💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway

[mafe]

Is it also possible to read a sensor directly at the Raspberry Pi MQTT Gateway? I only want to send the status of a GPIO via MQTT. Is there an example code for this combination?

[alowhum]

Might be nice to know it compilation still seems to works fine on Raspbian Buster on a Raspberry Pi 4.

// Update: unlike on the Pi 3 I now had to activate SPI. Might be good to make that more prominent in the explanation now.

[mfalkvidd]

@alowhum to my knowledge, activating SPI has always been required, unless the user has already activated SPI by some other means.

Do you have a suggestion on how to make it more prominent that what it is now? Preferably without contributing too much to the pileup of notices that scare users - everything is super-important to at least 1 person.

[alowhum]

@mfalkvidd I don't know, perhaps mention it as something that has to be done upfront instead of something that might need to be done if there is an error?

I'm not having any luck actually getting the radio to work. I now noticed this warning during compilation:

g++ -MT build/drivers/Linux/GPIO.o -MMD -MP -DMY_RADIO_RF24 -DMY_GATEWAY_LINUX -DMY_GATEWAY_MQTT_CLIENT -DMY_DEBUG -DLINUX_SPI_SPIDEV -DMY_MQTT_CLIENT_ID=\"mygateway1\" -DMY_MQTT_SUBSCRIBE_TOPIC_PREFIX=\"mysensors-in\" -DMY_MQTT_PUBLISH_TOPIC_PREFIX=\"mysensors-out\" -DMY_CONTROLLER_IP_ADDRESS=127,0,0,1  -Ofast -g -Wall -Wextra  -I. -I./core -I./drivers/Linux -c drivers/Linux/GPIO.cpp -o build/drivers/Linux/GPIO.o
drivers/Linux/GPIO.cpp: In constructor ‘GPIOClass::GPIOClass()’:
drivers/Linux/GPIO.cpp:53:18: warning: ‘%s’ directive writing up to 255 bytes into a region of size 48 [-Wformat-overflow=]
    sprintf(file, "/sys/class/gpio/%s/base", de->d_name);
                  ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
drivers/Linux/GPIO.cpp:53:11: note: ‘sprintf’ output between 22 and 277 bytes into a destination of size 64
    sprintf(file, "/sys/class/gpio/%s/base", de->d_name);
    ~~~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
drivers/Linux/GPIO.cpp:62:18: warning: ‘%s’ directive writing up to 255 bytes into a region of size 48 [-Wformat-overflow=]
    sprintf(file, "/sys/class/gpio/%s/ngpio", de->d_name);
                  ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
drivers/Linux/GPIO.cpp:62:11: note: ‘sprintf’ output between 23 and 278 bytes into a destination of size 64
    sprintf(file, "/sys/class/gpio/%s/ngpio", de->d_name);
    ~~~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[alowhum]

Could this be an issue?

./configure without any additional parameters gives:

[SECTION] Detecting target machine.
  [OK] machine detected: SoC=unknown, Type=unknown, CPU=armv7l.

The rest looks fine:

[SECTION] Checking GPIO Sysfs.
  [OK] /sys/class/gpio/export found.
[SECTION] Detecting SPI driver.
  [OK] SPI driver detected:SPIDEV.
[SECTION] Gateway configuration.
  [OK] Type: ethernet.
  [OK] Transport: rf24.
  [OK] Signing: Disabled.
  [OK] Encryption: Disabled.
  [OK] CPPFLAGS: -DMY_RADIO_RF24 -DMY_GATEWAY_LINUX -DMY_DEBUG -DLINUX_SPI_SPIDEV 
[SECTION] Detecting init system.
  [OK] Init system detected: systemd.
[SECTION] Saving configuration.
  [OK] Saved.
[SECTION] Cleaning previous builds.
  [OK] Finished.

Same thing happens with the dev version

[mfalkvidd]

Yes, if the configure script cannot detect which hardware to use, compilation failure could very well be the result.

[swedchef]

Hi All

I'm just venturing into this world of building my own sensors - but perhaps i am a tad late? Two months since last update.. Typically me - showing up to the party when everybody else has left.

My main issue is, i am running the Raspberry Pi 4 - and when trying to build (i've tried both the development and master builds) i get from 4 (master build) to A BUNCH (development) of errors. First of all, the autodetect of SoC does not work for me either (just like @alowhum, and with the same warnings), and when using --help the actual SoC is not listed either, so should i just assume it does not work for Raspberry Pi 4?

Is there any chance the 4 will be supported soon?

Just a note - i can actually complete the configure and then make - but unfortunately i just get a TSP error when trying to fire up the radio.

Hope i can get this working as it was the main reason for upgrading my RaspberryPi version 1 to a version 4 :man-facepalming:

Thanks in advance for any and all help!

[mfalkvidd]

Thanks for sharing your experience @swedchef

From the problems reported by users (you included), it seems like the rpi4 is quite different fom the earlier rpis. To add support, the following ingredients are needed in one person

• person needs to have sufficient knowledge and skills to figure out how to support the rpi4
• person needs to have sufficient time to do the work
• person needs to have a rpi4
• person needs to be sufficiently interested/motivated to do the work

It seems like, so far, we haven't found this person (or this person hasn't found us).

