This page needs further contributions, can you help?

This document is 'Work In Progress' so content may not be complete.

Request for help from Wiki Readers

Do you understand how MX works?
Do you use hardware, or MX functionality, that is not yet documented? Can you begin that documenting?
Can you contribute simple text for novice users, examples of what you have done, correction of typing or factual errors, or supply missing details?
Will you make this page more useful by bringing content up-to-date as new releases change some information written for older releases?
Does any page need a section for novices, so they don't need to read more technical information further down that page?
Is there some information on this page, that should be on a separate page? Can you create the new page and move the less relevant information off this page, don't forget this page needs a link to the new page so people who expect to find it here know where it has moved to?

If you plan on contributing to the Wiki, then you will need an account.

Please use the Request Account form to apply for an account. Note that the Wiki is currently undergoing restructuring and is largely locked for editing, but please apply for an account if you wish to contribute in the future.
You will find help on how to contribute to this wiki at How to Edit.
If you need to consult others, please use the Cumulus Wiki suggestions forum.

Please be aware that information on this page may be incorrect.

Are you on the right Wiki page?

This page focuses on aspects of MX that are specific to the Linux operating systems.

If you are running MX on on any computer running the Microsoft Windows Operating System, then you should be reading the MX on Windows OS page instead.

Device Coverage

Linux is available based on a multitude of different kernels (the building block for the operating system), on a multitude of devices.

This page has been originated by a contributor using the Raspberry Pi Operating System (this is based on Debian, one of the Linux kernels). Be aware therefore that some instructions on this page are specific to a Raspberry Pi computer with its default operating system.

For other devices, the inclusion of the correct instructions is totally dependent on whether any contributor has edited this page to cover your device in the context of that section of this page. It is hoped that contributions to this page will be made by Cumulus users with a range of different devices so this page is useful to more people.

Until somebody creates a separate page for Apple Mac computers (that could be a good idea, as there are some significant differences), this page is the best source of advice.

For those using Raspberry Pi computers

As described on this Raspberry Pi computer Wiki page, there are significant advantages in using a Raspberry Pi computer to run Cumulus MX, such as it being simple to use, it saving energy costs, and it avoiding the dreaded regular rebooting by Microsoft's Windows Update.

You have two choices:

CHOICE ONE: ‘’’Create a micro-SD card that has everything on it to load a kernel onto your RPi computer and run MX’’’

The developer has created an image you can download for those prepared to run two computers (a RPi for actually running MX and another computer for all interactions with MX).

That image contains:

Raspberry Pi Lite Operating System as kernel (no graphical user interface, designed for a RPi without keyboard or monitor)
Mono-complete package
Cumulus MX package

If you are new to MX, after booting from image, you will need to use the other computer to access the Wizard in the admin interface; this will define station type, your choice of units, and some other settings, before MX can start recording data from the connected weather station.
If you are migrating from another computer, after booting from image, you need to add (using an external memory stick or file transfer from your other device to the RPi), the following:
- (mandatory) Cumulus.ini,
- (optional) strings.ini,
- (mandatory) all files from old data sub-folder,
- and any (optional) files from old Reports sub-folder.

If you want to pursue that approach, please read Raspberry_Pi_Image page, instead of continuing to read this page. Obviously, you can return to this page on another day if you want to learn more.

CHOICE TWO: ‘’’Load the software packages individually’’’

Please read on, this page will tell you all you need to know.

Page Content

This page:

describes the options available for installing the 3 Cumulus packages:
- CumulusMX.exe
- ExportToMySQL.exe
- CreateMissing.exe
describes the pre-requisite MONO software needed to run the various Cumulus executables, how to add the Mono repository to your system, and how to upgrade MONO
explains how to run Cumulus MX either interactively or as a service
briefly indicates instructions for configuring MX using the administrative interface
explains the few key Linux commands it uses
the content tries to compromise between three types of readers:
- to be useful to anyone who has never used MX (regardless of their previous Linux experience)
- to assist anyone who knows Cumulus, but has not run MX on Linux before
- to add a little technical information for those who wish to tailor their Cumulus MX operation
describes the optional parameters you can add when starting MX
briefly explains how to use the other executables

There are various related pages to get more information:

If you encounter a problem when running MX, please see What to do when I have a problem with MX
If MX gives you a message saying "you are not running the latest version", please see Guide to upgrading MX
If you are puzzled by the terminology, please see Category:Terminology for links to pages that explain terminology used by Cumulus (these pages were written for the legacy Cumulus 1 and may need updating for MX)
If you need to know more about files in the installation, please see Category:Cumulus Files for links to all Wiki pages describing the sub-folders and files used by MX
Go to Category:Cumulus MX for links to all pages in this Cumulus Wiki that relate specifically to MX
Admin interface provides information on configuration and web pages for viewing your weather data locally
The Cumulus MX FAQ page was created with snippets from the forum, but nobody has yet sorted this out into a useful page or updated it for recent releases
If you were using the original (now legacy) Cumulus software, please read Migrating_from_Cumulus_1_to_MX, although that is mostly directed at those using MX on the same Windows PC as they used for Cumulus 1, and was written for an old MX release, it will help you understand configuration differences.
If you want to use a script language, you might want to read PHP Hypertext Pre-processor and JavaScript page

Using MX on UNIX-derived Operating Systems

MX runs on any UNIX-derived operating systems (OS):

including those found on Apple Mac computers,
and those found on a multitude of devices running Linux.

UNIX is a long established operating system, and both UNIX and its derivatives have good long term compatibility. This means that commands are generally easy to learn just once and then you can normally continue to use what you have learnt.

Most devices also have a graphical user interface that can do the more straightforward tasks without needing to know all the commands.

What do people think about MX on Linux?

Contributions to the Cumulus Support Forum suggest that:

Use on a Raspberry Pi (RPi) computer is very popular
In general, people find installing, and running, MX on Linux is easy
The few people who do have difficulties are those who have good knowledge of Microsoft systems and feel scared to swap to something different.

Microsoft has had a deliberate policy of being different to traditional computers (all others are mostly based on UNIX). This is why this Wiki gave up attempting to have one page covering MX regardless on which operating system was used, instead creating this page, and the Running Cumulus MX on Microsoft Windows page with very little duplicated text.

In the Cumulus support forum, there are many posts from people who are struggling with MX on PCs. It appears this is not because Microsoft computers are so more readily available and therefore known about; but because people often find “installing”, and using, MX is more difficult when using Microsoft Windows.

Do you have a Operating System?

New hardware might come preloaded with an operating system, or might allow you to choose which operating system to install on it.

Please see Raspberry Pi computer page if you want guidance on choosing which model to buy and how to install an operating system on those computers, so you are ready to install MX.

Do you know how to install packages?

This is one of several places on this page where a novice can skip on to step-by-step instructions (in this case continue reading at #Cumulus packages), but others may want to read a little technical detail to understand what they are doing.

Read on for a short technical digression to explain the commands for how to install and update software packages (the same commands can be used to install software for Your_Own_Server, or to read the SQLite databases used by MX Cumulusmx.db and Diary.db).

The various components to commands for installation

Linux computers have a “source list” which references the repositories from which software packages can be installed.

If a particular package can not be found in repositories already in the source list, then another repository can be added to the source list.

sudo

By default, a Linux user should log in as a default user with limited rights.

For example, the Raspberry Pi Operating System has a single default user "Pi", with their home folder that can be referenced as "~".

The limited rights mean that a standard user cannot even see (read) some files, cannot execute some commands, and cannot edit (write to) some files. For full access to files, the sudo instruction gives you (just for the command that follows) the same read/write/execute access that the system root user has.

For software packages, the command to be used is apt to invoke the package manager, followed by an "action" and then optionally by the "package name". In that context the default user's limited rights allow use of actions that just read (such as search, show). However, for any action involving writing (such as install, full-upgrade, update, autoremove), the package manager needs additional rights, and we prefix the "apt" with sudo.

Elsewhere on this page you might notice cd can move round the file structure (without a "sudo"), but "sudo" is used with cp as that writes a file.

