>> IoT IN ACTION - REMOTE MONITORING SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

.. now the fun part begins!

In follow-up to my previous blog entry - it was time to actually put everything together and configure the Arduino Yún to take photographs periodically and automatically upload to a public server on the Internet. Surprisingly, it didn't take much to get the details sorted out - it went so well that I plan to take a road trip tomorrow to install it.

As part of a trial run - the two images above show the view from the up-stairs bedroom of my family friends house overlooking the neighbours; taken at 14:00 and 15:00 local time. The quality of the images is good and even in a quiet neighbourhood there is plenty of activity.

Configuration involved installing some software and scheduling a cron job to do the work.

• # login to the Arduino Yún
  $ ssh -l root arduino.local
  
  # install software for the UVC camera
  $ opkg update
  $ opkg install kmod-video-uvc
  $ opkg install fswebcam
  
  # install openssh keygen/client/server, remove dropbear
  $ opkg remove dropbear
  $ opkg install openssh-server
  $ opkg install openssh-client
  $ opkg install openssh-keygen
  $ ssh-keygen -t rsa
  $ cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh ardiri@ardiri.com "cat >> /.ssh/authorized_keys"
  

I only used a portion from the learn.adafruit.com tutorial, effectively only installing the UVC camera drivers and the software that would take a still photo. In order to have an automated solution for uploading the photos I had to uninstall dropbear and install openssh in order to generate an ssh-key and get additional functionality required for the upload process.

The script to do the work is also simple:

• #!/bin/sh
  F=`date +\%Y\%m\%d-\%H\%M\%S.jpg`
  /usr/bin/fswebcam -r 1280x720 --jpeg 95 /mnt/sda1/$F
  /usr/bin/scp -i /root/.ssh/id_rsa /mnt/sda1/$F 
    ardiri@ardiri.com:/home/ardiri/www/blog/projects/mr-monitor/$F 
  

Using the system date a unique filename is generated and then photo of 1280x720 resolution is taken, saved onto the memory card and then it is copied to my web server using the scp (secure copy) program which uses the credentials created in the early steps.

Finally, a simple crontab entry is required:

• * * * * * /sbin/ping -c 1 192.168.0.1 > /dev/null
  0-30/30 7-18/1 * * * /mnt/sda1/photo.sh
  

The first entry is just to keep the network connection alive between the Arduino Y&uacte;n and the BlackBerry Z10 that has been configured as a mobile hot spot - it does a simple ping every minute of the day. It may not be necessary; but it will be interesting to see what happens once I leave the solution to run on its own.

The second entry is the job that schedules the execution of the photo - which happens on the hour and half hour, every hour between 07:00 and 18:30 which will result in twenty five photos a day uploaded to a specific directory on the server for my viewing pleasure.

I picked up an Optus pre-paid SIM that offers 1Gb of data and can be topped up online.

If the testing at home goes well - a short 3 hour drive down to the building site and figuring out where to hide everything will result in a constant stream of activity (hopefully) being monitored which I may be able to use against the builders directly if they get lazy on me.