Raspberry Pi better way to view changing log files?

[demondreamer]

I'm looking for a way to view the OpenHAB event bus running on the RaspberryPi remotely from my PC. When I used to run OpenHAB on my PC, it ran in a command window that remained open the whole time.  It displayed in real time everything OpenHAB was doing, status, errors, commands received and sent, etc. It was very useful in understanding and troubleshooting what OpenHAB was doing.

The closest I've come up with so far is using WinSCP to FTP into the root account and viewing:

/var/log/openhab/events.log

and 

/var/log/openhab/openhab.log



of course I have to close and reload if I want an updated version of the log to display.


Does anyone know of a better way?

-Demondreamer

[computourist]

You can start Openhab manually using a remote terminal program like Putty:

log in and:
> cd /opt/openhab
> sudo ./start.sh

and you'll see events in realtime..

- Computourist

[camblonie]

DD, I went back to running from a PC so I can make quick changes but eventually I'll move back to the Pi. There seem to be 20 different ways to automatically start OpenHAB on the pi. Did you follow a particular instruction that is working well?

[demondreamer]

Camblonie, I'd love to tell you but I can't remember what instructions I followed. I vaguely remember getting the Pi about a month ago and going through the update process and whatnot. I Followed the instructions on the OpenHAB website (I think) to get it installed using apt-get. As far as it auto starting, it either just does it or I can't find the webpage I followed in my history. Yeah, not much help, I know. I think I was focused on getting computourist's scripts to work for me at that time.

One thing I do know is that /opt/openhab doesn't exist, nor can I seem to find start.sh anywhere on the file system. So.. no realtime console for me? lol

As far as Pi vs computer Openhab, I've found that using WinSCP, browsing to the configuration files on the Pi and opening the file with Notepad++ via WinSCP, when I hit save in Notepad++, it saves the file on the Pi and Openhab picks it up within a minute or so. In the OpenHAB main configuration you can set how often it checks for changes, and I have mine set to 1 minute. It's just as fast as on the PC.

-Dd

[camblonie]

Dd,
You have the start.sh file somewhere or it wouldn't be running. Did you search from WinSCP for the openhab folder? There was some traffic about using APT-Get vs other methods putting things in different locations on the Pi but the Google Plus group is a joke for searching. A question I would have is what happens when you don't stop the already running OpenHAB? Do you then have two servers running?

[demondreamer]

Feb 15, 2015 18:32:39 GMT camblonie said:

Dd,
You have the start.sh file somewhere or it wouldn't be running. Did you search from WinSCP for the openhab folder? There was some traffic about using APT-Get vs other methods putting things in different locations on the Pi but the Google Plus group is a joke for searching. A question I would have is what happens when you don't stop the already running OpenHAB? Do you then have two servers running?

I've searched high and low for start.sh, it doesn't exist. Also I wouldn't say i have an openhab folder, more like folders, scattered all over the place. below is a partial list of some of them, found by doing a search for "*openhab*".



/etc/openhab/configurations/
/etc/default/openhab   ---    some settings for openhab
/etc/init.d/openhab   --- start/stop/restart/etc openhab

/usr/share/openhab/configurations/       ---openhab items/rules/sitemaps/etc
/usr/share/openhab/server/plugins/
/usr/share/openhab/addons/          ---my openhab addons

/var/run/openhab.pid
/var/cache/apt/archives/    ---apt-get downloads here
/var/lib/openhab/workspace/
/var/lib/dpkg/info/
/var/log/openhab/    --- log files here


I found this:
openhab-runtime_1.6.1_all.deb

in /var/cache/apt/archives/
along with the other openhab bundles I initially downloaded. So I suppose I apt-get the 1.6.1_all_deb version back then.

the /etc/init.d/openhab file is how OpenHAB is getting started at boot I think. I can start|stop|status|restart|force-reload using it, but.... no console.

Here's the contents of /etc/init.d/openhab :
#! /bin/sh

### BEGIN INIT INFO

# Provides:          openhab

# Required-Start:    $all

# Required-Stop:     $all

# Default-Start:     2 3 4 5

# Default-Stop:      0 1 6

# Short-Description: openHAB server

# Description:       Start / Stop openHAB server

### END INIT INFO



# Author: Theo Weiss <[e-mail]>

#



PATH=/sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin





DESC="openHAB server"

NAME=openhab

OPENHAB_CONF_DIR="/etc/openhab"

OPENHAB_DIR="/usr/share/openhab"

OPENHAB_LOG_DIR="/var/log/openhab"

OPENHAB_WORKSPACE_DIR="/var/lib/openhab/workspace"

JAVA="/usr/bin/java"

PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid

SCRIPTNAME=/etc/init.d/$NAME



# Define LSB log_* functions.

# Depend on lsb-base (>= 3.2-14) to ensure that this file is present

# and status_of_proc is working.

. /lib/lsb/init-functions



LAUNCHER=`ls ${OPENHAB_DIR}/server/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_*.jar`