Novice readers were advised to skip this part of this Wiki page. That is because everyone should exercise caution before using "sudo", changing folder/file ownership, adding write rights, and even using "-R" or "-y" flag. The use of "sudo" makes it very easy to inadvertently do the wrong action, in the worst case making your computer unusable because it can delete vital folders/files because of something as simple as a typo.

For technical readers only, "sudo" is further explained later #su_and_sudo).

apt

The second part of any software installation command is “apt” meaning “Advance Package Tool”. In simple terms, it runs the “package manager” used in Linux.

If you are looking online for a tutorial on how to install packages, you might see “apt-get” or "apt-cache" used in examples they quote. Don't copy those examples directly, it should be safe to replace these older package managers with "apt". I have included a little technical explanation at the end of this page if this really worries you.

install

The third part of our installation instruction is the action parameter. In our current context this is “install”, which tells our package manager what we are trying to do.

Here is full list of what can follow “apt”, as we will use some of the alternatives later:

Instruction following “apt”	Description
install	To install a package and its dependencies
update	The "source list" mentioned earlier that references the repositories from which software packages can be installed, needs to be updated periodically so it reflects any changes within those repositories. The instruction "update" is included after "apt" to make sure your computer has up to date information about repositories installed, and to report if these contain packages that can be upgraded
upgrade	Once your "source list" is up to date, `sudo apt upgrade`, followed by a package name, will for the named packages download any newer versions now available in repositories. If you include `-y` flag, or you answer 'Y' or 'y' to the prompt, then the package manager will continue, and actually replace those packages that are already installed on your computer with the downloaded newer versions, making them available for immediate use. (You cannot upgrade the actual kernel within the operating system with this instruction, so there is no necessity to reboot your Linux computer).
full-upgrade	Once your "source list" is up to date, the instruction "full-upgrade" can be included after "apt". The advantage of "full-upgrade" over the simple "upgrade" is that it picks up dependencies, it ensures that every package is able to work with all other packages, and so normally results in more components being upgraded. (Again, this does not affect kernel, and does not require a computer reboot).
autoremove	The instruction "autoremove" can be included after "apt" to check all components in the packages you have installed onto your computer, and remove any components that are not needed by the dependencies of the packages you are using. A download for software frequently includes some components specifically for their software to work with particular other optional packages, and therefore installs more than you actually need. When we install mono-complete later, the other packages we install do not need every component that has installed, and “autoremove” can be used to tidy up when all our installations are finished.
remove	If you want to remove just one component manually, use `sudo apt remove` followed by the name of component you no longer want
purge	To remove any installed package and delete all related configuration files, use `sudo apt purge` then the name of the package we no longer want
search	To search in repositories in source list for a package you specify after `apt search`
show	To show any information available about a package that you name after the `apt show`

Flags

The basic syntax is either one or two hyphens, followed by one or two letters (each letter has to be a specific case). Various examples will be seen on this page, but here just one is explained here.

If we selected "install" or "upgrade" to follow "apt", we can add a “-y” flag to signify that we want the install to not only down load new components but also install them. Without this flag, the package manager will ask periodically if we want it to continue, and we have to then respond with a “y” each time. For example, when we ask to install a package, "apt" will do a search, it will list what components it has found, and output how big their demands are on storage, without "-y" flag, it will then ask (at least once) if it is okay to continue to installing.

Name

The final part of the package command is the name of the package or component that we want to install/upgrade/purge/show/remove or search for.

Install starts here

If your computer has the pre-installed image, or you have installed MX before, you can skip the sub-sections that follow on here and continue reading at #Cumulus packages.

Preparing for an install

Before we do an install of a new package, we typically use this series of commands to ensure our computer is in the best state to work out dependencies of what we are about to install:

sudo apt update

sudo apt -y full-upgrade

sudo apt autoremove

Each of those can be understood from information in earlier sub-section.

If you are installing onto a Pi zero, or similar slow computer, please ensure the size of the swapfile is as big as possible, as the mono-complete we will install is large. In linux, we type free -m to see our RAM size and our swapfile size.

To change swapfile size on the Raspberry Pi (Can contributors add details for other Linux computers):

Edit a file sudo nano /etc/dphys-swapfile.
Move the cursor down line by line until it reaches CONF_SWAPSIZE=100. That is showing that the swapfile is only 99 mb by default in the Raspberry Pi Operating System.
Now move the cursor to the 100, and change it to "512" which is enough for mono even on a Pi zero.
Next, stop, and restart, the relevant service using sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile stop && sudo /etc/init.d/dphys-swapfile start.
That should complete quickly, and we can type free -m again to see the 99 we saw previously has been replaced by 511.

The actual swapfile size to choose depends on the amount of RAM installed on your computer, if you want to know more (because there is some conflicting advice), then do an online search to discover the RAM size on your device and the advice on suitable swapfile size.

USB HID

There is one more prerequisite package for MX with some weather station types.

You may notice HidSharp.dll in same folder as executable, this is a cross-platform Universal Serial Bus (USB) Human Interface Device (HID) library.

To check your USB devices, type sudo lsusb -t.

MX uses this library for weather stations (like Fine Offset and USB connected Oregon Scientific models) that appear as a HID via a USB connection. To check if your weather station appears as a HID, download this USB HID test package and run it.

This HidSharp library calls a package libudev shared library file called libudev.so.1. Most recent Linux distributions will already include the libudev shared library. On my Raspberry Pi, typing apt search libudev showed libudev.so.1 was already installed. If it is missing, then #install it.

Optionally, read about Oregon Scientific issues.

Optionally, read about Fine Offset issues, and the optional symbolic file link instructions (those apply if you only have an earlier libudev shared library version, and wish MX to use that).

Checking if mono-complete in Source List

The "source list" mentioned earlier may not contain all the repositories we need for our installations.

Consequently, type apt search mono-complete, to find out whether the mono package is available from one of the repositories already in our source list, and if the version available is compatible with MX (Release announcements for MX should specify which versions of Mono will work).

If mono-complete is not available (or only available in an older version incompatible with MX), then we have to add a new repository, and the one to add depends on which Linux kernel is used by our Operating System.

There are a number of sub-sections below, please check which applies to you, and only read that one.

Add the Mono repository for a Raspberry Pi

The two Mono repositories listed here are specific to the 2017 and 2019 releases (respectively) of the operating system for a Raspberry Pi computer. These are taken from download-lin-raspbian. If your Rasberry Pi is running the 2021 release (11 = Bullseye), or whatever is available when you are reading this page, please refer to that external link for more recent instructions.

the first line (in each case) installs a certificate
the echo line defines a repository to add to the sources list.

Raspberry Operating System 9 (stretch)	Raspberry Operating System 10 (buster)
sudo apt install apt-transport-https dirmngr gnupg ca-certificates	sudo apt install apt-transport-https dirmngr gnupg ca-certificates
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF	sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF
echo "deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian stable-raspbianstretch main" \| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official-stable.list	echo "deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/debian stable-raspbianbuster main" \| sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official-stable.list
sudo apt update	sudo apt update

Add the Mono repository to Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora

At time of writing, download-lin-ubuntu, shows the instructions for versions 16, 18, and 20 of Ubuntu.

Equally, download-lin-debian, gives details for debian, and download-lin-fedora for Fedora.

Others can be found by choosing other tabs on any of those links.

Installing Mono instruction

Now we have the certificate needed, and the repository for mono-complete is added to our source list, we can do the actual install:

sudo apt install -y mono-complete.

The “sudo”, “apt”, “install”, and “-y” have already been explained.
The "mono-complete" is the package we want.

Please note that if you just specify “mono”, you will get ‘’’mono-devel’’’ (the developer edition) that does not include all the components required by each of the Cumulus executables.

Please note that a particular MX build might specify it needs a particular version of Mono. Hence, although normally you can upgrade any (CumulusMX.exe, ExportToMySQL.exe, CreateMissing.exe, proposed CreateRecords) cumulus package without upgrading Mono, sometimes you will need to upgrade Mono, and that means following above install instructions again.

