System
System tab decomposes into sub-tabs "information", "administration" and "logging"
Information
This tab gives you some overview information about Meteobridge version you are currently running.
System
This section shows basic hardware information:
- Platform shows hardware Meteobridge is running on
- RAM displays total RAM capacity and how much of it is currently used. Usage should not go above 90% to avoid stalls and reboots caused by crashing processes.
- Storage is only shown on Meteobridge with local storage (Meteobridge PRO, PRO2, NANO SD, RPI). Please have an eye on this, as when the storage runs full, Meteobridge database will fail and operation will stall. Reason for storage filling up is storing too much of generated charts and exports or store data permanently in per-minute resolution without telling Meteobridge to delete per-minute data after some time. Hourly data remain untouched, just per minute data will be erased.
- Uptime indicates how much time has passed since last reboot.
- Buffer shows the status of the Meteobridge internal services processing queue. Due to resource limitations Meteobridge serializes all Wether Network and Service Events into a queue, where jobs are processed one after the other. When this queue gets filled up faster than Meteobridge can process the queue items the queue will grow until it is filled 100% and will then drop operation. When the queue starts filling up, please reduce frequency of firing events and reduce retry settings for the events.
- Power Data is only available on Meteobridge PRO and PRO2. It shows current supply voltage, current and resulting power consumption. Values below watts are normal for a PRO and PRO2. PRO2 in the example has a NBIOT module installed which adds a bit to the overall power consumptions.
Devices
This section gives a bit of detail about items connected to the USB bus and the I2C bus (Meteobridge PRO and PRO2 only)
- I2C lists the connected devices. SHT31 is internal temp/hum sensor, BMP390 is internal pressure sensor, INA220 is internal voltage/power sensor.
- USB Front tells which USB device is connected at the front.
- USB Back tells which USB device is connected at the front.
Network
Network operation is based on IPv4. MAC shows MAC of current hardware. If it is a Meteobridge VM install, the MAC of the router is also shown as "License MAC". In VM setups Meteobridge license is bound to this License MAC to avoid rendering the Meteobridge unlicensed when MAC has changed because of reboot, rebuild of the VM or some VM cloning. 'LAN IP, WLAN IP show Meteobridge IPv4 depending of the network connection model (LAN or WLAN). LAN Mask, WLAN Mask show Meteobridge network mask. Gateway names IPv4 of the router that connects the Meteobridge to the Internet. DNS lists IPv4 of primary DNS server, which might be your router in most cases. WAN IP is the IP your Meteobridge uses when exploring the Internet. Provider does a lookup of your provider based on the WAN IP given to your Meteobridge. RX Traffic list incoming network data since last reboot. TX Traffic lists outgoing network data since last reboot.
Localization
This section gives some information about location (as derived from the WAN IP), time zone and local/UTC time as well as geographical position
Administration
This tab allows you to do some system settings regarding basic operation and security.
Maintenance
This section allows you to decide if Meteobridge should run most recent version on boot or an older release or if it should stick to the one used last time, which needs a Meteobridge PRO, PRO2, NANO SD or RPI or a "flashed" Meteobridge with an additional USB stick attached.
If you can load the most or more recent version depends on your license. During first two years after initial license purchase you are good to use the most recent licenses. When two years have passed you are stuck to this license status and will not be able to load never versions. You can inspect your license Status on License tab. By buying an update license you will have another 2 years of access to most recent versions. It is recommended to have this set to "newest on boot" to have you automatically updated on each reboot, unless you have other demands.
When the Meteobridge is in an environment, where after a power failure the Internet router does need some time to setup a connection, you can define a boot delay to make Meteobridge wait before starting operation.
Configuration data can be stored on your PC or reloaded from the PC. This is useful, before doing a factory reset or when migrating to a new Meteobridge hardware platform. It is also recommended to save your settings from time to time in case you have to reinstall your Meteobridge because of a fatal error.
Meteobridge can feed Weather34 web templates from Brian Underdown. You can download newest Aurora template archives (Master and Update) by pressing the corresponding buttons. These files are not suited to update the depreciated local Weather34 install on Meteobridge PRO2 and NANO SD. We recommend to use the Meteobridge Aurora Dashboard feature instead that completely takes any burden of template installation and maintenance from you.
When you are with a Meteobridge PRO or NANO SD you have additional settings that allow to define the Database media (Meteobridge PRO only) and some database maintenance operations like restoring from a backup or doing a database rebuild on next reboot, which can be useful when database has become inconsistent for some reason.
When you have a Meteobridge with local storage like Meteobridge PRO, PRO2, NANO SD and RPI the buttons "Download or Delete Files" and "Upload files" allow you to maintain the data on local storage with your browser interface. This is especially useful, when you connect to your Meteobridge remotely where Access to the Meteobridge Network folders via SMB protocol is not an option.
When you are on a Meteobridge PRO with RF module, you can also manually update the firmware of the RF receiver. It sometimes fails on first attempt. If so, please try again.