[phildefer]

Re: 💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway

Hi all,

i compile with success the gateway in Raspberry PI 4 (with some code modification)

this is not perfect.. but it works.

if someone wants to try, i upload the gateway compiled with this options :

--my-transport=rf24 --my-gateway=ethernet --my-port=5003

https://gofile.io/?c=fRxeF7

[Anticimex]

@phildefer could you please share what you changed? The security concerned might not be comfortable running a binary with unspecified changes that manages their home automation setup. Especially not a project supposed to be open source.

[mfalkvidd]

@phildefer would you mind sharing the code modifications that were needed?

[phildefer]

@mfalkvidd @Anticimex : yes i sharing the code perhaps this week end. I need to find time to make a PR to GITHUB
As I said, my code may not be as clean as you'd like, but it works.

[patrikr76]

Hey all,

I got the same problem as @swedchef and saw the warnings @alowhum mentioned.
Simply upping the buffer that is declared in GPIO.cpp solved the warnings and made it compile without issue but the radio still won't work.
Maybe it has to do with the soc not being detected, as mentioned, and that the pin positions on the new soc are different from previous ones.

@phildefer, weekend has come and gone buddy. Patience is a virtue some do not have. :)

Edit: So looking a little more through the files today i see that configure looks for the soc type in /proc/cpuinfo and funnily my raspi 4 reports a BCM2835

[mfalkvidd]

@patrikr76 I beleive @phildefer pushed the code 4 days ago. See https://github.com/mysensors/MySensors/pull/1353

Something has seriously mangled whitespace in the modified code, but apart from that it looks good to me, but I am not that familiar with the rpi code and I have not tested it myself.

[patrikr76]

@mfalkvidd said in 💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway:

@patrikr76 I beleive @phildefer pushed the code 4 days ago. See https://github.com/mysensors/MySensors/pull/1353

You are correct.
@phildefer, thank you.
There were a couple of minor warnings about indentations and the buffer size i mentioned earlier fixed by upping the declared buffer in GPIO.cpp. Not sure if that is a good fix or not, the warning goes away though.
A few other warnings looks like this:

In member function ‘char* MyMessage::getString(char*) const’,
    inlined from ‘bool transportSendWrite(uint8_t, MyMessage&)’ at ./core/MyTransport.cpp:987:2,
    inlined from ‘bool transportRouteMessage(MyMessage&)’ at ./core/MyTransport.cpp:560:40,
    inlined from ‘void stUplinkTransition()’ at ./core/MyTransport.cpp:252:29:
./core/MyMessage.cpp:284:17: warning: ‘char* strncpy(char*, const char*, size_t)’ output may be truncated copying between 0 and 25 bytes from a string of length 25 [-Wstringop-truncation]
    (void)strncpy(buffer, this->data, this->getLength());
          ~~~~~~~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not sure how to fix those.

Edit: Forgot to mention, it seems to be working though.

[franz-unix]

Thanks guys for the effort to port MySensors for the Pi 4.

I'm very interested, but my coding skills are not sufficient to help in the development. Maybe I can do some debug when my Pi4 will arrive

MySensors for the Pi4 is a must-have!😊

[kiesel]

@mfalkvidd @phildefer

I can confirm that the code compiles and runs on my rasbperry pi 4 model b. I am using a rfm69 radio and that seems to be working too. I couldn't test it yet though since I haven't wired any rfm69 nodes up yet.

[franz-unix]

@kiesel Good news!😉
I will test both (nrf24 and rfm69) when my Pi 4 arrive.

[franz-unix]

Ok my Pi 4 is arrived. I have 2 gateway, one RFM69 and one NRF24 connected respectively to spi0 and spi1. Details here.

With a Raspberry Pi 3 all works fine (compilation and execution) with both Rasbian Stretch and with Raspbian Buster.

With a Raspberry Pi 4 and the same version of Rasbian Buster the situation is a bit different:

• The RFM69 gateway on the SPI0 compiles and can be executed without problems. In this days I don't have an RFM69 radio module, so I don't know if it works, but the daemon start in a regular way.

• The NRF24 gateway compile, but after few seconds of execution the daemon stops with the following error.

Oct 26 13:59:47 ERROR Could not open /sys/class/gpio/gpio12/direction

Considering that the same configuration works for a Pi 3, it is possible that the error is caused by the autodetect of SoC issue mentioned above?

The details of my /boot/config.txt file are here

[franz-unix]

Update:

• tested the RFM69 gateway with a radio module attached -> Not working

• tried to compile and execute the NRF24 gateway on the first spi bus (--spi-spidev-device=/dev/spidev0.0) -> same error as above

ERROR Could not open /sys/class/gpio/gpio12/direction

I have checked my Makefile and configure files and they don't contain the modification proposed by @phildefer . Is this normal? I'm using the development branch.