Install xpl hub
My xPL hub is based on John Bent's xPL ToolKit for Perl.
Install the hub
Download the tarball. It contains:
-
xpl-hub.pl
: the hub -
xpl-monitor.pl
: a monitor which allows to view the xPL messages -
xpl-send.pl
: a utility for sending xPL messages -
xPL
: a directory containing Perl functions common to all the scripts
Move it to the location you want the scripts to reside.
This could be /opt/xPL
or /usr/opt/xPL
.
I personally create a control
user who will run these scripts
and I place the files in /home/control/Documents/Controls
on a Linux machine
or in /Users/control/Documents/Controls
on a Mac.
Obviously, if you place the scripts in a different location than mine, you will have to adapt the path everywhere it is given here.
Extract it:
tar -xvjpf xPL_base.tar.bz2
Test the hub
Lanch the hub:
su control /home/control/Documents/Controls/xpl-hub.pl -v
Monitor xPL messages: open a second terminal window and:
su control /home/control/Documents/Controls/xpl-monitor.pl -v
Send a message: open a third terminal window and:
/home/control/Documents/Controls/xpl-send.pl -vc hbeat.end world=hello
You should see the corresponding world=hello
message in the second terminal window.
The hub also logs the connected clients:
cat /tmp/xpl-hub.log
If it works, stop all the running xPL scripts.
Launch the hub at startup
Launching the xPL system on a machine requires the following sequencing:
- once the file system and the Ethernet connections are up, the xPL hub can be started
- once the hub is up, most of the xPL clients can be started
- some xPL clients may have to wait for other clients to be up and running
Ubuntu
On Ubuntu, the sequencing can base on events.
Because of this, one has to allow the members of group users
to emit events without typing-in a password.
To do so, edit /etc/sudoers
and add:
# Allow users to emit upstart events %users ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:/sbin/initctl
In order to have the system launch the xPL hub, edit /etc/init/xpl-hub.conf
:
################################################################################ # xPL hub - hub for the home control automation system # description "xPL hub" emits xpl-hub_started version "1.0" author "Francois Corthay" #------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Configuration variables # env SCRIPTS_DIR='/home/control/Documents/Controls' env SCRIPT_NAME='xpl-hub.pl' env LOG_FILE='/tmp/xpl-hub.log' #------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Start and stop conditions # start on (local-filesystems and net-device-up) stop on shutdown respawn setuid control setgid users #------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Startup signalling # post-start script sudo initctl emit xpl-hub_started end script #------------------------------------------------------------------------------- # Start daemon # exec $SCRIPTS_DIR/$SCRIPT_NAME -l $LOG_FILE
Once the xPL hub has been launched, the xpl-hub_started
event is emeiited.
Test launching the daemon:
service xpl-hub start service xpl-hub status
Reboot the machine and check for the daemon:
service xpl-hub status ps ax | grep -v grep | grep -i xpl