Category Archives: Tech

Rural LTE Networking via Mofi

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I wanted to be able to access my up north cameras remotely. This comes with some challenges in a rural area with very limited high speed internet options. No DSL or cable options, my area is all out of coverage range. Only line of sight provider(but provider would not take new customers.) The solution was a Mofi type LTE router MOFI4500-4GXeLTE. The router needed an antenna upgrade as the latency is was high and speeds were poor.

Dual LTE 698-755 MHz Yagi Antenna 14 dBi from Excel Wireless connected to two Lightning Arrestor N Male to Female B to two N Male to SMA Male , LMR400 Jumper 25 feet
After the antenna upgrade

Synology NAS in Fireproof Safe – UPDATE

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This is a very non-scientific method!! Take this anecdote for what it’s worth, but here is an update to my original post about the Synology box in my fireproof safe.  Notes: safe has been opened at least every few days, the AC is running at times in my home, the windows open others. So just my observations, not a bulletproof study by all means.
I have been running the Synology two bay disk station in my Liberty safe for about 6 months now. Here in Michigan we are into the summer warmer months. I’ve included two charts of the internal disk temp and the temp inside my home for the past 60 days. The safe seems to be large enough to circulate the air and keep the temp within normal spec. I’m confident enough to keep this setup running as is year round as the NAS hardware and drives seem to be just fine.

Disk Sensor (this disk usually tends to run a degree warmer)


Home temp sensor from the Accurite weather station

Acurite Weather Station Monitoring PRTG

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My weather station uploads to wunderground but I wanted a way to collect historical stats and monitor my indoor temp remotely. Since I already have PRTG running in a virtual machine, this is a good solution for me.

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My Weather Station AcuRite 5 – in – 1 Color Weather Station – $80 from Costco


First you’ll need the Acurite software and hardware USB interface to start outputting a CSV to your PRTG host.
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Acurite software config


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Sample Output


Save the following powershell file into your PRTG Custom Sensors\EXEXML directory. Edit the first line to the path of your acurite CSV. Then open PRTG and add a new sensor with type of EXEXML, selecting the scrip  you just saved.
Essentially the script just parses the CSV, sets labels and limits. The CSV file will eventually grow very large, I’ll deal with that then. In my case I had to setup another script to transfer to the CSV to my PRTG box, but you can figure that out. I’m sure there are more efficient ways to do this, but it works well for my case.

