu

At the time of writing, we have installed Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS.

If you are installing the server on a virtual machine using VirtualBox for testing purposes:

  • configure two network adapters:

    • Adapter 1 as "NAT" (this allows your VM to access the web)

    • Adaptor 2 as "Host-only Adapter" (this allows your host OS to access the web server running your VM)

  • after booting your VM, edit /etc/network/interfaces to add the last lines corresponding to the second network interface

    # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5). source /etc/network/interfaces.d/* # The loopback network interface auto lo iface lo inet loopback # The primary network interface (NAT) auto enp0s3 iface enp0s3 inet dhcp # The secondary network interface (Host-only adapter) auto enp0s8 iface enp0s8 inet dhcp

  • restart the networking services:

    sudo service networking restart

Once installed, log into the server.

Update

sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

The commands above update your entire OS. This can take 10-15min.

SSH

Install the OpenSSH server:

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

Add your public key to the server:

mkdir .ssh touch .ssh/authorized_keys echo "ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABJQAAAIBx8jcskAQwgmw2ZR18K1cyW4NyQDFhLYiva4WLDHyVgxBuo95ndyeYHoc1lk6FpRpV9jdvTCD4rGx8OT28dFyVFvDSiNxbwm/qMHhvY9Vtu7842h0Hkelb5w2DU8Qvp33OQ67frQNKcvnYOP2MQxkfKVRInP/pfzuux0NiErcFxQ== rsa-key-thomas" > .ssh/authorized_keys chmod 700 ~/.ssh chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys chown $USER:$USER ~/.ssh -R

Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config so it contains the following (un-commented) lines:

RSAAuthentication yes PubkeyAuthentication yes AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys

Restart the SSH server:

sudo service ssh restart

influxdb

install database

Install and start InfluxDB automatically:

curl -sL https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key | sudo apt-key add - source /etc/lsb-release echo "deb https://repos.influxdata.com/${DISTRIB_ID,,} ${DISTRIB_CODENAME} stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdb.list sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install influxdb sudo systemctl start influxdb sudo systemctl enable influxdb

You should see the InfluxDB admin panel at http://192.168.56.101:8083/.

By default, the HTTP API of InfluxDB runs on TCP port 8086.

create database

Use the influx client to create a database "grafana" and associate a retention policy so datapoints are automatically deleted after 12 hours:

user@ubuntu:~$ influx Visit https://enterprise.influxdata.com to register for updates, InfluxDB server management, and monitoring. Connected to http://localhost:8086 version 0.10.0 InfluxDB shell 0.10.0 > CREATE DATABASE grafana > CREATE RETENTION POLICY twelve_h_only ON grafana DURATION 12h REPLICATION 1 DEFAULT > exit user@ubuntu:~$

Recent versions of the influxdb package include the command-line client. If your distribution has an older package, you may need to install the client separately.

sudo apt-get install influxdb-client

grafana

install

The following commands install grafana, start it, and ensure it also starts on the next boot:

wget https://grafanarel.s3.amazonaws.com/builds/grafana_3.0.4-1464167696_amd64.deb sudo apt-get install -y adduser libfontconfig sudo dpkg -i grafana_3.0.4-1464167696_amd64.deb sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl start grafana-server systemctl status grafana-server sudo systemctl enable grafana-server.service

You should now be able to see the Grafana front end running at http://192.168.56.101:3000/.

We are not using authentication between Grafana and InfluxDB, but you still have to provide a username/password in the "InfluxDB Details" section below.

change admin username and password

Connect to the Grafana front end with username "admin" and password "admin". Though the profile page, change both the username and password associated with the Grafana administrator.

connect to database

Through the admin interface, add InfluxDB as a data source. From the drop down menu in the upper left, choose Data Sources and click on Add data source. 

create dashboard

Through the admin interface, create a new dashboard named Temperature. From the drop down menu in the upper left, select Dashboards → New. The first row is already created, indicated by the vertical line on the left edge. Hovering over that indicator will reveal a menu for editing. Select Add Panel → Graph to create a graph of the temperature data. Under Metrics, select Toggle edit mode under the drop down menu (on the right next to the eye icon) to change the input mode so you can paste in the following query:

SELECT "value" from "temperature" WHERE $timeFilter GROUP BY "mac"

To verify everything works, on the Admin interface of InfluxDB (http://192.168.56.101:8083/), select the "grafana" database, click "Write Data" and enter:

temperature,mac=11-11-11-11-11-11-11-11 value=29 temperature,mac=22-22-22-22-22-22-22-22 value=21

enable anonymous access

Change the /etc/grafana/grafana.ini file so it contains the following lines:

#################################### Anonymous Auth ########################## [auth.anonymous] # enable anonymous access enabled = true

set as default dashboard

  • log into Grafana as admin

  • star the dashboard you create

  • in the dropdown menu, edit the setting for the default organization, and set the dashboard as default home dashboard

Comments