speed-node-red

You have two choices for installation:

1. Download and install the SPEED RPi image from http://blizzard.cs.uwaterloo.ca/speed_09_07_2018.img. This is 8GB and will take some time to download, but will require no additional work.

2. Follow the steps below.

RPi instructions for users who are not using the SPEED RPi image

This section assumes you are using a Raspberry Pi 3 with the default configuration and have access to the internet (either by wi-fi or ethernet). If you obtained the 16GB Raspberry Pi image from github, then you do not need to follow these instructions: the Pi should be ready to run. Note that it will be running as a WiFi access point, so will not be able to access the Internet over WiFi.

IMPORTANT: ensure that your RPi is connected to the electrical grid with the native power supply. Phone chargers do not provide sufficient power and, if you use one, you will see a yellow thunderbolt warning icon in the upper right corner of your desktop.

We highly recommend that you use a fresh SD card in order to prevent any loss of data from previous projects and/or network and script conflicts.

You may need to download the OS installer to your SD card as explained on the official website.

If on campus at the University of Waterloo, you can connect to uw-wifi-setup-no-encryption and download the configuration script for eduroam (other users, please ignore the rest of this paragraph). Run the script and use project-specific credentials to access eduroam. SECURITY NOTE: do not use your personal eduroam credentials, because they will be stored on the SD card in an unencrypted form. You might need to do some additional tweaking of wpa_supplicant configuration files and reboot the computer before the connection becomes available.

Note: upgrading your system as shown below may take quite some time.

• Upgrade RPi software by running:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install firefox-esr

• Upgrade RPi firmware by running sudo rpi-update

• Updgrade node.js and Node-RED by running update-nodejs-and-nodered

• Enable SPI:

  • Run sudo raspi-config
  • Select Advanced Options, select A0 Update
  • Select Advanced Options, select SPI
  • Select yes to enable SPI, select OK to confirm, select the Finish button

• Add yourself to the spi group: sudo adduser pi spi

• Reboot computer: reboot

SPEED-specific instructions begin

Install and configure additional software packages as described next. You will be prompted to to set up a MySQL password for user root during the installation. You will use this password later in Node-RED editor.

sudo apt-get install python2.7-dev mysql-server mysql-client
mysql -uroot -p
CREATE DATABASE speed;
exit

• Get the repository from github:

cd
git clone --recursive https://github.com/iss4e/SPEED.tar.gz
gunzip SPEED.tar.gz
tar xf SPEED.tar

This will create a directory called SPEED, with a Readme.txt file. Follow the instructions in this file to complete installation.

Using Node-RED

• Use node-red-start to start Node-RED (note that Node Red will auto start on reboot)

• Use node-red-stop to stop Node-RED

• Use node-red-log to view the recent log output

• To interact with Node Red, first select the SPEED AP on WiFi, then connect using WPA password 1234567890, then navigate to http://192.168.10.1:1880 .

• Click on any orange node marked speed and enter your MySQL credentials for user root.

• Re-deploy the flow afterwards. IMPORTANT: do not use Epiphany (the default RPi browser) to access Node-RED GUI; use other browsers, such as Iceweasel (Firefox)

• You can access a configuration UI at http://192.168.10.1:1880/ui . This will let you set the system time and battery parameters.

• Use sudo systemctl enable nodered.service to autostart Node-RED at every boot

• Use sudo systemctl disable nodered.service to disable autostart on boot

If you need to ssh to the Pi, you can use login:pi, password:1234

You can change the time on the Pi as well as its AP password and battery parameters from the configuration UI presented above.

For more information on Node-RED go to the official website.

Using git in this project

Unfortunately, Node-RED flow data is stored in a flows_raspberrypi.json file, which is not very suitable for collaborative editing. Therefore, it is the most practical approach to avoid having two people editing the flow simultaneously on two different machines, because the merging process would be very difficult.

If more than one person is going to work on the project, it would be acceptable to work in stages: one person finishes their work, syncs the progress to this online repository, and lets the other person work on it.

The specific GIT instructions for this scenario would be the following. You will be working within the ~/.node-red folder.

• Use git status and git log for infromation purposes at any time
• Before your start work, make sure you are working with the most recent version of this repo: git pull
• After you modified some files locally, add them to the staging area: git add -A or git add [specific file]
• If you are ready to make a commit, run git commit -m "[commit message]"
• Once you are done working on your stage of the project, push your changes to this online repo: git push

For more information on git commands, use the web and man git [command].