The latest release of Mono, for a variety of Linux distributions, can always be downloaded from [1]:

follow step 1 there,
but in step 2 replace ‘’’mono-devel‘’’ by ‘’’mono-complete’’’

The complete mono package includes a component (mono-xsp4) that creates a simple web server to run ASP.NET 4.0 applications. MX does not need this, so type sudo update-rc.d mono-xsp4 disable, to stop it being used (without needing to do a sudo apt remove followed by the name of component you no longer want).

Cumulus packages

Welcome back anybody who has skipped the technical sections above, everybody needs to read this section.

Note use of plural in section name above, the following sub-sections will install various packages produced by developer Mark Crossley. If you are using the pre-built disc image, then (unless the MX release version included in your image is an old one) you should skip the instructions for installing "CumulusMX" itself.

Handling zip files

Each release is presented as a zip. It does not matter which device (if you have two or more computers), or which browser (it can be default browser for your device or the browser you like best) you use for the download. When your browser saves the zip it might be into a folder called “downloads” on your computer, or you may be able to save into another folder that you prefer (perhaps on a different partition). Your browser might even remember the folder you used before for files of type zip.

In general, any device will load a suitable application to use to unzip the package when you click on a filename that ends in .zip. You might need to do a "right click" and choose the application, it depends on your settings.

Be aware, you may need to adjust the settings within that application for how it handles the file structure. The preferences may determine whether the unzip process preserves the file structure used when the zip was created (i.e. each file remains in any sub-folder) or it ignores the folder structure. For the Cumulus context, it is essential to preserve the folder structure. You may also be asked where you want the files to be extracted to, or the default settings might always use a particular destination (and that might be a tmp folder).

For example on the Raspberry Pi operating system, there is a package called xarchiver, in its Graphical User Interface (GUI), there is a menu called "Action", and the final option in that menu is "Preferences". There, in "Archive" section, you can select "zip" as the preferred archive format (using a dropdown) and whether you want the application to confirm with you before deleting any files; in "Advanced" section, you can select the directory to use for the extraction. If you are using the lite version of the RPi OS, then you need to edit the /home/pi/.config/xarchiver/xarchiverrc file to set preferences, before you use the archiver package. Once you have started the archiver package, and told it which file to process, you can click on Extract files, the GUI presents a screen of options:

"Extract to:", use the icon to browse to the required location if it has not been set up in preferences
"Ensure a containg directory", tick this if it has not been set in the configuration file
"Files", select "All files", the advice is to overwrite all of any existing files if you are upgrading, but you definitely need all files if this is a new install
"Options"
- Tick "Extract files with full path", this is essential if you are going to successfully install any of the Cumulus software
- Tick "Overwrite existing files", the advice is to overwrite all of any existing files if you are upgrading, it may not always be clear which files have been updated since an earlier release, and there are a lot of interdependencies between different files

It is worth stressing here, if you decide to customise any files that are included in a release distribution, then you should at the very least add something like an "_" character to the file name to make your tailored file different to the standard file. The best practice is to put any files you tailor, or any additional files you create, outside the CumulusMX folder.

If you have chosen to do the download on a different device to that on which you will install, you can unzip on either device. To transfer either the downloaded .zip file, or the extracted file structure, between devices, you can use a file transfer package, or use a portable drive (a memory stick or even a memory card) with a partition formatted so that you can read it on both devices. Windows and Linux partitions are formatted in different ways. While it is likely that Linux can read a Microsoft formatted partition, Microsoft Windows can never read a Linux formatted partition.

Where to install all packages?

For simplicity on this page EXISTING PATH (the contents of this will start with a slash “/”, but not end with a slash) is used to represent any location in the Linux file structure where you decide to install all the Cumulus packages.

The phrase “EXISTING PATH” is used, because it is most likely you want to create the sub-folder called “/CumulusMX” (note where capital letters must be used) in a part of the Linux file structure that already exists.

It is important to minimise the length of the path name, because this path name has to be passed between various different software languages (and longer paths risk truncation).

MX can severely damage storage

MX now assumes by default that you are going to use its Default Web Site. That means that by default MX will re-generate temporary files in its /web sub-folder on a frequent time-scale. That number of files writes will considerably shorten the working life-time of the "high capacity micro-SD" card that is the default storage for the Raspberry Pi. It will also considerably shorten the life of any flash memory (e.g. memory card) or external drive (with a spining disc and moving head) that you might install MX on.

The expected life of any storage device, and the extent to which its life is shortened depends on the actual device. The external devices that have the longest life (and therefore can cope most easily with multiple read/write actions) are solid state discs (SSD).

All Linux computers will have some random access memory chips (RAM) and it is worthwhile to define part of that RAM as a drive used for temporary files. For a Raspberry Pi computer, a typical approach would be to edit the fstab file, adding the line tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid,size=1M 0 0, but the size you choose will depend on RAM available and what temporary files are being created. For maximum life of the "high capacity micro-SD" card if that is what your computer boots from, you should create a symbolic link path that maps the /tmp folder used by the system to your /var/tmp you have just defined in RAM. The difficulty will be that you cannot create a logical redirect on /tmp if the folder is already in use, so that makes it too complicated to explain here.

Creating the CumulusMX sub-folder

You can create sub-folder called “/CumulusMX” as you unzip a MX release, or you can type sudo mkdir EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX first (note that EXISTING PATH is explained above and always starts with a slash “/”).
By using the phrase EXISTING PATH this advice avoids telling you to install Cumulus where you do not want it:
1. Many people with a Raspberry Pi, and a little technical understanding, add an external drive to reduce wear on the internal micro-SD card, and keep their Cumulus files away from the drive that holds the operating system.
  - This page is not going to get technical by telling you how to create, or mount, Linux partitions on your external drive. If your drive was bought from a Raspberry Pi reseller, they might help you.
2. Other people using a Raspberry Pi without that technical expertise, might use ‘’’/home/pi’’’ for EXISTING PATH as that is the default folder for the default user (Pi) and can be referenced as "~" in file path instructions they issue (although Cumulus will not understand that shorthand)
  - Within that ‘’’/home/pi’’’ folder, the default user has full permissions automatically.
3. The developer suggests you use ‘’’/opt’’’ for EXISTING PATH (which should be available on any Linux computer).
  - By default, the code Mark provides for installing Cumulus as a service, will run that service as a root user, and the root user has full permissions in /opt (and everywhere else)
  - (Novices: Skip this step) If you do choose a EXISTING PATH outside your home folder, then a more technical user can change the ownership of the "CumulusMX" sub-folder, to the default user (Pi) with sudo chown -R pi: EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX, and reduce the need to use "sudo" on many actions.

Packages to install

We shall install the Cumulus software listed on Software page:

CumulusMX:
- CumulusMX.exe is written in C#, that has been developed by Mark Crossley, but still contains some code by Steve Loft
- Download CumulusMX zip file’’’ from the link atSoftware#Latest_build_distribution_download
Create Missing:
- CreateMissing.exe is also written in C#, created, and developed, by Mark Crossley
- Download Create Missing zip file from the link at Software#Create_Missing
  - This takes you to a github page with a "ReadMe" providing minimal instructions
- Using CreateMissing.exe is fully documented at Calculate_Missing_Values#CreateMissing.exe in this Wiki
- (it will populate missing fields in standard log files and/or missing lines in dayfile.txt).
ExportToMySQL
- ExportToMySQL.exe is also written in C# by Mark Crossley
- Download Export To My SQL zip file from the link at Software#ExportToMySQL
  - This takes you to a github page with a "ReadMe" providing minimal instructions
- ExportToMySQL.exe is not (at the time this was written) documented in this Wiki although MX_Administrative_Interface#MySQL_settings does describe a similar utility (written by Steve Loft) that was actually included within early CumulusMX zip downloads.

As at 9 March 2020, another utility, CreateRecord, has been initialised in the Github areas managed by the developer where Cumulus is worked on, although it appears to be just a concept (any code on the developer's computer has not yet been included) on github. This will, if my understanding is correct, read dayfile.txt and use that to update the various extreme record files.

Alternative download link for older MX releases

Skip this sub-section if either you have installed the "pre-built disc image", or the current MX release is stable (it has been available for a while and nobody has reported any bugs).

Check if posts in the Cumulus Support Forum tell you that the current release of MX has one or more bug(s) that affects one or more aspect(s) of MX that you intend to use.

