💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway

arraWX

@skywatch Thank you! That solved my problem.

Sefi Ninio

Hello friends,

Reading the instructions for building a RaspberryPi Gateway using RFM69, it states that one should use the development branch and not master, since the Pi is using a different version of the driver.

Anyone knows when this will be merged to master branch?

Also, since this forces all nodes to use development branch as well to be able to communicate with the gateway, assuming I use the development branch now and it is later on merged into master, is there an easy way to upgrade nodes remotely to the new code?

I am planning to use Wall Switch Insertable Node, and Mini Relay Mode - Both support OTA updates, am I correct to assume this will allow upgrading without taking the nodes out of where they are located?

Thanks!
Sefi

gohan

Like all nodes, you need to change the bootloader in order to enable ota.

llegoff

hello, is there a inclusion mode planned for the raspberry pi gateway ?

ricorico94

Hi,
This seems a great job, but despite I had a look at many posts (yes, many out of the dozens of pages.. ;-) ), I still can't figure out some questions..

Beyond the obvious advantage of saving an arduino (and power supply, space..), is there an advantage for having the gateway hosted by the raspberry PI hosting my Domoticz ? (like more CPU available for handling communications or for signing ? or on the opposite more risks to overload the PI CPU -despite only a couple persons have complained about high CPU load))
the default setup is Ethernet. What are the pros and cons of ethernet vs serial setup ? (speed? reliability ? possibility to move to other gateway?..)
Is signing now implemented in this setup ? I didn't see it explicitely described, but some posts seem related to signing.
if I want to use an external antenna and the high power NRF24, should I use an aother power source than raspberry PI ? (or maybe sharing the same USB charger, but diverting the power in parallel of the PI ?)
is there a tutorial somewhere detailing how to uninstall and migrate to an external gateway ? During such migration, would I need to "touch" again my sensors and would I lose history logs of these sensors in Domoticz ?

Sorry for all these questions..

br,
Ricorico94

mfalkvidd

@ricorico94 said in 💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway:

Hi,
This seems a great job, but despite I had a look at many posts (yes, many out of the dozens of pages.. ;-) ), I still can't figure out some questions..

Beyond the obvious advantage of saving an arduino (and power supply, space..), is there an advantage for having the gateway hosted by the raspberry PI hosting my Domoticz ? (like more CPU available for handling communications or for signing ? or on the opposite more risks to overload the PI CPU -despite only a couple persons have complained about high CPU load))

Not really. Cpu usage is normally 0-2% so it doesn't affect either way.

Switching between different gateway types (serial, ethernet, mqtt) can be easier since there is no need to re-wire anything, just reconfigure and recompile. But that could be done with a all-in-one Arduino setup as well.

Remote debug might be a benefit, since logging in to the raspberry pi to view log files can be done remotely. Remote debug for Arduino is possible, but usually requires additional hardware.

The raspberry pi has room for more logging, which can help troubleshooting.

The biggest downside is that a raspberry pi environment is infinitely more complex than an Arduino, which could affect reliability and make troubleshooting harder. On the other hand, there are more debugging tools available which might make troubleshooting easier.

the default setup is Ethernet. What are the pros and cons of ethernet vs serial setup ? (speed? reliability ? possibility to move to other gateway?..)

No difference in speed. No difference in reliability.

Ethernet can easily be made accessible over the network. Doing that with serial can be done but is a bit tricky.

Some controllers don't have support for all gateway types. See https://www.mysensors.org/controller for details.

Is signing now implemented in this setup ? I didn't see it explicitely described, but some posts seem related to signing.

Yes. See the help text produced by running ./configure --help

if I want to use an external antenna and the high power NRF24, should I use an aother power source than raspberry PI ? (or maybe sharing the same USB charger, but diverting the power in parallel of the PI ?)

Yes. See the note on https://www.mysensors.org/build/raspberry#wiring

is there a tutorial somewhere detailing how to uninstall and migrate to an external gateway ? During such migration, would I need to "touch" again my sensors and would I lose history logs of these sensors in Domoticz ?

