This document contains general information about the wx/net application suite, with pointers to documentation for specific components.
Welcome to wx/net, a free open-source networking application for the remote monitoring of weather conditions. wx/net runs on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, and interfaces with digital weather stations via an RS-232 serial interface. In addition to weather stations, support is also included for lightning detection through a second serial port. wx/net consists of three major components:In addition to these three principal executables, there are a number of other supporting scripts which will be described in detail elsewhere in the documentation where they become relevant.
- wxnetd, a server-daemon which interfaces with the weather computer, collects, logs, and distributes data, and handles all client requests.
- wxnet, a GUI client which can connect to a given server to remotely monitor weather conditions at the server's hosted weather device.
- sdadmin, an administrative client which can be used to remotely administer the server-daemon and the weather device it is connected to.
Because of its client-server architecture, wx/net is different from most other weather device monitoring programs in that you don't need to physically be at the computer hooked up to the device in order to monitor conditions. As long as you have internet connectivity to the server, the client may be used to observe weather conditions in real-time anywhere on the globe. In addition, the client may request plots or queries of archived historical data, get local or remote sun/moon data, chat with other connected clients, and much more. The system is based on the Unix family of OSes and is intended to be extremely reliable and require little intervention or maintenance over long periods of time.
The wx/net software components are built upon a shared API library (called sdbase) that performs generic server and client functions, event scheduling, filehandle monitoring, and interprocess communication services. This API was designed primarily to support wx/net, but may be reused for other non weather related applications in the future, and will be installable independent of the wx/net applications themselves. The software lying above the server-daemon base library implements all of the specifics for the wx/net server and GUI client. The administrative script, sdadmin, is not customized to any particular application. Its design is such that any application-specific functions are implemented at the server itself, and so the same sdadmin script may be used to service any server applications built upon the sdbase library.
Installation of the wx/net system is accomplished by running a single install script, and includes installation of the sdbase API library. An install script named install-wxnet.pl is provided for performing installation of all components. Run this script as root with the command "perl install-wxnet.pl" and provide the paths as requested. The installation process is quick and straightforward. You will be prompted for several paths which, when provided, will determine the installation location for the program suite. The install script will first want to know where your Perl language executable is. This is usually something to the effect of /usr/bin/perl. If you are unsure, you can probably type "which perl" to determine where it resides. Next the script will want to know where to install the sdbase library, and finally it will want to know where to install the wx/net application file hierarchy. Once these three quantities are known, the installation process will quickly finish and you can being using the programs.
Details about the server as well as its administrative interface can be found in the wx/net Server-Daemon Instruction Manual.
Details about the wx/net client can be found in the wx/net GUI Client Instruction Manual.