Security
Security section allows you to change the password that protects Meteobridge web interface against unauthorized access. This password is in sync with the password for user root when you try to login via ssh. You can easily change the password by typing in the new password twice.
Meteobridge offers a feature that allows you to login from the Internet without the need to configure your router accordingly. This feature is turned off per default to maximize your Internet security. When you switch this service on it will take 5 minutes until your Meteobridge is available per an individual URL from the Internet. Please don't forget to press "Save and Apply" to make the changes effective.
It is highly recommended to set your Meteobridge password to a non-default value and not to share this URL with the public, to avoid that other persons log in to your Meteobridge web interface. Technical solution behind this is, that on your request the Meteobridge builds up a ssh reverse tunnel to a dedicated gateway server in the Internet, where this tunnel can be used to login to your Meteobridge. Communication to this gateway server is done via HTTPS to make sure data is not compromised. Gateway server is managed by the developers of the Meteobridge software, smartbedded GmbH. If you are behind a company grade firewall limiting outgoing traffic or forced to use a http proxy, this solution might not work, but in majority of cases it should work. If you have any doubts, ask your network administrator if you are allowed to make use of this Meteobridge feature according to your companies Internet security guidelines. If you don't feel comfortable with this approach, please don't switch on the feature. In that case no tunnel to the gateway server will be established.
We also want to highlight that the Meteobridge builds including the underlying OpenWRT operating system are not maintained with security patches (as a result of technical and effort constrants, please also read here). Therefore, it is MANDATORY not to expose the Meteobridge directly to the Internet but to have it in a protected LAN where the LAN firewall blocks incoming traffic to the Meteobridge. That way you can operate the Meteobridge without risking your Internet security at home. It is widely seen as best practice to put non-hardened IOT devices - which Meteobridge is - into a DMZ, where even if the device is compromised an attacker does not have direct access to your other LAN devices from there. Please also be aware that opening up the remote access feature of Meteobridge exposes the Meteobridge uhttp web server to attacks from the Internet. As said, if you don't feel comfortable with this, don't use the remote login. We do not decide for you on this, we just try to give you the needed information to judge yourself if benefits outplay risks in your individual situation.
Localization
This sections shows date und time in UTC and in the timezone you have selected. If no timezone is selected Meteobridge takes UTC as you local timezone. Please select timezone matching your weather station's location. When changing timezone a reboot is required to get all system services adapted to this change.
Metebridge's web interface comes in two hard-coded languages, "English" and "German". Meteobridge allows for additional languages in terms of language files, that can be added to new Meteobridge releases. Currently there are languages listed on the right added to Meteobridge. If you like to do a translation into your preferred language, you can download a template with "Download Language File" button. Simply fill in the corresponding translation in UTF-8 after the "::" marks and send the file to "info(at)meteobridge.com" so that we can include this for next releases. It is crucial that language files are in UTF-8 format, not the common ISO-8859 variants.
Some weather networks require coordinates of your weather station. Please enter location by latitude and longitude as decimals. The orange "i" icons do lead you to a web site, where you can easily find out coordinates of any location in the world.
In case of a Meteobridge PRO or PRO2 you can also control in which time periods the display should be on/off. In addition you can freeze display operation after some to reduce I2C traffic which is suspected to collide with sensor readings in edge situations (option might add I2C stability for remotely hard to reach NBIOT installations).
Database
In case you are running a Meteobridge PRO, NANO SD or RPI you can also do some settings related to the permanent storage of data in the devices database.
With "Per-Minute data" options you can activate the permanent storage of per-minute data. This is very useful, when you are looking for detailed graphs or data exports into the past (last 48 hours are always stored with per-minute resolution by Meteobridge in RAM, but will be stripped after that time period). You can choose if all sensor data is stored in per-minute resolution or just the main sensors as listed on the "Station - Mapping" tab. To avoid fast filling up of the storage, you can also select that per-minute data will be erased when more then 30, 90, 180 days or after a year.
Data Migration allows to copy data of a sensor to another sensor (which should of course be of the same kind). This is useful when you had a sensor "th2temp" in the past which has now been replaced by a sensor named "th3temp" and you want to make the old "th2temp" data also available in graphs when plotting "th3temp" data. Copying sensor data is done as a background job and you will be informed on "System - Logging" tab when operation is finished. Data will not be removed from the old sensor, the migration is done as a duplication. You can deleted sensors data on "History - Edit" tab, to get rid of duplicates. Please check twice if you are selecting the right sensors as undoing the data copy job is not possible. It might also be a good idea to make a backup of your database first, just in case something goes wrong.
Logging
This tab contains a messaging section where information are dropped from the Meteobridge application services.
- setup are messages from the scripts invoked on boot to start the system.
- dbase are notifications from the database process.
- logger is related to the data logging process that reads out data from the connected weather stations
- wnet is related to the process that connects to weather networks, uploads data, etc.
- export is related to the export process that might be started by event schedules
- systenm is about basic system operations that are keeping an eye on having the processes running fine.