Remember, it is impossible for the developer to check all the ways in which versatile MX can be used:

Different weather station types (the developer only has a Davis),
Different computer types (development is mostly on Microsoft Windows),
Plus a whole host of optional features, and different external upload sites, (typically each of these optional features are only used by a sub-set of Cumulus users).

Anyway, you can download any earlier build, without the bug, from CumulusMX/releases.

You need to ensure that you use the right version of "CreateMissing.exe" and "ExportToMySQL.exe" utilities for the MX release you are running, so if you are using an old MX release, you will need to go directly to the Cumulus MX github page, and navigate to the utility of interest, to download an older version of these utilities that matches your older MX.

Upgrading a Cumulus package

Upgrading to a new MX release is explained here, but basically follow instructions above, and install over your existing files. The alternative is to install in a new folder (or rename the old one), and copy across files not in the release from old location to new location.

Changing location of Cumulus

If your install, or upgrade, is creating MX in a different place to where you previously ran Cumulus, then you will want to copy files across that are not in the zip extract distribution.

Moving from Microsoft Windows to Linux

Skip the following sub-sections if this is your first installation of MX, or if both the old location and the new location for MX are on Linux computers.

Line terminators in .txt files

If you are a novice to computers, skip this sub-section and the next, go directly to #File Names & Paths.

You need to have some technical understanding to do an action that might encounter the issues discussed here. For normal MX usage, line terminators do not matter.

If you are moving from Microsoft Windows to Mac OS, be aware that Microsoft ends each line with two characters (Carriage Return and Line Feed) while Unix/Linux ends each line with a single character (Carriage Return). Cumulus can cope with both approaches for existing files, but will create new files correctly for Mac OS.

If you are moving from Microsoft Windows to Linux, be aware that Microsoft ends each line with two characters (Carriage Return and Line Feed) while Unix/Linux ends each line with a single character (Line Feed). Cumulus can cope with both approaches for existing files, but will create new files correctly for Linux.

If you run your Linux computer in a headless mode, accessing its files by a remote terminal session, be aware that the line terminator used by the remote computer may be applied to files affected by whatever command you do remotely. Equally, running a Cumulus executable (MX or one of the utilities) may create new files with the wrong end of line terminator. The latest releases of both "CumulusMX.exe" and "CreateMissing.exe" have been amended to create their new files with the same line terminators as are used by any existing files they read. Older releases adopted whatever line terminator was used by the device from which the executable run instruction was issued.

Reading Cumulus files using your JavaScript, your PHP scripts, and packages from third-parties

If you have written a script to work for a Microsoft Windows device, it might need editing to still work in a Linux environment. If you use a third-party provided package on your Linux computer, you may need to check if the author has coded it assuming it will be run on Microsoft Windows.

It is not appropriate for this Wiki page to go into full technical detail, but here is a quick summary of how unexpected line terminators can stop scripts working:

If the script expects the Linux LF, and finds CR LF, then the final field of each CSV line has an invalid character in it, so your script will not be able to understand that field as a numerical value (or time-stamp).
If the script expects the Mac OS CR only, and finds CR LF, then after the first line, each subsequent line starts with a “LF”. Most scripts will be processing dayfile.txt, MMMyylog.txt, or Extra Sensor Files, all of which have date as first field, and the "LF" prefix stops that field being seen as a date. In the worse case scenario, it might mean the script sees empty lines between each valid line.
If the script expects CR only, but just finds LF, the script will believe the whole file is just one line, and the fields before and after the LF will be treated as a single field (merging the last value of one line with the date that should be on next line) so your script will not be able to understand that field as a numerical value (or time-stamp).
If the script was written for a Microsoft Windows environment, it will expect CR LF, but might be confused if the end of line is different

Editing Cumulus files outside MX

If you try to edit a file outside MX, the application you choose to use will normally adopt the line terminators used by the device on which you are using the application.

Any good quality editor should by default save the file with the same line terminator as it had before.

If you are using an editor designed for editing computer files, it should have an option to choose which line terminator you need.

Changing line terminators

Many editors designed for programmers (they might be described as providing a programming development environment) can change the line ending of every line (either while file is being edited or when file is saved).

‘’’Geany’’’ is a programming development editor available for Microsoft Windows, but included by default on some Linux systems including Raspberry Pi, that can do this (Document menu, -->> Select Line Endings).

Notepad++ is another editor available for multiple operating systems (Edit menu -->> EOL conversion).

Both have capabilities to make such changes on either the single file that has focus, or all loaded files.

There are many more editors designed for programmers, and you may use one that is not listed above, so you may need to search for the relevant option.

File Names & Paths

Another issue that may be encountered when moving from Windows to Linux is the difference in File Names & Paths. All Unix file names are Case Sensitive, and the separator is "/".

Microsoft Windows Operating Sytem deliberately chose to be different and uses "\". That causes a problem because "\" is also used to denote a control character (e.g. '\t' is horizontal tab, '\n' is new line) and so Unix based computers will strip out any two character sequences they recognise as representing control characters from any file paths they read.

This could be applicable if you were using Extra Web files functionality in your old Cumulus installation on a Microsoft Windows computer. You need to go into the settings page for Extra web files, and edit each local path for it to work on your Linux computer. If you have followed advice on Customised templates page, you will be using a location outside the MX file structure, so you knew you had to change local file paths anyway for your new MX installation.

Here is an example changing the case and the separators where the path is within the MX file structure: Web\extrapageT.htm in Windows, changed to read web/extrapageT.htm in Linux.

data sub-folder

In general, any file in the old data sub-folder should be copied into the new location. This might be a straight "copy and paste", it might be a "file-transfer", or you might use a portable drive to carry the files from the old device to the your Linux computer's MX folder.

If your previous Cumulus installation was of the legacy software, version 1.9.4, or earlier, then you need to do a lot of reading:

- Amending dayfile tells you about how MX is far more fussy about the content in dayfile.txt
- .ini files explains how time-stamps are formatted differently in the extreme tracking files
- Migrating from Cumulus 1 to MX gives some advice about differences in settings, but be aware that the way MX handles settings varies by release, and information on the linked page may be out of date

A further complication is that the legacy Cumulus software would read any Category:Files with Comma Separated Values found in the data sub-folder, but MX ignores any of those files with dates prior to the date specified in the StartDate=xxxxx parameter, edit this date using Station Settings → Common Options → Advanced Options → Records Began date. If you have set up MX at a different location to where it was before, then you may need to do the above edit, unless the new MX release is able to read the Cumulus.ini used in the old location - see #Configuration Files to copy across from any previous Cumulus installation.

Complications occur if the locale used by Mono or the locale specified when starting MX using -lang parameter differs from the locale for your previous device (please see Category:Files with Comma Separated Values because some locales separate fields with commas, some separate integer and decimal parts of real numbers with commas; not to mention all sorts of issues with how dates are formatted). At time of writing this, the main MX developer has proposed that the format of files with comma separated values will be fixed, so all dates will use one standard format, all numbers will use decimal points, and the field separating character will be fixed, but no public MX release has this restriction yet.

web sub-folder

If you are using the default web pages, you will need to create a lot of symbolic links here pointing to the temporary folder you set up in RAM if you read the technical information earlier.

The links you need depend on which options you select in settings, you might find it easier to wait until you have run MX for a while to see what files are created that end in ".json".

If MX is currently running, you need to stop it, or at least alter any options that generate .json files. Then you must delete those files that end in ".json", except that you don't delete "websitedataT.json".

In a terminal session, issue commands in the following format for each file (this example relates to Raspberry Pi and uses "/var/tmp" which was defined in the extra line added to fstab earlier):

sudo ln -s /var/tmp/availabledata.json EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX/web/availabledata.json

Notes:

The "-s" flag is what says you are creating a symbolic link
Full paths are given both for the file that MX is to be redirected to, and after it the path where it expects to create the file
"EXISTING PATH" is defined elsewhere, but basically it starts with a "/" and defines the path to get to where "CumulusMX" is a sub-folder.
The text "availabledata.json" is just one file in the set of files linked from Category:JSON Files.

