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[AirCare] InTheAir - Week 12: Automatically starting some things

fvan

Previous posts for this project:

 

 

Introduction

 

I'm using a Beaglebone Black and BB View as the main user interface. Because the BB View is a touch screen, I want to avoid the need for another input device such as a keyboard.

In this post, I'll set up openHAB and Chromium to start automatically and visualise the openHAB GUI without having to enter an URL or open a browser manually.



openHAB

 

First, I created a script which will launch the desired application, in this case: openHAB. The script will be put in "/usr/bin".

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo nano /usr/bin/openhab.sh

#!/bin/bash
/opt/openhab/start.sh

 

The script needs to be made executable so it can be launched successfully.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo chmod u+x /usr/bin/openhab.sh

 

Next, create the service. Some prerequisites can be specified, for example the need of having the network up and running first.

 

debian@beaglebone:/usr/bin$ sudo nano /lib/systemd/openhab.service

[Unit]
Description=openHAB
After=syslog.target network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/openhab.sh
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

 

Create a symbolic link to let the system know where to find the service:

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ cd /etc/systemd/system
debian@beaglebone:/etc/systemd/system$ sudo ln /lib/systemd/openahb.service openhab.service

 

Try starting the service to check for mistakes/errors. If all is well, the service can be enabled.

 

debian@beaglebone:/etc/systemd/system$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
debian@beaglebone:/etc/systemd/system$ sudo systemctl start openhab.service
debian@beaglebone:/etc/systemd/system$ sudo systemctl enable openhab.service

 

As a final check, reboot the Beaglebone Black to confirm it's working as expected.

 

debian@beaglebone:/etc/systemd/system$ sudo reboot

 

After reboot, the openHAB start script seems to be running, this is a good sign. Checking the logs, openHAB is started as expected!

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ ps aux | grep start

root       758  0.0  0.0   1336   440 ?        S    18:59   0:00 /bin/sh /opt/openhab/start.sh
root       996  0.0  0.5   5864  2676 ?        Ss   18:59   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  1003  0.0  0.3   5644  1996 ?        S    18:59   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  1005  0.0  0.4 227056  2364 ?        Sl   18:59   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
www-data  1007  0.0  0.4 227048  2356 ?        Sl   18:59   0:00 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
debian    1323  0.0  0.1   1576   592 pts/0    S+   19:00   0:00 grep start

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ less /opt/openhab/logs/openhab.log

2015-01-14 19:00:39.422 [INFO ] [.o.core.internal.CoreActivator] - openHAB runtime has been started (v1.6.0).
2015-01-14 19:00:50.451 [INFO ] [o.o.i.s.i.DiscoveryServiceImpl] - mDNS service has been started
2015-01-14 19:00:51.111 [INFO ] [o.o.i.s.i.DiscoveryServiceImpl] - Service Discovery initialization completed.
2015-01-14 19:00:51.168 [INFO ] [.io.transport.mqtt.MqttService] - MQTT Service initialization completed.
2015-01-14 19:00:51.180 [INFO ] [o.i.t.m.i.MqttBrokerConnection] - Starting MQTT broker connection 'eclipseiot'
2015-01-14 19:00:57.860 [INFO ] [c.internal.ModelRepositoryImpl] - Loading model 'rrd4j.persist'
2015-01-14 19:00:59.817 [INFO ] [c.internal.ModelRepositoryImpl] - Loading model 'intheair.items'
2015-01-14 19:01:11.457 [INFO ] [c.internal.ModelRepositoryImpl] - Loading model 'intheair.sitemap'
2015-01-14 19:01:15.109 [INFO ] [penhab.io.rest.RESTApplication] - Started REST API at /rest
2015-01-14 19:01:21.365 [INFO ] [.o.u.w.i.servlet.WebAppServlet] - Started Classic UI at /openhab.app

 

 

Chromium

 

To automatically start applications when the desktop loads, an "autostart" file can be edited to add the required applications.

 

At the end of the file, I appended a line to start Chromium automatically and open the openHAB web interface. I've also added the "--kiosk" option, which will load Chromium in full screen mode without the possibility to close it. This will be useful to avoid anyone accidentally closing the application or tampering with the system.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo nano /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

@lxpanel --profile LXDE
@pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE
@chromium --kiosk "http://localhost:9090/openhab.app?sitemap=intheair"

 

The result after having applied the changes and rebooting the system, is the following:

image

 

There are two issues with the above screenshot:

  • Chromium is started and attempting to open the openHAB GUI before openHAB is fully started
  • There is a warning message at the top regarding missing API keys

 

On the good side: Chromium is started in kiosk mode and trying to open the correct URL, meaning the command works.

 

To solve the first issue, I chose the quick and dirty solution of adding a delay. Because other "custom" commands might be needed, I moved the delay and startup of Chromium to a separate script and called that script in the "autostart" instead.

 

I added a 2 minute sleep before starting Chromium, giving openHAB enough time to start properly.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo nano delayed-chromium.sh

#!/usr/bin/sh
sleep 120 && chromium --kiosk "http://localhost:9090/openhab.app?sitemap=intheair"


debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo chmod u+x delayed-chromium.sh

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo nano /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

@lxpanel --profile LXDE
@pcmanfm --desktop --profile LXDE
@sh /home/debian/delayed-chromium.sh

 

After rebooting, Chromium is started 2 minutes later as expected and the openHAB GUI loads properly. Ideally, I should check for openHAB's status until fully started and then launch Chromium.

image

 

The get rid of the second issue, the Google API keys warning, some environment variables need to be set:

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ export GOOGLE_API_KEY="no"
debian@beaglebone:~$ export GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID="no"
debian@beaglebone:~$ export GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET="no"

 

Using "set", it is possible to confirm the variables have been set. Unfortunately, setting them like this is not permanent and a reboot will lose the information.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ set

...
GOOGLE_API_KEY=no
GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID=no
GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET=no
...

 

This is where the custom script from earlier comes in handy. I added the "export" statements into the script, which results in them being executed at every startup.

 

debian@beaglebone:~$ sudo nano delayed-chromium.sh

#!/usr/bin/sh
export GOOGLE_API_KEY=no
export GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_ID=no
export GOOGLE_DEFAULT_CLIENT_SECRET=no
sleep 120 && chromium --kiosk "http://localhost:9090/openhab.app?sitemap=intheair"

 

The annoying warning is finally gone:

image

 

Conclusion

 

After powering on the Beaglebone Black, the openHAB GUI will open automatically on the touch screen without user intervention. Hooray!

  • in reply to tomaja

    Hi Dragan,

     

    I'm not experiencing any problems with the display. I'm using the bigger version though. The cursor stays put and doesn't jump around.

    If you have tried that much and the problem still persists, it might indeed be a hardware issue ... image

     

    Frederick

  • This looks nice. Well done!

    I'm also using BB_View but 4.3" version. I have a lot of trouble with it. I finally managed to get the screen working at the same time as WiFi and Ethernet but I still have one MAJOR issue with it. Pointer arrow keeps jumping to the right of the screen on its own. Tried with different distros but no luck... looks like hardware fault.

    You probably don't have such problem since you never mentioned it - it's very annoying and makes the screen unusable in the way it was planned. I will have to disable touchscreen and use the screen in plain presentation mode.

     

    Dragan