<link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
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+ <item>
+ <title>wmbusmeters, parse data from your utility meter - nice free software</title>
+ <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/wmbusmeters__parse_data_from_your_utility_meter___nice_free_software.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/wmbusmeters__parse_data_from_your_utility_meter___nice_free_software.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 19 May 2023 21:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>There is a European standard for reading utility meters like water,
+gas, electricity or heat distribution meters. The
+<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meter-Bus">Meter-Bus standard
+(EN 13757-2, EN 13757-3 and EN 13757–4)</a> provide a cross vendor way
+to talk to and collect meter data. I ran into this standard when I
+wanted to monitor some heat distribution meters, and managed to find
+free software that could do the job. The meters in question broadcast
+encrypted messages with meter information via radio, and the hardest
+part was to track down the encryption keys from the vendor. With this
+in place I could set up a MQTT gateway to submit the meter data for
+graphing.</p>
+
+<p>The free software systems in question,
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/rtl-wmbus">rtl-wmbus</a> to
+read the messages from a software defined radio, and
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/wmbusmeters">wmbusmeters</a> to
+decrypt and decode the content of the messages, is working very well
+and allowe me to get frequent updates from my meters. I got in touch
+with upstream last year to see if there was any interest in publishing
+the packages via Debian. I was very happy to learn that Fredrik
+Öhrström volunteered to maintain the packages, and I have since
+assisted him in getting Debian package build rules in place as well as
+sponsoring the packages into the Debian archive. Sadly we completed
+it too late for them to become part of the next stable Debian release
+(Bookworm). The wmbusmeters package just cleared the NEW queue. It
+will need some work to fix a built problem, but I expect Fredrik will
+find a solution soon.</p>
+
+<p>If you got a infrastructure meter supporting the Meter Bus
+standard, I strongly recommend having a look at these nice
+packages.</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>The 2023 LinuxCNC Norwegian developer gathering</title>
<link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_2023_LinuxCNC_Norwegian_developer_gathering.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>Managing and using ONVIF IP cameras with Linux</title>
- <link>https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Managing_and_using_ONVIF_IP_cameras_with_Linux.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Managing_and_using_ONVIF_IP_cameras_with_Linux.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Wed, 19 Oct 2022 12:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Recently I have been looking at how to control and collect data
-from a handful IP cameras using Linux. I both wanted to change their
-settings and to make their imagery available via a free software
-service under my control. Here is a summary of the tools I found.</p>
-
-<p>First I had to identify the cameras and their protocols. As far as
-I could tell, they were using some SOAP looking protocol and their
-internal web server seem to only work with Microsoft Internet Explorer
-with some proprietary binary plugin, which in these days of course is
-a security disaster and also made it impossible for me to use the
-camera web interface. Luckily I discovered that the SOAP looking
-protocol is actually following <a href="https://www.onvif.org/">the
-ONVIF specification</a>, which seem to be supported by a lot of IP
-cameras these days.</p>
-
-<p>Once the protocol was identified, I was able to find what appear to
-be the most popular way to configure ONVIF cameras, the free software
-Windows tool named
-<a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/onvifdm/">ONVIF Device
-Manager</a>. Lacking any other options at the time, I tried
-unsuccessfully to get it running using Wine, but was missing a dotnet
-40 library and I found no way around it to run it on Linux.</p>
-
-<p>The next tool I found to configure the cameras were a non-free Linux Qt
-client <a href="https://www.lingodigit.com/onvif_nvcdemo.html">ONVIF
-Device Tool</a>. I did not like its terms of use, so did not spend
-much time on it.</p>
-
-<p>To collect the video and make it available in a web interface, I
-found the Zoneminder tool in Debian. A recent version was able to
-automatically detect and configure ONVIF devices, so I could use it to
-set up motion detection in and collection of the camera output. I had
-initial problems getting the ONVIF autodetection to work, as both
-Firefox and Chromium <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1001188">refused
-the inter-tab communication</a> being used by the Zoneminder web
-pages, but managed to get konqueror to work. Apparently the "Enhanced
-Tracking Protection" in Firefox cause the problem. I ended up
-upgrading to the Bookworm edition of Zoneminder in the process to try
-to fix the issue, and believe the problem might be solved now.</p>
-
-<p>In the process I came across the nice Linux GUI tool
-<a href="https://gitlab.com/caspermeijn/onvifviewer/">ONVIF Viewer</a>
-allowing me to preview the camera output and validate the login
-passwords required. Sadly its author has grown tired of maintaining
-the software, so it might not see any future updates. Which is sad,
-as the viewer is sightly unstable and the picture tend to lock up.
-Note, this lockup might be due to limitations in the cameras and not
-the viewer implementation. I suspect the camera is only able to
-provide pictures to one client at the time, and the Zoneminder feed
-might interfere with the GUI viewer. I have
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1000820">asked for the tool to be
-included in Debian</a>.</p>
-
-<p>Finally, I found what appear to be very nice Linux free software
-replacement for the Windows tool, named
-<a href="https://github.com/sr99622/libonvif/">libonvif</a>. It
-provide a C library to talk to ONVIF devices as well as a command line
-and GUI tool using the library. Using the GUI tool I was able to change
-the admin passwords and update other settings of the cameras. I have
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/1021980">asked for the package to be
-included in Debian</a>.</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Update 2022-10-20</strong>: Since my initial publication of
-this text, I got several suggestions for more free software Linux
-tools. There is <a href="https://github.com/quatanium/python-onvif">a
-ONVIF python library</a> (already
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/824240">requested into Debian</a>) and
-<a href="https://github.com/FalkTannhaeuser/python-onvif-zeep">a python 3
-fork</a> using a different SOAP dependency. There is also
-<a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/onvif/">support for
-ONVIF in Home Assistant</a>, and there is an alternative to Zoneminder
-called <a href="https://www.shinobi.video/">Shinobi</a>. The latter
-two are not included in Debian either. I have not tested any of these
-so far.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
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