Report sub-folder

By default MX now creates monthly and annual reports that are in the style used by NOAA in USA. If you have been using this functionality before (and it is optional) then you need to file transfer, or copy, all the files that were in the old Reports folder into the new folder of that name.

If your previous installation was not on Linux, see #Line terminators in .txt files, because you might want to either regenerate all these files, or to open them all in an editor that can alter the line terminator.

Configuration Files to copy across from any previous Cumulus installation

There are two configuration files that are not included in any MX release:

strings.ini (note all lower case) – optional file to customise output
Cumulus.ini (note initial capital, then lower case) – main configuration file

Here, it must be stressed that having either or both of these files in an existing Cumulus installation does not imply such file or files can be understood by the new MX release you have just installed.

Just copy the existing files from old to new installation, if

Your locale is still the same
All files on your new install are in same paths as on your old install (some settings involve specifying paths)
Your old installation has a relatively recent MX release (compare the "y" in 3.y.z,between old and new installation, a difference of more than 1 in that middle figure means you do not have a recent release)
Your old installation was on a Unix-based computer (not a computer running Microsoft Windows Operating System)

Please see the table below for more advice, but the problem is that content of both files has changed as MX has been developed, so some content is no longer understood, and some new content has been added.

Some of the differences between versions of Cumulus.ini file can be seen by comparing the different pages in this Wiki documenting this file: Cumulus.ini (Beta), Cumulus.ini (Cumulus 1), Cumulus.ini (MX 3.0.0 to 3.7.0), Cumulus.ini (preserving history), and Cumulus.ini, but even that does not tell the whole story. MX release 3.12.0 needs to be installed if your old Cumulus was earlier than that, because it is the only release with code to rename the old "Cumulus.ini" and create a new file containing the new set of settings, and new names for some old settings, but without any old settings that are no longer recognised. Please see Updating MX to new version page for more information about the need to step slowly through from old releases to the newest.

If you are upgrading from an older release, please read the table for advice.

Cumulus.ini	strings.ini
Your old installation will have this file. In general, if your old installation was any release before 3.8.0, the advice is give the old file a different name when you copy it across to the new installation, and let MX create the file as you work through all the settings.	This is an optional file. Its purpose is to allow customisation of some of the outputs from Cumulus. You might want to use customisation to abbreviate (or extend) some outputs, or to change those outputs into another language.
When you work through the Settings pages, MX will create this file if it does not exist. See #Moving from Microsoft Windows to Linux if your old installation is on a Microsoft operating system, as several changes will be needed for extra web file settings on your Linux computer If your old installation was of the legacy software then also see Migrating from Cumulus 1 to MX As MX evolves, the former "read-only" settings in this file are becoming "advanced" settings in the interface.	You create a “strings.ini” file by selecting some of the parameters from the Samplestring.ini file that is included in each MX release, and modifying the value for the listed attributes as you type just those you selected (under the same group titles - these are enclosed in [ ] as before). The sections that appear in samplestring.ini, and the parameters that appear within a section, depend upon which release you are using. So be cautious if you try to reuse a "strings.ini" file originally created by the legacy software, you may find you need to specify your customisation using different parameters in the latest "samplestring.ini".
The content of "Cumulus.ini" is changing as MX is developed, the Release Announcements normally list any new parameters as they appear in the file, without always mentioning those that have become redundant. The announcements tend to avoid any detail, so you have to guess from the attribute what values it might take, and generally have no idea of where in the settings pages to make any change. To remove any parameters no longer used in this file, see remove redundant parameters If your old file contains any legacy read-only parameters not yet converted into advanced settings, or any MX read-only parameters not yet converted into advanced settings, you may need to manually add such missing parameters back into new file by stopping MX (after finishing all the settings you can configure in the interface), doing an external file edit, and then restarting MX.	The content of "samplestring.ini" is changing as MX is developed: Therefore, your existing “strings.ini” might need to be modified. There is no automatic way to check your “strings.ini” file, if MX does not understand any parameter in this file, it ignores it. Instead, you need to manually check each parameter you have in your “strings.ini” file to see if that parameter is still in the “samplestring.ini” included in the release you have installed. You may also find new parameters in “samplestring.ini” that you wish to add to your “strings.ini” file to tailor new functionality to your preferences.

If you previously used an older release of Cumulus, but in this new installation will be using the latest release (latest is what is normally best, unless it has bugs), you may want to read up on all the changes between your old release and the current release, not just changes that affect the configuration file.

Running MX

Please read the appropriate sub-sections within this section, because the advice depends on whether MX has been run before, and how you want to run it.

Your first run of MX on Linux

Once you have got all the files sorted out as described above, you need to run MX.

On the first run of MX, unless you have run a recent release before, you need to work through either the Config wizard or all the individual settings pages (or both) as accessed from "Settings" menu. It is suggested you run MX interactively (see below) to do this, as you will then need to close MX, and then start it up again.

Information about settings is on other Wiki pages (MX Administrative Interface and Cumulus.ini), so not much needs to be said here, except that you won't be able to Update Alarms without having first enabled and defined "Email Server Settings" on the "Internet settings" page. The complication is that you need to go into the "Alarm Settings" page and use Update Alarms to set what is displayed on the "dashboard" page of the interface to what suits your weather staion type!

Running MX interactively

To run MX interactively, you must open a terminal window, and leave it open until after you have closed MX.

The simplest instruction to run Cumulus MX is cd EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX && sudo mono CumulusMX.exe.

This is two commands issued together, the first changes the working folder, the second actually starts the main executable

Before running MX, look up the section later that talks about optional parameters: sudo mono CumulusMX.exe [optional parameters]

When you want MX to stop, you must (for Linux) within your terminal session hold down the "Ctrl" button on your keyboard, and press "C". After that you can choose to close the terminal window.

Note that if you use a different computer to access the computer that MX runs on, what has been called "terminal window" above might be called a "Command window", a "Powershell window" or some other name. Using control sequeNextnces on a remote session may not always be straight forward. In theory, Cumulus MX will also close tidily if you close a remote terminal window, but this may not always be true.

Use ps -ef | grep -i cumulus | grep -v grep to see if Cumulus is running or not.

Running another executable with a terminal session left open

Open a terminal window, then navigate to the folder where you have installed the 3 Cumulus executables:

cd EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX

Next decide which executable you want to run, for Create Missing utility, that link takes you to a section of this Wiki where there are links to more information about the utility, to run it type:

sudo mono CreateMissing.exe

To run Export To My SQL, you change the name of the executable above and add the necessary parameters, as explained in links from that link.

If you have followed advice at #Where to install all packages?, the user you are using will own the "EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX" folder and you may be able to omit the "sudo".

Just in case it is not obvious .... if you start any executable using this command in a terminal window on your Pi, you must leave that session running, or that executable will stop running.

You can start it off directly on your Pi, and then

optionally disconnect the keyboard,
switch off monitor or TV attached to your Pi,
Just ensure you leave Pi on (with that window minimised) so that terminal session continues running.

Running MX as a Linux "systemd" service

It is advised that you run MX interactively to begin with, and only run it as a service when you are happy that all settings are correct, and that any uploading or other external tasks are working correctly.

Running interactively allows MX to display error messages to you, and to confirm when it is running normally. If you run MX as a service you do not get any direct feedback, and cannot see if there has been a problem or failure.

Commands to start, stop, or restart (stop and start in one command) MX as a service

You will need to start (or restart) MX after you have defined (or redefined) the service as instructed in next sub-sections. The full set of commands to use with this service are at systemctl_commands, here I simply repeat the basic commands that can be used with any service (start, stop, and restart), just replace [service_name] with either cumulusmx or the name of another service.

sudo systemctl start [service_name]
sudo systemctl stop [service_name]
sudo systemctl restart [service_name]

If you want MX to automatically start when your Linux computer is booted, just type sudo systemctl enable cumulusmx once, and it will be activated on each reboot. Change the "enable" into "disable" if you don't want an automatic restart, and change the name of the service to apply these commands to another service.

Defining "cumulusmx" service for "systemd"

The MX release distribution you downloaded and unzipped earlier includes a file that can be used as a starting point for the service definition. Find this file at EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX/MXutils/linux/cumulusmx.service.

