In my last post about the ENVI-R setup, I discussed setting publish-envir.pl in order to parse raw serial data from the ENVI-R and post it out to MQTT channels.  In this post, we’ll discuss how to get THTTPD and MRTG going, in order to actually get some useful graphs out there.

In my last post about my ENVI-R setup, I talked about how to set up RSMB.  Now we’ll talk about setting up the appropriate scripts so that you can get data parsed from the ENVI-R and have it published to the appropriate channels on the message broker.

I’m currently forced to use three remote controls, and I don’t particularly want to shell out for a Logitech Harmony universal remote. So, I got the idea to construct an IR relay myself, which would pick up signals from the Media Center Remote (the one that I use all the buttons for), and then be able to replicate the functionality of the two remotes that I only use power bottons on.

Continuing my previous post on this topic, I realized I needed a message broker in order to permit me to have a daemon polling the ENVI-R for data, processing it, and then making it available in a palatable form for various scripts and for MRTG.  It would have been possible for me to simply have a cron job dump a summary table to disk every few seconds, but since my Linux box uses a CompactFlash card for disk storage, that would quickly kill the flash chips.  I needed something that held the messages in memory only.  That’s where a MQTT message broker steps in.

Update:  Well, I got a logic level converter, and it made no difference to the outputs.  Seems the clones just weren’t any good.  No matter, I’ve already got an ITG-3200 gyro and a BMA180 accelerometer waiting in the wings. Chalk that one up to experience.