$myFileName = "e:\temp\acuriteweather.CSV"
# Get last one row of file into variable
$lastDataRow = (Get-Content $myFileName)[-1]
#parse data
$dataArray = $lastDataRow.Split(",")
$dataArray = $dataArray -replace '"', ""
$Timestamp = $dataArray[0]
$OutdoorTemperature = $dataArray[1]
$OutdoorHumidity = $dataArray[2]
$DewPoint = $dataArray[3]
$HeatIndex = $dataArray[4]
$WindChill = $dataArray[5]
$BarometricPressure = [math]::Round($dataArray[6],2)
$Rain = $dataArray[7]
$WindSpeed = [math]::Round($dataArray[8],2)
$WindAverage = [math]::Round($dataArray[9],2)
$PeakWind = [math]::Round($dataArray[10],2)
$WindDirection = $dataArray[11]
$IndoorTemperature = $dataArray[12]
$IndoorHumidity = $dataArray[13]
#rainfall fix, resets counter every night at midnight
$yesterday = (Get-Date).AddDays(-1).ToString('MM/dd/yyyy')
$yesterday = $yesterday + " 11:48:00 PM"
$dayinput = Select-String -Path $myFileName -Pattern "$yesterday" | select line
$yesterdaysrainfall = $dayinput -split ','
$yesterdaysrainfall = $yesterdaysrainfall[7] -split '"'
$yesterdaysrainfall = [double]$yesterdaysrainfall[1]
$todaysrain = [math]::Round($rain -$yesterdaysrainfall,2)
write-host "<prtg>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Outdoor Temp</channel>"
write-host "<customUnit>F</customUnit>"
write-host "<float>1</float>"
write-host "<LimitMode>1</LimitMode>"
write-host "<LimitMaxWarning>95</LimitMaxWarning>"
write-host "<LimitMaxError>105</LimitMaxError>"
write-host "<LimitMinWarning>10</LimitMinWarning>"
write-host "<LimitMinError>0</LimitMinError>"
write-host "<LimitWarningMsg>Ourdoor Temp Warning</LimitWarningMsg>"
write-host "<LimitErrorMsg>Ourdoor Temp Error</LimitErrorMsg>"
write-host "<value>$OutdoorTemperature</value>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Outdoor Humidity</channel>"
write-host "<customUnit>%</customUnit>"
write-host "<value>$OutdoorHumidity</value>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Outdoor Dewpoint</channel>"
write-host "<value>$DewPoint</value>"
write-host "<customUnit>F</customUnit>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Outdoor Heat Index</channel>"
write-host "<value>$HeatIndex</value>"
write-host "<customUnit>F</customUnit>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Outdoor Wind Chill</channel>"
write-host "<value>$WindChill</value>"
write-host "<customUnit>F</customUnit>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Outdoor Barometric Pressure</channel>"
write-host "<float>1</float>"
write-host "<DecimalMode>2</DecimalMode>"
write-host "<value>$BarometricPressure</value>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Rain</channel>"
write-host "<customUnit>inches</customUnit>"
write-host "<float>1</float>"
write-host "<value>$todaysrain</value>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Wind Speed</channel>"
write-host "<customUnit>mph</customUnit>"
write-host "<float>1</float>"
write-host "<LimitMaxWarning>20</LimitMaxWarning>"
write-host "<LimitMaxError>30</LimitMaxError>"
write-host "<LimitWarningMsg>Wind Warning</LimitWarningMsg>"
write-host "<LimitErrorMsg>Wind very high</LimitErrorMsg>"
write-host "<value>$WindSpeed</value>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Wind Speed Average</channel>"
write-host "<float>1</float>"
write-host "<customUnit>mph</customUnit>"
write-host "<DecimalMode>2</DecimalMode>"
write-host "<LimitMaxWarning>20</LimitMaxWarning>"
write-host "<LimitMaxError>30</LimitMaxError>"
write-host "<LimitWarningMsg>Wind Warning</LimitWarningMsg>"
write-host "<LimitErrorMsg>Wind very high</LimitErrorMsg>"
write-host "<value>$WindAverage</value>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Peak Speed Wind</channel>"
write-host "<float>1</float>"
write-host "<DecimalMode>2</DecimalMode>"
write-host "<customUnit>mph</customUnit>"
write-host "<value>$PeakWind</value>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Wind Direction</channel>"
write-host "<float>1</float>"
write-host "<customUnit>degrees</customUnit>"
write-host "<DecimalMode>2</DecimalMode>"
write-host "<value>$WindDirection</value>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Indoor Temperature</channel>"
write-host "<float>1</float>"
write-host "<value>$IndoorTemperature</value>"
write-host "<customUnit>F</customUnit>"
write-host "<LimitMode>1</LimitMode>"
write-host "<LimitMaxWarning>81</LimitMaxWarning>"
write-host "<LimitMaxError>85</LimitMaxError>"
write-host "<LimitMinWarning>65</LimitMinWarning>"
write-host "<LimitMinError>62</LimitMinError>"
write-host "<LimitWarningMsg>Indoor Temp Warning</LimitWarningMsg>"
write-host "<LimitErrorMsg>Indoor Temp Error</LimitErrorMsg>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "<result>"
write-host "<channel>Indoor Humidity</channel>"
write-host "<value>$IndoorHumidity</value>"
write-host "<customUnit>%</customUnit>"
write-host "<LimitMode>1</LimitMode>"
write-host "<LimitMaxWarning>90</LimitMaxWarning>"
write-host "<LimitMaxError>95</LimitMaxError>"
write-host "<LimitMinWarning>30</LimitMinWarning>"
write-host "<LimitMinError>35</LimitMinError>"
write-host "<LimitWarningMsg>Indoor Humidity Warning</LimitWarningMsg>"
write-host "<LimitErrorMsg>Indoor Humidity Error</LimitErrorMsg>"
write-host "</result>"
write-host "</prtg>"

Monitoring WordPress Micro EC2 AWS instance with PRTG

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Postinger.com runs on a micro EC2 instance from amazon. Occasionally the database uses too much CPU, memory or iops and crashes. I’m sure I should be running on a instance with more resources. I’ve adjusted swap, memory usage and threads apache uses but still occasionally the database crashes.

Screen Shot 2016-05-01 at 7.51.13 AM

this is the error


“Error establishing a database connection”
I have a PRTG instance running at home monitoring my internal network. I know PRTG has the ability to check for a word from an external webpage. So here is the solution.
Add an HTTP Advanced Web Sensor, checking for a word that will appear on your wordpress page(the word “WordPress” is a good choice for this)
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Install the puTTY msi on your prtg server(or copy puTTY and plink.exe to it.
In your Path to your PRTG install’s notification\exe directory (E:\PRTG Network Monitor\Notifications\EXE) Add a batch file with the following line:

echo yes | plink -ssh ec2-user@domain -i e:\path\to\key.ppk sudo shutdown -r now
#echo yes, answers the prompt to trust the signature, the key is generated via PuTTYgen

Add a notification to execute a program, select the batch file you saved in the above referenced path.
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Add a state trigger referencing your notification and set the appropriate timing.
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That should do it. My batch file restarts the whole instance which for me is fine, but you may want to tweak the batch file only to restart the database or whatever else you see fit.