For more information, see original release announcement.

All users - mandatory edit of service file

Open the file at EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX/MXutils/linux/cumulusmx.service using an editor. On a Raspberry Pi, use the file manager to navigate to this file, right click the file named, and select "Geany's Programmers Editor".
Within the provided file you should find a [Service] section:

[Service]
User=root
Group=root
ExecStart=/usr/bin/mono-service -d:/home/install/CumulusMX CumulusMX.exe -service
Type=forking
ExecStopPost=/bin/rm /tmp/CumulusMX.exe.lock

There are some edits needed to that section:

Everyone must edit the line that begins with ExecStart=
- The mandatory change is to replace /home/install by what you have selected for EXISTING PATH
- An optional change is to add additional parameters after the -service (select from -debug, -locale, -port) as described in sub-sections later, the example below assumes you want to add "-debug"
The new line will then read something like ExecStart=/usr/bin/mono-service -d:EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX CumulusMX.exe -service -debug
Open the "File" menu, and select "Save as" and enter a new name cumulusmx_edited.service (using a new name stops it being overwritten when we upgrade MX)
Exit out of the editor you are using
Next, open a terminal session
Now copy file to where it is needed to run the service sudo cp EXISTING_PATH/CumulusMX/MXutils/linux/cumulusmx_edited.service /etc/systemd/system/cumulusmx.service
Now type sudo systemctl daemon-reload, this tells "sytemd" that it needs to reload all service definitions because either one has changed, or a new one has been added
Finally, optionally, create a symbolic link to that file using sudo systemctl enable cumulusmx if you want the service to automatically start after a reboot

Novice users can skip the next sub-section, but if they are using a standard Raspberry Pi with some types of weather station, there is a technical change mentioned there that can be implemented to ensure that Cumulus MX does a historic data catch up if that is possible.

Technical users - optional edits

Open the file at EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX/MXutils/linux/cumulusmx.service using an editor. On a Raspberry Pi, use the file manager to navigate to this file, right click the file named, and select "Geany's Programmers Editor".
Within the provided file you should find a [Unit] section:
- Recent releases of MX have a line saying After=network-online.target, this was not included for all past releases
  - This line instructs "systemd" to ensure that the network service is started after the "cumulusmx" service i.e. it requests there is a connection by LAN or Wireless to the internet.
- Technical users may wish to insert this new line before the above existing line: Requires= time-sync.target local-fs.target
  - 1. The local-fs.target specifies that the cumulusmx service requires the file service to have started, i.e. checks your computer can read files before it attempts to start the cumulusmx service
    2. The time-sync.target specifies that the cumulusmx service requires the computer to have synced with either a real-time clock chip, or the time found on the internet, i.e. this will ensure that Cumulus obtains the correct time from the computer to control all its actions
      - If you are using a weather station type that does not time-stamp the reading it supplies to a Raspberry Pi, adding that target reference is important
      - A standard RPi does not include a real time clock chip (it can be added via connections available), therefore when the RPi boots it initially uses a dummy clock, and this sets the time to when the RPi was last running.
      - That means without this target being included, your Cumulus MX on restarting will think the time has hardly changed, and skip the catch-up of historic data (should your weather station settings make that available). It also means that, at least means some, measurements have been logged against the wrong time.
      - When the Raspberry Pi does do a time-sync, the time will suddenly jump, this is serious if this means the "rollover" time has been skipped over, as it implies the "dayfile.txt" will miss a line, and many measurements will be logged to wrong day.

Novice readers are advised to let Cumulus MX use the root user, following the suggestion below to change user/group entries may cause all sorts of problems and needs a good level of technical understanding to follow through all implications.

As a side-note, some weather station types require MX to be run with root rights, this is why sudo is included in each example command, but if you have technical knowledge and know your weather station can be run with default user, you can omit the sudo shown in many commands, provided your user has ownership of all folders and files used by MX. The default service definition file assigns the ownership of all files that MX creates to the root user, this means you may not be able to edit Cumulus files outside MX because you are by default a user with restricted rights.

Within the provided file you should find a [Service] section (see the contents in previous sub-section)
Technical users might want to edit the User=root line so that the service will run as a different user, just change the name that appears after the "=" sign.
Open the "File" menu, and select "Save as" and enter a new name cumulusmx_edited.service (using a new name stops it being overwritten when we upgrade MX)
Exit out of the editor you are using
Next, open a terminal session
Now copy file to where it is needed to run the service sudo cp EXISTING_PATH/CumulusMX/MXutils/linux/cumulusmx_edited.service /etc/systemd/system/cumulusmx.service
Now type sudo systemctl daemon-reload, this tells "sytemd" that it needs to reload all service definitions because either one has changed, or a new one has been added
Finally, optionally, create a symbolic link to that file using sudo systemctl enable cumulusmx if you want the service to automatically start after a reboot

Optional parameters to add to the instruction to run the MX engine

This list of parameters covers every parameter, if you are using the latest release skip the historic 3.0.0 sub-sections.

Note that you may need to supply your root password after typing any 'sudo ...' command line if the instruction changes something set by another package (e.g. changing the locale for MX from the locale set by mono). The system will prompt you for this if it is needed.

-port parameter for changing Port

When Cumulus starts, it will display the URL of the interface where you change the settings. he web server that MX initiates runs on port 8998 by default; if this is not suitable for some reason you can change it using the '-port' parameter on the command line if running interactively, or within the service definition file (see #All users - mandatory edit of service file if running as a service.

e.g. to use port 9999 instead:

sudo mono CumulusMX.exe -port 9999

The -service parameter

You don't use this parameter in a terminal or interactive instruction for running MX. Instead it appears within a file that we use to set up for running MX as a service.

See #Defining "cumulusmx" service for "systemd" and #All users - mandatory edit of service file for where "CumulusMX.exe -service" is used.

-lang parameter for changing Locale

Individual computers may have different default for their locale. The forum reported an issue with OS X with its default US locale even if that is not your locale.

As MX starts its output (to diagnostic log and to any interactive terminal window) says which locale is being used, Current culture: English (United States). That default locale will relate to the one your computer had when mono is installed, as it is mono that tells MX all the locale settings. If you notice MX starting with wrong locale, issue the correct instruction to close MX.

You can use a -lang parameter to change the locale as you restart MX. This parameter can be added to the service definition file (see #All users - mandatory edit of service file, or it can be used in your command to start MX interactively. For example, in the UK, type:

sudo mono CumulusMX.exe -lang en-GB

Other locale examples: CumulusMX.exe -lang de-DE, CumulusMX.exe -lang el-GR (this is one of the locales that reads numbers with integer,decimal format), CumulusMX.exe -lang nl-NL.

If you are not sure what value you need to supply for the -lang parameter, there is a list here - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ee825488%28v=cs.20%29.aspx. You need to supply the code in the first column ("Language Culture Name") in that list.

Note that this does not affect the language used by Cumulus MX (although it may in the future), it currently affects the decimal separator and the list separator. Also note that the developer has announced that in a future release of MX, all Files with Comma Separated Values will have a fixed format, i.e. it will no longer be possible to use a decimal comma within Cumulus files, and various other fields (like dates) will always have the same format. At the time this was written, there is no date set for this change.

-debug parameter for adding debugging

This is only available for release 3.4.4 - Build 3068 onwards. This switches on debug and data logging from the start-up of Cumulus MX by adding a parameter within the service definition file (see #All users - mandatory edit of service file if running as a service.

If running MX interactively, then add as a parameter on the command line:

sudo mono CumulusMX.exe -debug

MX has a default level of logging that stores in the MXdiags_folder folder a log file that shows some of the interaction with the weather station and some of the output actions done as MX runs. A new log is started each time MX is restarted.

If there is a problem, then there is a great benefit in actually increasing the level of detail in these logs; and that is done either within the settings (on recent MX releases this is on Program Settings page of admin interface - please see Category:Diagnostics page for details) or by using the "-debug" parameter as explained above.

Parameters only applicable to Version 3.0.0 Beta builds of MX

The following two parameters cannot be used with MX since it came out of 3.0.0 beta.