See my answer in the question you posted yesterday.

Sorry for all these questions..

No worries. Except for posting one of the questions again (which wastes people's time and confuses people when they read only one of the places), you are very welcome to post as many questions as you like. Asking questions is usually the next best way to learn.

ricorico94

Thanks a lot for your clear explanations ! Very useful !
and.. bravo ! for all your work

ricorico94

Hi,
I'm trying to install the gateway on a Raspberry Pi 2 hosting Domoticz already (I had used the standard Domoticz image).
I receive an error message on the make step, but maybe I've not properly understood instructions (not very friendly with raspberry and linux environment).
First, I wired the NRF24 with PA (meaning I used an adapter and the 5V physical PIN#4) and the IRQ (wired on physical pin #15)
Then I logged into my raspberry and staid in initial directory (pi@raspberrypi )
I then typed:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ git clone https://github.com/mysensors/MySensors.git --branch master
Cloning into 'MySensors'...
remote: Counting objects: 14895, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (8/8), done.
remote: Total 14895 (delta 0), reused 5 (delta 0), pack-reused 14887
Receiving objects: 100% (14895/14895), 12.17 MiB | 1.68 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (9022/9022), done.
pi@raspberrypi ~ $ cd MySensors
pi@raspberrypi ~/MySensors $ ./configure --help

Hopefully I did it in adequate folder ? (now I see a Mysensors folder in my /home/pi folder).
Then I typed:

pi@raspberrypi ~/MySensors $ --my-transport=nrf24
-bash: --my-transport=nrf24 : commande introuvable
pi@raspberrypi ~/MySensors $ ./configure --my-transport=nrf24
[SECTION] Detecting target machine.
  [OK] machine detected: SoC=BCM2836, Type=Rpi2, CPU=armv7l.
[SECTION] Detecting SPI driver.
  [OK] SPI driver detected:BCM.
[SECTION] Detecting init system.
  [OK] init system detected: sysvinit.
[SECTION] Saving configuration.
[SECTION] Cleaning previous builds.
[OK] Finished.

So far, no error.. but should I have typed "./configure --my-transport=nrf24 --my-rf24-irq-pin=15" to implement the IRQ ? If yes, can I retype that command with new settings without issue ?

Then I understaood I had to run make command:

pi@raspberrypi ~/MySensors $ make
gcc -MT build/drivers/Linux/log.o -MMD -MP -march=armv7-a -mtune=cortex-a7 -mfpu=neon-vfpv4 -mfloat-abi=hard -DMY_RADIO_NRF24 -DMY_GATEWAY_LINUX -DMY_DEBUG -DLINUX_SPI_BCM -DLINUX_ARCH_RASPBERRYPI  -Ofast -g -Wall -Wextra  -I. -I./core -I./drivers/Linux -I./drivers/RPi -I./drivers/BCM -c drivers/Linux/log.c -o build/drivers/Linux/log.o
cc1: error: bad value (cortex-a7) for -mtune switch
Makefile:118: recipe for target 'build/drivers/Linux/log.o' failed
make: *** [build/drivers/Linux/log.o] Error 1

But errors... :anguished:
I tried to search on forum, and saw someone else meniotning a smilar error, but people were answering about OrangePI, whereas I use a Rasp PI 2.
I probably misunderstood some steps.. Could someone help me ?

Note: in instructions, there's a statement I don't understand for ethernet gateway: "To set the gateway as a client that connects to a controller, use:--my-gateway=ethernet --my-controller-url-address=YOUR-CONTROLLER-ADDRES" . IN which case do we need that ? (as said, I plan to simply use this gateway on My dodmoticz rasp PI).

br,
Ricorico94

gohan

@ricorico94 said in 💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway:

./configure --my-transport=nrf24 --my-rf24-irq-pin=15

That is fine, no need to add extra parameters as by defaults it will configure as ethernet gateway. Also try using the development branch as it has lots of bugs fixed.

arraWX

@ricorico94 Yesterday I managed to make a working rpi gateway. I am on rpi3, use a socket adapter board for the radio and use domoticz. I posted all the details here: https://forum.mysensors.org/topic/7793/nrf24l01-problems-in-2-1-1-and-2-2-0-beta/24

ricorico94

Hi,
@arraWX : I looked at your post. Unfortunately, the error I face is before the start, as it's during the make, so it appears I follow the first steps you describe (config & make), but I still don't know how to solve the make errors.

