• Configure Somfy devices in OpenHab 2

    Here is how to add the SomfyTahoma Bridge in OpenHab and control the Somfy devices (more doc here).

    Click to Read More

    Go to Paper UI’s Configuration > Bindings and click on the blue “+” (or go directly to Configuration > Add-ons, in the tab “Bindings” – indeed, “Bindings” are installed using “Add-ons” developed by the community) :

    In the Search box, type “Somfy” to filter the “Bindings” and find those available for this type of devices. Click on the “Install” link on the right of the one to be installed :

    Once the Add-on installed, you can check that the Bindings is available in the Configuration > Bindings :

    With the Somfy Binding, you can now add a “SomfyTahoma Bridge”. Go to Configuration > Things and click on the Blue “+”. Then select “SomfyTahoma Binding” and next “Somfy Tahoma Bridge” :

    You must now configure the Bridge with your Somfy account (Email Address and Password). You can also define the “location” (Room) where it is placed in your house :

    Once done, the Bridge appears as “Online” in Configuration > Things

    And the “Somfy devices” will appear in the “Inbox” :

    Each device in the “Inbox” can now be linked with an “Item” previously configured via the “Home Builder” (and saved in the file “default.items”). For example, select a Roller Shutter by clicking on the blue “V”  and click next on “Add as Thing” :

    Go to Configuration > Things were the “Roller Shutter” appears now as “Online” : 

    Click on the “Roller Shutter” to configure it (For each “Thing”, when you configure it, you see one or several blue circles. Each one can be used to configure the links with the various features of the devices) :

     In the case of a Somfy Roller Shutter, there is not a lot to configure. You can only select the “Item” to be used to control the “Roller Shutter” :

    Once selected, click on “Link” :

    Here above, I configured the link with a “Item” located in the Room “Office”. So, going to the “Basic UI” via the “Welcome page”, and opening the “Office” (member of the “Ground Floor”), you can now click on the arrows “Up” and “Down” next to the “Roller Shutter” to control it :

    You can also do it via the “HabPanel DashBoard” :

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  • Configure OpenHab 2

    Once OpenHab 2 installed on Synology, it can be configured with :

    • its “Home Builder”  : this screen let you generate “settings” describing your house and its content. Those settings can be saved into a DB or copied into config files.
    • its “Paper UI” : this screen let you add all your connected devices into openHab. Once added, they can be linked with the content of your house described with the “Home Builder”.

    Click to Read More

    The “Home Builder”

    Open the Package “openHAB” via the Package Center > Installed > OpenHAB and click on the “Url” at the bottom of the screen :

    A new tab should open with the “Welcome page” (To access it easily, simply type the http address of your Synology and the port 8080 or it https address and the port 8443 – or the ports you would have chosen during the installation of OpenHab)

    It the “Welcome page”, open the “Home Builder” :

    In that “Home Builder”, you will recreate your house, with the various Floors, Rooms per Floor and Items (Object) per Room. Later you will link each of those items with the actual “Things” to be controlled in your house (Those Things belonging to your IoT).

    First, type a name for your home.

    Next select all the “Floors” existing in your home. If you want to add floors not available in the list, simply type their names. Here under,  the Floors “Cellar”,  “Ground  Floor”,  “First  Floor”, “Second Floor” and  “Third Floor” are already selected and I am going to pick Outside:

    Then, for each Floor added above, select the “Rooms” to be created. If you want to add a Rooms not available in the list, simply type their names. Here under, I already picked the Rooms “Laundry Room” and “Hallway Cellar” for the Floor “Cellar”, and I am going to pick the Room “Balcony” :

    Finally, for each Room added above, select the Items (Objects) to be created. You can here also create new Objects by typing their names. Here under, I added one “Light” and one “Power Outlet” in the “Laundry Room” on the Floor “Cellar”, one “Light” and one “Motion Sensor” in the “Hallway Cellar”  on the Floor “Cellar”, etc… :

    The settings of your home are now ready. They can be saved in an “internal DB” or in “text files”. I decided to save them in text files to be able to modify them manually more easily in the future.