-wsport parameter for web sockets

Beta builds in MX version 3.0.0 had an optional parameter sudo mono EXISTING PATH/CumulusMX/CumulusMX.exe -wsport nnnn that determined which port (represented by a 4 digit number nnnn) was used for Web Sockets.

Note use of this parameter is now deprecated, as it has been incorporated into -port parameter described earlier. The reason is that Web Sockets in all builds since 3045 use the same port for web sockets as for the HTTP port of the Admin Interface.

-logging parameter for debugging of data flow between station and MX

Beta builds in MX version 3.0.0 had an optional parameter sudo mono CumulusMX.exe -Logging=1 (for the station to MX transfers to have increased debugging logging).

Note use of this parameter is now deprecated, as it has been incorporated into -debug, see above.

Operating a web site with uploads from MX engine

The standard web pages

From release 3.10.1

The web pages are a one-off upload from CumulusMX/webfiles. The data to be shown on these web pages are uploaded from .json files in the web_folder.

Please read this page for more information about styling options and other details.

Until release 3.9.7

The styling and library files were a one-off upload from CumulusMX/webfiles. These release use template files, these are processed by MX to add the variable data, and this will create web pages that are uploaded to your web site.

Please read Customised_templates for further information about the various pages originally provided, and how you could customise them to suit you.

Comparison with legacy Cumulus 1 web pages

Note that any web files, designed for Cumulus 1, cannot be used with MX, for multiple reasons
- so if moving from Cumulus 1 to MX, delete all your Cumulus 1 files from the "web" and "webfiles" sub-folders, and all files from your web server; then upload files from the new "webfiles" folder.
The standard gauges are rather like the stand alone SteelSeries gauges you could optionally add to Cumulus 1, but the MX ones are different.
- The new default gauges page does not display a graph when you hover over a gauge (Cumulus 1 generated some images that the stand alone Steel Series gauges page could use)
The various charts pages for MX rely on MX to generate files with time and value pairs, these are stored in json format, the various web pages use a library package (Highstocks) to draw graphs from those data pairs.
- (The Trends page provided as standard in Cumulus 1 simply displayed images of graphs uploaded to the web server)

Alternative ways to obtain web pages

You can choose to use some of the alternative web pages available from third parties and described on User Contributions page.

Using your own web pages

Of course you can use your own web pages, instead of the standard ones. Assuming they need to include figures that are available as web tags, there are three alternative ways to implement this:
1. MX can process template files with a HTML structure and those web tags in the structure where values are required just as it does with the standard templates, and MX can upload the resulting web pages at either the real-time interval, the standard interval, or after end of day. All of this is covered on the Customised templates page in this Wiki.
2. MX can process a file with a string of web tags mirroring the realtime.txt option in MX, and upload the resulting file so your web pages can use JavaScript for a one-off insert of the values or an Ajax routine to update the web page at a fixed interval.
3. Alternatively, you can use template scripts processed locally by MX that don't create web pages, but are uploaded by MX at either the real-time interval, the standard interval, or after end of day. These scripts simply initialise script variables with values obtained from web tags. You then independently have a set of web pages resident only on your web server (they don't exist where you run MX) using a combination of HTML and script content that bring in the script(s) with the variables by the appropriate syntax. All of this is covered on the PHP web tags page in this wiki. As it suggests there, you might therefore have several files processed by Cumulus MX at these different intervals, converting the web tags into script variables, and then use AJAX (JavaScript that may use json format to bring in the variables) or PHP (using 'require_once 'filename'; syntax) to put those variables into a web page.

You may find this wiki page useful for understanding more about the different script languages.

That is enough folks

If you have read up to here, you now know the basics for using MX on Linux.

The remaining sections are more technical and so you can skip them.

Technical Extra

PLEASE SKIP ALL SUBSEQUENT SUB-SECTIONS IF YOU WANT TO AVOID TECHNICAL EXPLANATIONS.

A very quick introduction to Linux

This article is not the place to teach you Linux, you can find books and on-line articles for yourself, but I list here enough for you to understand the instructions used elsewhere in this article.

If you have a Raspberry Pi with a monitor attached, you will see a raspberry icon that you can click to get Graphical User Interface access to many features, including shutdown options.

su and sudo

There is a command su that allows a terminal session to become a super user session with root privileges. If you use that command, without a sudo command in front, you need to type in the password (we changed earlier) when prompted. if you type sudo su, then you get root privileges without being asked to quote password. All subsequent lines in this terminal session will have a prompt that reminds you that you have root access and do not need to prefix subsequent commands with "sudo".

Normally, all terminal sessions will use the default "pi" user, and for individual commands, you will use a "sudo" prefix each time that command needs administrative rights, as this allows a standard Pi user to do tasks that otherwise only work for the root user.

You might use a "sudo" prefix if you need to access a part of the file structure that your user does not have any access to, or where the standard user does not have write (or execute) access.

There are also some commands (like displaying mounted storage) that are not available to a standard user. Here are 3 system commands that in terminal mode will only ever work with this prefix (although if you have installed the version of the Raspberry Pi Operating System that supports a graphical user interface you can also select these actions from a menu):

sudo halt = stops any cpu functions, but leaves Pi running; used when you have reached the end of commands you want to do for now
sudo poweroff = makes pi do a tidy shutdown and turn off its power; used when you will not be using your Pi for a while
sudo reboot (or "sudo reboot -verbose" for diagnostic output during shutdown and reboot) = makes your Pi close down and then reboot; used when you change settings, and after you install new software, to ensure Pi starts with all applications running using the latest settings and latest already installed software

~ and /

The tilde symbol ~ denotes the home directory for the current user. Sub-directories within the current user's folder can be identified by ~/documents or similar notation.

To reference a folder in root or any other area, the prefix is always /.

If you are using the RPi OS GUI, it provides a file manager that displays folders and files, and if you have a mouse you can click on an object to see what actions are available. The file manager has "Home" and "Root" as bookmarks by default, you can bookmark others. Typically, any new partitions created can also be accessed from bookmarks. Depending on options you select, there may be icons on the GUI desktop to link to particular folders and clicking on these offers various options including opening them in file manager.

In a terminal environment, to see what files and folders are in the current directory, type dir for just names or ls for details.

folder commands

To make a new folder in the current directory, type sudo mkdir folder_name.

To remove a folder, that has no files in it, type in a particular path, type sudo rmdir /path/directory.

To remove a folder that does have files, and/or sub-folders within it, type tt>sudo rm -r /path/directory, but remember the contents are gone for ever, so be absolutely sure you have specified the right folder!

To copy folders/files from one directory to another use something like cp -R --update --preserve /home/pi/CumulusMX/backup/daily /media/pi/data/CumulusMX/archive

Sometimes, you have a folder or file in just one place in the file system, but want to be able to access it at a different place (because something expects it in the second place), the syntax is ln -s /path/elsewhere path/pointer_location.

An example might be ln -s /var/lib/phpliteadmin/diary.db ~/CumulusMX/data/diary.db (phplite admin can only update databases in one folder /var/lib/phpliteadmin, or in older releases in /usr/share/phpliteadmin; while MX expects the file to be in its data folder but is happy with a logical pointer to another folder).

chmod

When you are attempting any of the actions listed in this article that involve reading, creating, editing, exeduting, or moving, files; you might see an error message generally because of a lack of write (or execute) permissions on an existing file or folder. Whilst rm filename will remove a file even if it is write protected, for nano you need to change the file permissions with sudo chmod -R ugo+rw ~/CumulusMX for modify access to all files in your Cumulus installation (see the syntax below if you want to restrict access).

chmod command to modify permissions
the -R indicates recursive action (i.e. including not just the named folder, but all files within it and all sub-folders, and all files within sub-folders)
letters indicating whose permission is being modified
- u = Owning user (sometimes the owner is the user root, sometimes the owner is the user Pi, for our web pages later we change ownership)
- g = Group (by default the owning user is also a group, but a group can be defined if you want to give multiple users (with different passwords) the same rights of access)
- o = Other users (write permission here is needed if for example you are using FTP to move a file from a PC to your Pi, or vice versa)
sign for add or remove permissions
+ = add permission
- = remove permission
letters indicating what permission is being changed
- r = read [4]
- w = write [2]
- x = execute [1]

Note that as an alternative shorter syntax you can use numbers e.g. 666 is equivalent to ugo+rw. The first digit in the number relates to u, the second to g and the last to o. The values in [] brackets in list of permissions above are added to derive each digit. So if you are reading the Cumulus support forum and you see a reference to permissions which includes a string of 3 digits, now you can understand what is meant.

editing files

Do remember that file names are case sensitive.
If you use the wrong case in a path/file name, it will be treated as a different "new" file.
If a file editor does not display content you were expecting, look in case "new file" message appears because you have made a typo in the path/file name.

