As requested - "I have one of these http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/silver-usb-wireless-touchscreen-weather-forecaster-n96fy connected to a Pi running pywws to log the data. "

Pywws is the software http://jim-easterbrook.github.io/pywws/doc/en/html/guides/getstarted.html regular updates and an active google group for support.

http://jim-easterbrook.github.io/pywws/doc/en/html/guides/getstarted.html does what it says but read the first line carefully and follow the 'dependencies' link before doing anything else. I suspect the software has changed since I installed it so I won't say any more.

I do use monit to monitor the process as it was falling over occasionally and monit simply restarts it. I also wrote a proper daemon for it so monit could monitor it. This may have now been implemented but I have not been following recently.

Posted By: SteamyTea
Still need some scaffolding

I just gave three lorry loads back to the people that own it! (Well, they came and spent two days collecting it) So we can finally see some of the house. SWMBO thinks it looks like a barn Hopefully she'll change her mind when we can see the rest of it!

Posted By: SteamyTeaFriends of mine bought a modern house that overlooked a thatched cottage.

Our new house is next to a thatched cottage. It doesn't overlook it though. Planning conditions are wonderful.

Done mine.

It is easy to check.

copy and paste (right click) into a terminal

env x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash -c "echo this is a test"

If it prints


vulnerable

this is a test


You have a problem
If it prints


this is a test


You should be OK

Posted By: djh

1. That's why perl has taint mode! Don't use shells in web servers.

And don't have bash as /bin/sh so that it's used by any program using system() or popen() functions.
$ ls -l /bin/sh
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 4 Feb 19 2014 /bin/sh -> dash
So safe from _this_ problem, if not the next, even if this bash is vulnerable.

(I've just had a week+ of people running round at work like headless chickens: yes we've dozens of machines
with vulnerable versions of bash, but /bin/sh is just sh or perhaps dash. So we need to patch but you'd think everyone's credit card#, bank a/c, and naked selfies had been stolen!).

Posted By: SteamyTea: “Save to remote location”

Depends what you mean by this. You can't just write a file (open, print, print…, close) to some magic filename to make it write remotely without setting up something possibly a bit complicated. If you want to do it that way then probably SSHFS is the best approach:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSHFS

Set up properly that would be very secure and convenient for your logging script. I've not tried it myself so wouldn't know - particularly on the Raspberry Pi. The SFTP bit should be easy but fuse (which provides the mounted file system bit) could be a bit of a pain - not sure.

Posted By: SteamyTea: “I may add in a second save to a local file that saves all the data to the RPi in case there is a connection loss.”

That's a good idea. You could write a local file then just scp to the remove server.

http://linux.die.net/man/1/scp

You could even write whatever files you want to a local directory then rsync that to the server. That would have the advantage that if the connection is lost for a while then when it next picks up again the missing data would get transferred in one go. Also, you could do something like write data every 5 minutes but only rsync every half hour or whatever. rsync is clever at only sending the parts of files which have changed so your local logging could be appending to a file then, when transfers happen, only the changed parts on the end get sent.

http://linux.die.net/man/1/rsync

(PS, I'm assuming here that the server is a Unix-like system: Linux, BSD, OS X or whatever, perhaps another Pi. If it's Windows I'll leave suggestions to somebody else.)

Posted By: gravelldor write a simple servlet that accepts the data as HTTP messages and stores the data.

I think that's another way of describing something I was wondering about too, i.e. maybe the requirement is simple enough to send the data URL encoded via http with perl, php, or some such, catching & saving the data at the other end?
e.g.

http://www.fileserver/pidata.cgi?timestamp=201501141502&data=1001

Steamy's whispered that they want to react to changes quickly, within a minute, not just do logging as I assumed.

From the security point of view having a Pi at the office receiving from the various sensors would probably make sense.

Whatever, for quicker reactions having a socket interface at the office for the remote systems to connect to might be best. That could be over HTTP (or better HTTPS) but even if it's a Windows system that doesn't knock out SSH.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_SSH_servers#Platform

I know nothing about them but Apache Mina SSHD and PowerShell Server catch my eye.

The sensor Pis could execute the equivalent of “ssh someaccount@server.example.org program 1234 5.6"

where program is whatever program (or script or batch file) is supposed to react to the readings (or decide if a reaction is needed) and the numbers are the latest set of readings passed to the program on its command line.

I wouldn't call it tricky, more like intricate. I don't understand your network(s?) setup.

Posted By: SteamyTeaFirst thing to do is set all my wireless stuff to static IPs, that will make my life easier. I hate dynamic IPs.

Something's wrong there.

It's just more state to record and maintain.

Without knowing the IP address how can I connect remotely? I would like to use 'friendly names', is there an easy and reliable way to do that. Also I would set this up to just be wired, wireless (not G3/4) is not much use in a field

So say I have a server that wants to contact a number of remote clients and ask fro the data.
The server sends out the message 'Here I am, give me what I want'.
The clients rummage though their files, finds what is wanted, and sends them back.

If the server tries to contact the last place it saw the client, and the client has moved (the IP address has changed), the all seeing internet will just say 'Return to sender, address unknown', see, Elvis is alive and with the CIA now.

Now I know there there are services like No-IP, that allow the client to connect via a static server, but not sure how fast they react to calls for data (I want to get a response within a few seconds).

There is an application that uses the Tor network to shift data about (I like Tor and wish everyone would set up a relay), but my experience of that is slowness. Not surprising as it has to wrap and unwrap data all the time and goes though at least 5 computers to do it. Though I was using it on my HTC Desire C, which is about as powerful as an RPi.

So I think I have to set the clients up with a static IP (not actually my part of the project, if it comes off), unless there is a way around it. I know that the RPi Foundation have a list of Pi's that are connected via something or other, but I am reluctant to give out a location to a load of school kids.

Yes, just been chatting to Ed about that. I was going to work on it a bit today, but it was sunny, so I went out instead.
I think I need to write things down and get it clear what I need to do and then work out how to do it. Save confusing myself.

Posted By: cjardTechnically what you're calling the "server" in that example is a client

Clients make requests of a server and servers respond. If you have a RasPi that requests data from your fridge, washing machine, xbox media centre and some weather website, then it's a client, not a server..

That makes sense, even if the files are permanently stored on the client (back at the office).
Think this is why I need to write it all down and draw a few pictures.