    The “Items”

    To save the “Items” in a text file, click on the button “ITEMS”. The settings will be shown on the rights. Click on the floating button “Copy” in the top-right corner of the settings pane. Next, paste those settings in a file name “default.items” created (e.g. with notepad++) into the folder /openHAB/conf/items of the Shared Folder “SmartHome” :

     

    The “Sitemap”

    Copy also the settings displayed when clicking on the button “SITEMAP” (These are the links between the Floors, the Rooms and the Items. They will be used to display a basic screen with all the items). Save them in a file named “xxx.sitemap” – were xxx is the name of your home, to be found in the settings of your sitemap (highlighted here under in green : “olympe”) :

    To see the outcomes, go back the the “Welcome page” :

    And there, open the “Basic UI” where you will see your sitemap. Click on it to display your home :

    When your “Items” will be linked to “Things” (as explained later), you will be able to click on them here to control them.

    The “HabPanel DashBoard”

    The HabPanel DashBoard is a advanced UI which can be highly customized to display screens much more sexy than the basic UI (See various samples created by end-users here). You can even create custom dashboards specific for each of your interfaces : Tablet, mobile, PC screen, …

    To create a dummy dashboard, click on the button “DASHBOARD” and copy the settings going to be displayed on the right :

    You should see a link “”Paste the content in this config page” at the bottom of the settings.

    Open that link and paste the settings there :

     

    Go back to the “Welcome page” and click on “HabPanel” to open it :

    I said that this is a dummy HabPanel because it is not useful at all IMO. You will for sure change it completely to offer a more relevant display.

    The “Paper UI”

    Now that you have described your house (Floors and Rooms) and its content (Items), it’s time to link the “Items” with “Things”, the actual devices to be controlled.

    Go to the “Welcome page” and select “Paper UI” :

    NB.: you can review all your Items under the entry Configuration > Items of that “Paper UI” :

    NB.: you can also define your location under Configuration > System :

     

    The principle of the “Paper UI” is quite simple : you must install “Bindings” to be able to detect your devices. Ex.: a “Somfy Tahoma Binding” to detect your Somfy blinds, a “Hue Binding” to detect your Philips Hue bubbles, etc…

    Once a Binding installed, you can use it to add a “Thing” corresponding to the physical “Bridge” used to access your devices. Ex.: the Tahoma Bridge, the Hue Bridge, etc… 

    This Bridge (Thing) must be configured to become accessible by openHab (Usually its IP address, your login/password, etc…). Once this configuration done, all the devices accessible via the Bridge will be detected and added into the “Inbox”. If some devices are not detected automatically, they can sometimes be added manually.

    Each device available in the “Inbox” can be added as a “Thing” and linked with an “Item”. As soon as an “Item” is linked with a “Thing”, it can be used to control the related device. What can be done exactly (Switch On/Off, Open/Close) depends on the type of “Item”.

    The type of each Item (“itemtype”) is defined in the config file “default.items” created previously (See the documentation of OpenHab here for the details). As far as the Bindings are managed here via the “Paper UI”, each item follows this pattern:

    itemtype itemname "labeltext [stateformat]" <iconname> (group1, group2, ...) ["tag1", "tag2", ...]

    An itemtype, as you can see in the documentation, can be Switch, a Dimer, a Color, a Rollershutter, an Image, a Contact, a String, a Number, a Group, etc…

    • A Switch can be turned on or off
    • The value of a Dimer can be set between 0% to 100%,
    • A Rollershutter can be open or closed completely or partially,
    • An Image can be set with a picture,
    • A Contact can have the status Opened or Closed depending on the position of a related Door or Window,
    • A String can be assigned with text such as the name of a radio or a song currently played by a device,
    • A Number can be assigned by a sensor (temperature, illuminance, …). Depending on the type of Number, it must be noted “Number:Illuminance”, “Number:Temperature”, …
    • The itemtype Group is used for the Floors and the Rooms. But not only. They can also be defined with this pattern:
      Group[:itemtype[:function]] groupname ["labeltext"] [<iconname>] [(group1, group2, ...)]
    • A Group can be used to calculate a sum or an average of values. Depending on the computation, it must be noted “Group:Number:AVG” or “Group:Number:SUM”
    • A Group can also be used to control several “Items” together. In such a case, the status of the Group must be defined as a function (AND, OR, NAND, …)  of the status of each Item. Ex.: Group:Switch:OR(ON, OFF), 
      Group:Rollershutter:OR(UP, DOWN), Group:Contact:OR(OPEN, CLOSED), …