There are various text editors available on a Pi,

if you have a mouse and click on a file, you should see "text editor" listed, that loads Mousepad which has a menubar at the top of its "Windows" like interface.
in terminal mode nano is a text editor that by default lists the actions available making it easier for a novice to use.
in both the GUI and terminal mode, Geary is a programmer's editor with lots of useful funtionality

All editors can create a file when a file does not exist and edit (subject to file permissions) an existing file. Use prefix of 'sudo' to give you access to any file irrespective of ownership, sudo does not change the actual file permissions, so you might find you can read a file, but not save it after you have done your edit.

nano

The full syntax is sudo nano -B Path_file_name where the -B means it will create a backup of how the file was before (this can be enabled while in the editor by pressing the control key down and typing B). Alternatively use -C which stores each version in a back-up directory. If you want to edit from a particular line and column you can use +line.column, and also optionally use -l (lower-case "L") to display line numbers which might be useful when trying to correct a problem with a log file like dayfile.txt. If you don't specify a file name, then nano will create a new file and you will need to specify where to save it before exit.

After typing the nano command you need to specify a filename (it might include a path, see earlier sub-section for use of / and ~) and there are examples later in this article, but if you decide to host a web site on your Pi then you might want to edit its home page with (.html or .php) name like sudo nano /var/www/html/index.php.

After you have made an alteration to the current contents of the file, various options are shown at the bottom. Here are two key ones:

First is ^O which is used to save the file whilst staying in the editor, to do this press the control key down and type O. Next it shows the current file name, if you press Enter then that file will be overwritten.
- it allows you to type over the file name shown. If you choose to save as another file, you will be asked if the new name is correct (type Y to continue saving).
Another is ^X which means if you press the control key down and type X you get the exit dialogue. If you have not made any edits, or have already saved the file, this just exits the editor. If you have not used control and O to save the file, it asks whether you want to save the edited file (type Y), typing just the Y key lets save continue (any other key stroke exits without saving), then it shows the current file name, if you press Enter then that file will be overwritten.

You might find it useful to type sudo nano /etc/nanorc as this puts you into the configuration file for nano where you can set back-up, line-numbering, and other options.

Geany

This uses a GUI, you can set preferences and do all other actions using either menu selections (use mouse or keyboard) or control sequences (on keyboard). Once it knows what type of programming language, it can colour up the code; it can show you how many times variable identifiers are used; it can match opening and closing quotes, tags, and brackets; and it can ensure encoding and line terminators are correct.

Line-numbering is an option, so it can be used to edit MX log files, and (as BOM is an encoding option) you can be sure it won't add unwanted encoding.

removing an unwanted file

You can remove a file with various commands, including sudo rm filename.

external storage

Generally, if you attach USB storage (a disc or a stick), Linux OS distributions will detect any existing partitions (yes a technical term) and allow you to read files stored in them. This applies whether the partition is formatted for Linux or for Microsoft Windows.

However, you may have a brand new, unformatted, drive, or you may want to delete, or add partitions, or to format them as Linux partitions (as these make the input/output significantly more efficient).

You can install software that uses a GUI to make this easy, e.g. gparted partition editor.

Alternatively, you can use a terminal session, and lots of commands:

connect your external storage
type su to gain administrative access
enter your RPi password
type fdisk -l (this is only available to root user) to see names for all storage your Linux computer can see
an external drive will be named something like /dev/sd'a although that "a" might be "b" or a subsequent letter in alphabet depending on what has already been assigned
if "sda" and "sdb" appear, or any others up to "sdz", the last one will relate to the most recently connected storage
if your drive has partitions, then you will see further entries like /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2.
type df to see whether your drive is currently mounted (being used by computer system)
if it is mounted, the command to use next is (type this accurately, there is a temptation to type an English word that adds an extra "n"!) umount /dev/sda, obviously replace the "a" by the appropriate letter seen in the earlier command
if the drive does not have a partition, create one using fdisk /dev/sda, again changing the "a" into whatever letter was seen in response to the first "fdisk" command
- "fdisk" is a utility, it will wait for further instructions, follow each with pressing "Enter"
- type n as instruction to create a new partition
- type p to make this the primary partition on this drive
- type 1 to make this the first partition
- accept default offered for first cylinder
- accept default offered for last cylinder, if this is only partition, as that ensures the whole disk (apart from partition table) is available for your data
- for simplicity, this guidance will not cover the possibility of multiple partitions
- type t to say you are specifying the way you want this partition to be specified in partition table
- optionally type L to see what file system types are available for the partition table
- to select a "Linux" partition, type 83
- type w to create the partition you have now specified for Linux.
Now we have a partition table and a partition on our drive, we can repeat fdisk -l to see the entry now added, it might be /dev/sda1, where again the "a" might be a different letter
To format this partition for Linux, we specify "ext4" as the way to format it using mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1, again replacing the "a" as required.
we need to create a folder within
- "/media" for Linux in general
- "/media/pi" for Raspberry PI OS
As we will learn later, the relevant command (in RPi OS) is mkdir /media/pi/my_short_name, where "my_short_name" is selected by you
To mount our partition, we type mount /dev/sda1 /media/pi/my_short_name, where "sda1" is replaced by "sdb1" or whatever we saw in fdisk -l, and "pi/my_short_name" is replaced by whatever we used in our make directory command.
To (optionally) get our partition mounted at boot, we can use an editor (see later) to change the boot instructions, by typing nano /etx/fstab
- In the editor, use the down arrow on your keyboard to move to last line, and then type /dev/sda1 (change the "a" as necessary), then press "tab", then type /media/pi/my_short_name (change "pi/my_short_name" to whatever we used in our make directory command), then press "tab", then type ext4 (again matching the format type we selected earlier), then press "tab", then type defaults, then press "tab", then type 1, then press "tab", then finally type 2
- save the file (as described later in nano sub-section), hold down control key and press 'o letter key. Press "enter" again to confirm same file name.
- exit nano by holding control key and pressing "x" key.

Package Manager – a brief technical aside

Linux operating systems install software by looking in repositories, and checking a register showing dependencies. When you ask Linux to install a particular package using “apt”, it also checks if all dependencies of the selected package are already present, and installs any that are missing.

If you look up on-line how to install any software in Linux, it may use “apt-get”, that is an earlier package manager, in general you can use “apt” instead now.

The full differences between “apt” and “apt-get” depends on your Linux flavour, so this technical aside now splits further discussion by Linux flavour.

Debian as used by Raspberry Pi

“Debian Linux” (and its derivatives such as “Raspberry Pi Operating System”) uses “apt” to mean a ‘’’Package Manager’’’ that can install, update, and remove packages from these computer systems.

For Debian Linux, “apt” is directed at the end-user (it has user friendly features like a staus bar showing progress on a long install or long upgrade, and can produce prompts about what it is doing and can give choices about whether to do individual actions).

There is an alternative “apt-get” which is more powerful, but directed at system level users (those who don’t want to be watching progress and possibly responding to prompts).

As “apt-get” is updated less frequently than “apt”, it may be it will not work with new packages. Put another way “apt-get” may never change what it can do, but “apt” may get modified to do more than it did before.

Ubuntu

For Ubuntu only “apt-get” was available up to 2014, when “apt” was added. Both work as described above for Debian. Again “apt” is best to use.

Mint

Linux Mint has a different variation. Its “apt” calls its “apt-get” and adds extra features. So both effectively do the same, but (as with previous flavours) “apt” is best to use.

It is likely that other Linux variants will also vary how these alternative commands differ.