PiGlow_Web_Status

This is a small python file that will get the web status of a site (in this case http://www.raspberrypi.org/) and relay that to the user through the awesome PiGlow by Pimoroni, using the bulit-in module "urllib" as well as an external one - "piglow" created by Boeeerb.

BTW part of this tutorial is "borrowed" from Boeeerb!

Files

web-status.py - this one test a web page and then lights the corresponding led

piglow.py - this is imported into the web-status.py

Requirements

The follwing module is required:

• python-smbus

SMBus allows python to communicate with the PiGlow over the i2c bus.

Before Installation

Update the Raspberry Pi

sudo apt-get update

Now enable the i2c driver by opening the following file in your Favourite text editor

sudo nano /etc/modules

And adding these two lines to the end of the file

i2c-dev
i2c-bcm2708

The file should now look like this

Press Ctrl-X and when prompted press Y

Now edit the next file raspi-blacklist.conf

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf

And add # (hash sybols) to the beggining of each line

Again press Ctrl-X and when prompted press Y

Now restart the Raspberry Pi

sudo reboot

Installation

Create a directory for PiGlow and web-status to live in called src

sudo mkdir /src

Once this folder is created cd into it

cd /src

###Now for the actual installation

First install the PiGlow module

sudo wget https://raw.github.com/Boeeerb/PiGlow/master/piglow.py

Now the web-status.py file

sudo wget https://raw.github.com/James12802/PiGlow_Web_Status/master/web-status.py

Testing

Now to test the file run

sudo python web-status.py

This will start printing either green, red or orange

And light up the corresponding leds.

Press Ctrl-Z to end the program.

Customisation

Now this is all well and good but what's the point of it? Well I run a web server off of my headless Pi and want to know if my site is up or down without having to open my browser - I know, lazy right :p

To change the site address to simply

sudo nano web-status.py

And edit the following line from

sitecode = urlopen("http://www.raspberrypi.org").getcode()

To

sitecode = urlopen("http://www.james12802.co.uk").getcode()

Or what ever you want.

Start on boot

As I run my web server headless I don't want to keep having to start the script every time I boot up my Pi, so I have automated it.

First cd into the init.d directory by

cd /etc/init.d

Now create the file "web-status"

sudo nano web-status

And enter the following

#! /bin/sh
# /etc/init.d/test

### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          clock
# Required-Start:    $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop:     $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop:      0 1 6
# Short-Description: Simple script to monitor the status of a website
# Description:       Simple script to monitor the status of a website
### END INIT INFO


 case "$1" in
  start)
    sudo python /src/web-status/web-status.py
    ;;
  stop)
   ;;
  *)
    killall python
    exit 1
    ;;

esac
exit 0

You should know it by now - press Ctrl-X and when prompted press Y

Now make the file an executable

sudo chmod +x web-status

And add it to the start up scripts by

sudo update-rc.d web-status defaults

Now reboot your Pi

sudo reboot

And enjoy

James12802 =D