In case it can help understanding what's going on or what to do, I ran the command:

gcc -v

which displayed: gcc version 4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-14+rpi1)
Could it be an issue this "+rpi1" whreas I've a PI 2 ?

arraWX

Do not know if it is of any help, but mine says: gcc version 4.9.2 (Raspbian 4.9.2-10)

ricorico94

Hi,
I tried to update gcc, just in case.. though I'm not sure of what I do.:confused:
I ran:

pi@raspberrypi ~/MySensors $ sudo apt-get upgrade gcc

and after a little while, it ended without obvious mistake.
but if I do gcc -v again, I still get
gcc version 4.6.3 (Debian 4.6.3-14+rpi1)
(even after reboot)
Is there another step to be done, or am I using wrong command ?

gohan

try running first sudo apt-get update and then sudo apt-get upgrade , it should update all packages

ricorico94

@gohan : JUst tried it, but same result.. no change on version number.
is there something like apt-get install to be done also ?

gohan

I don't know really... I am using dietpi on a RPI3 and there is a convenient tool that you can check what to install and installs for you and among the others I have chosen the "Build-Essentials" that contains all the common packages for compile, so I don't know what packages are included.

marceloaqno

@ricorico94 Do you see gcc-4.9 in the list returned by the command below?

sudo apt-cache search gcc

If it's listed, try installing it by specifying the version:

sudo apt-get install gcc-4.9

ricmail85

Hi, wouldn't be proper to include in the guide also the command "--my-rfm69-irq-pin=22" during the configure procedure in order to improve the throughput for the rfm69 radios?

ricorico94

Hi,
Thanks to @marceloaqno and @Gohan and @arraWX , I could progress somewhow.. but still not working.

When listing the versions as per Marceloagno advice, I could see gcc-4.6 and -4.7 and 4.8 but nothing else (no 4.9).
I then decided to take the risk of installing the 4.8.. The commands from Marcelagno did not work (well, I mean gcc - v was still showing 4.6).
Then I followed this tutorial on upgrade step by step to upgrade to gcc-4.8 and then the make command apparently succeeded (well, plenty messages, some warnings.. but no error apparently, as ar as I could see. I dd not find the folders desribed in website, but the commands were still ok.. weird, but I'm too rookie..)

I then followed again the Mysensors tutorial with
sudo ./bin/mysgw -h
sudo ./bin/mysgw -d (and no error message. great!)
sudo make install
but then I ran
sudo systemctl enable mysgw.service
and I got error message

sudo: systemctl: command not found

After some search, I saw that it's a Jessie command whereas I discovered that my good old version of Rasp Pi, which was built from the standard Domoticz image in 2015 is still Wheezy

pi@raspberrypi ~/MySensors $ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux 7 (wheezy)"
NAME="Raspbian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="7"
VERSION="7 (wheezy)"
ID=raspbian
ID_LIKE=debian
ANSI_COLOR="1;31"
HOME_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianForums"
BUG_REPORT_URL="http://www.raspbian.org/RaspbianBugs"

Any idea of what I should do now?..
another commande equivalent to the systemctl ?
an upgrade to Jessie (any risk ? and how to do it safely ?)

br,
Ricorico94

petewill

I am new to Linux and hopefully have an easy question...
I have followed the build instructions and everything seems to be working well so far. One issue I'm having is getting node-red to see the usb port (/dev/ttyUSB020). I did some searching online and found that if I run the following command node-red will see the port and things start working.

sudo chmod 666 /dev/ttyUSB020

The problem is that each time I reboot the Pi the command needs to be run again. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can resolve this so I don't need to run the command each time the system is booted? Thanks in advance.

💬 Building a Raspberry Pi Gateway

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