# Exit if the package is not installed

if [ ! -r "$LAUNCHER" ]; then

log_failure_msg "launcher jar is missing"

exit 5

fi



# Read configuration variable file if it is present

[ -r /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME



if [ x"${OPENHAB_JAVA}" != x ]; then

JAVA="${OPENHAB_JAVA}"

fi



if [ x"${USER_AND_GROUP}" != x ]; then



USER=`echo ${USER_AND_GROUP} | cut -d ":" -f 1`

GROUP=`echo ${USER_AND_GROUP} | cut -d ":" -f 2`



#Check whether the specified user exists

if ! getent passwd "${USER}" > /dev/null 2>&1; then

log_failure_msg "runtime user doesn't exists"

exit 2

fi



#Check whether the specified group exists

if ! getent group "${GROUP}" > /dev/null 2>&1; then

log_failure_msg "runtime group doesn't exists"

exit 2

fi



# Check whether the specified user is member of "openhab" group

USER_ID=`id --user ${USER}`

if [ "${USER_ID}" != "0" ]; then

MEMBER_OF=`id --groups --name "${USER}" | tr " " "\n"`

for MEMBER_OF_GROUP in ${MEMBER_OF}; do

if [ "${MEMBER_OF_GROUP}" = "openhab" ]; then

IS_MEMBER="true"

fi

done

if [ "${IS_MEMBER}" != "true" ]; then

log_failure_msg "runtime user isn't member of 'openhab' group"

exit 2

fi

fi



EXTRA_ARGS="-c "${USER_AND_GROUP}" --umask 002 --background --make-pidfile --chdir ${OPENHAB_DIR}"

else

EXTRA_ARGS="--umask 002 --background --make-pidfile --chdir ${OPENHAB_DIR}"

fi





# Load the VERBOSE setting and other rcS variables

. /lib/init/vars.sh



DEBUG_ARGS="-Xdebug \

 -Xnoagent \

 -Djava.compiler=NONE \

 -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8001,server=y,suspend=n \

 -Dlogback.configurationFile=${OPENHAB_CONF_DIR}/logback_debug.xml"



JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT="-Dosgi.clean=true \

-Declipse.ignoreApp=true \

-Dosgi.noShutdown=true \

-Djetty.port=${HTTP_PORT} \

-Dopenhab.configfile="${OPENHAB_CONF_DIR}/configurations/openhab.cfg" \

-Dopenhab.configdir="${OPENHAB_CONF_DIR}/configurations" \

-Dopenhab.logdir="${OPENHAB_LOG_DIR}" \

-Djetty.home="${OPENHAB_DIR}" \

-Djetty.port.ssl=${HTTPS_PORT} \

-Djetty.config="${OPENHAB_CONF_DIR}/jetty" \

-Djetty.logs="${OPENHAB_LOG_DIR}" \

-Djetty.rundir="${OPENHAB_DIR}" \

-Dfelix.fileinstall.dir="${OPENHAB_DIR}/addons" \

-Djava.library.path="${OPENHAB_DIR}/lib" \

-Djava.security.auth.login.config="${OPENHAB_CONF_DIR}/login.conf" \

-Dorg.quartz.properties="${OPENHAB_CONF_DIR}/quartz.properties" \

-Dequinox.ds.block_timeout=240000 \

-Dequinox.scr.waitTimeOnBlock=60000 \

-Dfelix.fileinstall.active.level=4 \

-Djava.awt.headless=true \

-jar ${LAUNCHER} \

-configuration ${OPENHAB_WORKSPACE_DIR} \

-data ${OPENHAB_WORKSPACE_DIR} \

-console ${TELNET_PORT}"



if [ x"${JAVA_ARGS}" != x ]; then

JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT="${JAVA_ARGS} ${JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT}"

fi



if [ x"${OPENHAB_ARGS}" != x ]; then

JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT="${JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT} ${OPENHAB_ARGS}"

fi



if (echo ${DEBUG} | grep -qi "^yes$"); then

JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT="${DEBUG_ARGS} ${JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT}"

else

JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT="-Dlogback.configurationFile=${OPENHAB_CONF_DIR}/logback.xml ${JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT}"

fi



case "$1" in

 start)

       log_daemon_msg "Starting $DESC" "$NAME"

if start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE $EXTRA_ARGS \

--oknodo --exec $JAVA -- $JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT

then

        log_end_msg 0

       else

        log_end_msg 1

fi

       ;;

 stop)

       log_daemon_msg "Stopping $DESC" "$NAME"

       if start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 \

        --pidfile $PIDFILE --oknodo

       then

        rm -f $PIDFILE

        log_end_msg 0

       else

        log_end_msg 1

fi

       ;;

 status)

       status_of_proc "$JAVA" "$NAME" && exit 0 || exit $?

       ;;

 restart|force-reload)

       log_daemon_msg "Restarting $DESC" "$NAME"

       if start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --retry=TERM/30/KILL/5 \

        --pidfile $PIDFILE --oknodo

       then

        rm -f $PIDFILE

        if start-stop-daemon --start --quiet --pidfile $PIDFILE $EXTRA_ARGS \

--oknodo --exec $JAVA -- $JAVA_ARGS_DEFAULT

then

        log_end_msg 0

       else

        log_end_msg 1

fi

else

log_end_msg 1

fi

       ;;

 *)

       echo "Usage: $SCRIPTNAME {start|stop|status|restart|force-reload}" >&2

       exit 3

       ;;

esac



[computourist]

@ demondreamer:
I see the difference: you installed the distribution package, I downloaded and installed the zip-file.
( as described in www.instructables.com/id/OpenHAB-on-Raspberry-Pi/ )

Starting and stopping Openhab in your case is done thru "sudo service openhab start/stop/restart" instead of using start.sh as I do.

You should be able to follow the logfile entries using the "tail -f logfilename" command, that will print out the last part of the logfile as it grows.

- Computourist

[demondreamer]

Ahh, there we go. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

Thank you!

Demondreamer