Starting a YouTube Chanel

 After a recent gig and making some tutorial videos for the company I have decided to start my own channel and continue supplying tutorials for others to follow.

On the channel I will be covering Kubernetes, reusing old hardware for modern applications, embedded electronics and IoT.

Also occasionally I my even just give a talk on a given subject.

So come on over and take a look, give me feedback, subscribe and even ask for a topic to talk on :)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPYI0WfQF_HkWhPROSvVvGw

Multi-arch Docker Container Builds - Part 2

 And so I found problems.......

On my PC I also run Wine and it has some major issues with the binfmt loader

Every time the buildx.service is started it messes up wine and it wont run.

Easy solution, just change the "--install all" to be a list of emulators that you actually want :)

For me it becomes "--install arm,arm64"

Easy as

Need a version control of IoT sensors, embedded docker containers

For a while now I have been building sensor software that runs on both Raspberry PI and embedded IoT platforms but I have a problem with deployment of versions.

For the embedded sensors I just just check every run for a new version and install but the problem is that it is an expensive operation as it take a few seconds for each run...

On the pi its a fully manual task that is either copying code or updating a container.

I want better :)

After looking at some of the code for Tasmota I think I found the start of how this will work.

Tasmota uses MQTT to send a subject to the device to inform it to update. This subject has the version number in it and if the current version is less the topic then it will update

I can make the PI also look at this topic for updates too.

Once I have the MQTT topic format sorted ( it will be similar to Tasmota ) then I will work on the PI to make it update a local binary file package, then make a docker controller to do the same in docker. Finally I will make a web site that allows for individual control of packages ( web, api and DB schema )

Multi-arch Docker Container Builds

 Recently I had the need to create some containers to run on both x64 and arm (Raspberry PI). 

I tried for a long time to build each on their respective platforms and the do individual pushes to the repositories ( dockerhub in this case )

But it all failed... why?

I found out that when you do a push for test/foo:6, it will just overwrite the manifest data on dockerhub :(

So if I pushed the arm version last I would no longer have access to the x64 container manifest and therefor I would be unable to run the container......

The solution is Buildkit and 'docker buildx' command

Install was simple enough, just follow the readme @ https://github.com/docker/buildx

There is however one little "gotcha"

whilst following the doco you find the following

docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --install all

and a few steps after on building. Whats not there is anything to tell you that you need this each time you reboot as the registration of the binfmt into your kernel is reset on boot...

Once this was found it was just a simple little systemd script to run on boot and all was good

To fix, first create this service file in /usr/lib/systemd/system/buildx.service

[Unit]
Description=Docker Application Container Engine - buildx
Documentation=https://github.com/docker/buildx
After=docker.service containerd.service
Wants=docker.service
Requires=docker.socket containerd.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/docker run --privileged --rm tonistiigi/binfmt --install all

StartLimitBurst=3

StartLimitInterval=60s

LimitNOFILE=infinity
LimitNPROC=infinity
LimitCORE=infinity

TasksMax=infinity

Delegate=yes

KillMode=process
OOMScoreAdjust=-500

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

So what is this doing, once activated by systemd it will run once and exit on boot after docker has started. At this point it will register every device driver available to qemu that is already installed in the system.

If you wish to install a new architecture for building then just register it by installing the appropriate qemy-system-[driver] package

IoT sensors and a new platform

 Time to start logging the work I am doing on a IoT sensor and platform...

I know that there are many, many options out there that cover some of what I am planing but in as I am an engineering type of person I thought I would give it a go

So here is my plan

1. build a cheap weather proof sensor that will
• run of a battery
• solar charged
• use WiFi for internet access
• self register to the back end service
• send updates at a configurable rate
• automatically update in a secure way
2. build a secure firmware release site
3. build a web UI for visualisation of the sensor data
4. use SSO from Face Book, Google etc. so that I don't need to manage accounts
5. be able to share data with other users
6. BONUS : export via MQTT

Number 1 & 2 are easy enough as I have been working on embedded hardware for the last 15 odd years. So I have those skills at least. 

For the rest, I have gotten to know NodeJS and VueJS. They are gelling the most with my brain and so I will be using them and in typical fashion, marrying together what ever I need from Open Source projects and new creations of mine

Should be a fun ride 😊

More info and access coming soon

We bought 44 acres !!!

Who would have thought that with all that has happened in 2020 that we would have bought land?

2020 was a year of many changes, my work being sold, covid stopping travel, the list goes on.

Even with all of that Jodie and I finally purchased our block of land (beyond our wildest dreams)

We have lots of work ahead of us in clearing our Lantana and working on plans for our dream house, but I will finally have a shed and kitchen in which to work

This is the best way to start a new year :)

 

Farewell BACnet, you served me well

It seems like many years have past since I first started to use BACnet here at home.

I had setup several sensors and had them all feeding into a BACnet server on Raspberry PI Zero W. All was working as expected and reliably.

But recently I have changed my work and I no longer have access to the the visualisation systems that I use, and in fact they were more complicated than was needed for my data, and so it's now time to look at a different path.

As I had been the infrastructure guy I have decided to see what I can do using opensource software and my own programming skills.

Stay tuned for some updates on the project