PellMon

PellMon is logging, monitoring and configuration solution for pellet burners. It consists of a backend server daemon, which uses RRDtool as a logging database, and a frontend daemon providing a responsive mobile friendly web based user interface. Additionally there is a command line tool for interfacing with the server. PellMon can communicate directly with a supported pellet burner, or it can use a feeder-auger revolution counter as base for pellet consumption calculation.

PellMon uses plugins to provide data about your burner. The most fully featured plugin is ScotteCom, which enables communication with a NBE scotte/woody/biocomfort V4, V5 or V6 pellet burner. It gives you access to almost all configuration parameters and measurement data, and also handles logging of alarms and mode/setting changes.

The plugin system makes it easy to add custom plugins for extended functionality, a 'template' plugin is provided as an example along with the other preinstalled plugins:

PelletCalc. Provides a calculated power value and pellet consumption from a feeder auger counter.

RaspberryPi. Gives access to inputs and outputs on the raspberry pi single board computer. One input can be configured as a counter to provide a base for pellet consumption calculation. It also provides general I/O, and a tachometer input that can be used to measure the blower speed, by interfacing to the blowers tacho output or by using an optical detector.

OWFS. Communicates with an owserver, and can be used to read onewire sensors, for instance temperature. It can also use a onewire input (ds2460 based) to count feeder auger revolutions for use with the PelletCalc plugin.

CustomAlarms. Create an unlimited number of limits to watch on available data, optionally send email when a limit is exceeded.

Calculate. Provides editable expressions that calcualates new values based on the existing data.

SiloLevel. Uses rrdtool to calculate and graph the pellet silo level from the fill-up time to current time.

Plugin documentation is found in the configuration file pellmon.conf.

####Contains:

###pellmonsrv.py: Communication daemon. Implements a DBUS interface for reading and writing setting values and reading of measurement data. Optionally handles logging of measurement data to an RRD database.

usage: pellmonsrv.py [-h] [-P PIDFILE] [-U USER] [-G GROUP] [-C CONFIG] [-D {SESSION,SYSTEM}] [-p PLUGINDIR]
                  {debug,start,stop,restart}

positional arguments:
  {debug,start,stop,restart}
                        With debug argument pellmonsrv won't daemonize

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -P PIDFILE, --PIDFILE PIDFILE
                        Full path to pidfile
  -U USER, --USER USER  Run as USER
  -G GROUP, --GROUP GROUP
                        Run as GROUP
  -C CONFIG, --CONFIG CONFIG
                        Full path to config file
  -D {SESSION,SYSTEM}, --DBUS {SESSION,SYSTEM}
                        which bus to use, SESSION is default
  -p PLUGINDIR, --PLUGINDIR PLUGINDIR
                        Full path to plugin directory

###pellmonweb.py: Webserver and webapp, plotting of measurement, calculated consumption and data and parameter reading/writing.

usage: pellmonweb.py [-h] [-D] [-P PIDFILE] [-U USER] [-G GROUP] [-C CONFIG] [-d {SESSION,SYSTEM}]

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -D, --DAEMONIZE       Run as daemon
  -P PIDFILE, --PIDFILE PIDFILE
                        Full path to pidfile
  -U USER, --USER USER  Run as USER
  -G GROUP, --GROUP GROUP
                        Run as GROUP
  -C CONFIG, --CONFIG CONFIG
                        Full path to config file
  -d {SESSION,SYSTEM}, --DBUS {SESSION,SYSTEM}
                        which bus to use, SESSION is default

###pellmoncli.py:

Interactive command line client with tab completion. Reading and writing of setting values, and reading of measurement data.

usage: pellmoncli.py [-h] {get,set,list,i}

###pellmon.conf Configuration values.

##System installation: # Add system users sudo adduser --system --group --no-create-home pellmonsrv sudo adduser --system --group --no-create-home pellmonweb # Give the server access to the serial port sudo adduser pellmonsrv dialout # Create build system ./autogen.sh # Configure for running as system users ./configure --with-user_srv=pellmonsrv --with-user_web=pellmonweb --sysconfdir=/etc # Build PellMon make # Install PellMon sudo make install # Activate pellmon dbus system bus permissions sudo service dbus reload # Start the daemons manually sudo service pellmonsrv start sudo service pellmonweb start # Add them to init so they are started at boot sudo update-rc.d pellmonsrv defaults sudo update-rc.d pellmonweb defaults ###Uninstall sudo make uninstall # Remove from init if you added them sudo update-rc.d pellmonsrv remove sudo update-rc.d pellmonweb remove

##User installation: # Generate configure script ./autogen.sh # Configure for installation in home directory ./configure --prefix=/home//.local make make install # Start the daemons manually /home//.local/bin/pellmonsrv.py -C /home//.local/etc/pellmon/pellmon.conf --PLUGINDIR /home//.local/lib/Pellmonsrv/plugins/ start /home//.local/bin/pellmonweb.py -C /home//.local/etc/pellmon/pellmon.conf -D # Stop the daemons manually kill $(cat /tmp/pellmonsrv.pid) kill $(cat /tmp/pellmonweb.pid) ###Uninstall make uninstall

##Dependencies:

rrdtool python-serial python-cherrypy3 python-dbus python-mako python-gobject python-simplejson python-dateutil

##Optional dependencies:

python-ws4py

##Build dependencies:

autoconf