IoT

Node RED

I decided to build my first IoT project to automate my small garden with Peperoncini and Tomatos plants.

For development purpose we may want to install Node Red under Docker on our local machine.

Quick install

To run the latest container (we use slim tag for alpine linux since we don't need native dependencies):

docker run -it -p 1880:1880 -v ~/data-db/node-red-data:/data --name nodered nodered/node-red-docker:slim

On a Raspberry Pi you must use a rpi-tagged image: nodered/node-red-docker:rpi.

On Windows we need to create the volume first:

docker volume create --name nodered

Then replace the volume option with -v nodered:/data.

Hit Ctrl-p Ctrl-q to detach from the container. This leaves it running in the background.

To reattach to the container:

docker attach nodered

Now we can open the browser and navigate to http://localhost:1880.

Install the Node RED Dashboard

Click on the top right menu icon and select Manage Palette, click the Install tab, then search node-red-dashboard and install it.

To check that the dashboard is correctly installed navigate to http://localhost:1880/ui.

Read this Tutorial to set up a Dashboard.

Deploy Node RED in production

Securing Node RED.

Mosquitto

Mosquitto is a very popular MQTT Broker.

We can now create 3 volumes to:

1. Override the default mosquitto.conf.

2. To give a persistent data folder.

3. To give a persistent log folder.

On Windows we need to create the volumes into C:/docker-volume/ but not in C:/Users/YOUR_USER/SOMETHING because we finish to have permission issues.

Create a file for configure persistence and logs:

mosquitto.conf

persistence true
persistence_location /mosquitto/data/
log_dest file /mosquitto/log/mosquitto.log

Run the container:

docker run --name mqttbroker -d -p 1883:1883 -p 9001:9001 -v c:/docker-volume/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf:/mosquitto/config/mosquitto.conf -v c:/docker-volume/mosquitto/data:/mosquitto/data -v c:/docker-volume/mosquitto/log:/mosquitto/log eclipse-mosquitto

More info on the Mosquitto Official Docker Hub Image.

Testing MQTT

There’s a handy free program called MQTT.fx which is available for Mac, Windows and Linux. Or if you’re using Chrome there’s a free Chrome Extension called MQTT Lense.

In MQTT.fx, press the settings icon to setup a new connection. We’ll use the server address details above for this. Once we’ve setup our new connection, select it from the list and press the blue connect button.

Once you’ve connected to your MQTT server, we should first “subscribe” to a topic. Let’s move to the subscribe tab, and enter a topic to subscribe to. For now, let’s choose the topic home/garden/fountain which is the default for MQTT fx.

Now that we’ve subscribed to our topic, let’s move back to the Publish tab, and now we’ll send a message on the home/garden/fountain topic. In the message body, let’s type “hello world!” and then press the blue Publish button.

If we switch back to the Subscribe tab, we should now see our home/garden/fountain topic has a message with hello world!

Openhabian

VPN

We may need to access the infrastructure from outside of our private network.

To do that we need to setup a VPN connection.

OpenVPN was added following this [guide](https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-import-openvpn-ovpn-file-with-networkmanager-commandlin$

To use the openvpn official service (on boot as well) follow this [link](https://www.maketecheasier.com/connect-vpn-automatically-li$

To use the port forwarding and host the OpenVPN server directly on the raspberry follow this [link](https://www.smarthomeblog.net/ra$

To make the VPN start on boot edit the rc.local file:

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

At the end of the file add this content:

## Connecto to the OpenVPN
echo "Connect to OpenVPN..."
nmcli connection up openhabian