    See for concrete samples on https://www.beatificabytes.be/tag/openhab/

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  • Install OpenHAB 2 on Synology

    I was looking for one local and single platform to control all my connected devices : Philips Hue, Somfy blinds, Fibaro Wall Plugs, IFTTT scenario, … OpenHab 2 can do that once installed on a Synology!

    Click to Read More

    To install OpenHab 2 on Synology, I did use the official doc and this great tutorial from Thomas Schwarz.

    Prerequisites

    First, install Java on your Synology. It is available as a package in the Package Center :

    Once installed, upgrade it to the latest version, to be downloaded directly from the Oracle web site :

    Next, “Enable user home service” via the Menu > Control Panel > User :

    Then, create a Shared Folder “SmartHome” via the Menu > Control Panel > Shared Folder (pay attention to the case!) :

    And finally, via the Menu > File Station, create a subfolder “openHAB” in the Shared Folder SmartHome (pay attention to the case!):

    Create next the 3 following sufolders under ‘openHAB’ : ‘addons’, ‘conf’ and ‘userdata’. If you don’t create those subfolders, they will be created in ‘/var/packages/openHAB/target’ and you won’t be able to access them via the Shared Folder SmartHome. Hence, you won’t be able to edit the configuration files easily later…

    Installation

    Download now the package “OpenHab 2” from its GitHub Repository :

    And install it manually via the Package Center :Use the subfolder “openHAB” created on the Shared folder “SmartHome :

    I did install the Z-Wave module as I have a Z-Wave key installed on my Synology :

    Once installed, check that you see the following content in the folder “openHAB” of the Shared Folder “SmartHome” :You should also have the following content in the folder “openHab” of the Shared Folder “homes” :Finally, check that openHab is running fine and finalize the setup by opening the Package “openHAB” via the Package Center > Installed > OpenHAB. There, click on the “Url” at the bottom of the screen :

    A new tab should open with a page where you can select a pre-defined configuration. I am using the “Standard” one :

    Et voilà :

    You can now proceed further with the configuration, as explained here.

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  • Customize Mac & Serial of Xpenology images to run Synology in VMWare

    Here are:

    • all my Xpenology packages used to emulate a Synology with VMWare and
    • how to customize their Mac Address as well as their Serial Number

    Click to Read More

    The DSM images available in the packages above come from these Synology’s archives.

    You can find here or here how to create a Virtual Synology with theses packages (Notice I have fine-tuned those, among others to put the disks in the right boot order for the DS3617xs).

     

    Before importing a package in VMWare, you can update its Mac Address and its Serial to make them unique in your network (E.g.: if you duplicates the images). For that purpose, you need OSFMount, a tool able to update (read and write) the content of .img files.

    Run OSFMount and open the disk image file “synoboot.img” (Do not mount it as Ram Drive):

    “Select All” the partitions as virtual  disks and uncheck the flag “Read-only drive”:

    Once opened, double-click on the first drive in the list to open it. It contains the settings to be customized in the file drive:\grub\grub.cfg. Edit that file to change the Serial (set sn) and the MAC address (set mac1):

    A new MAC address can be generated using VMWare; via a Network Adapter > Advanced > Generate. Click on the button Generate a few times and copy the value in the file above (removing the various semicolons).

    A new Serial can be generated on this site.

    Once done with the edition, “Dismount All” the drives in OSFMount. You can now import the virtual machines in VMWare.

    Et voilà.

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  • Use a Bridged Network for a Virtual Synology using VMWare

    Within the Virtual “Synologies” created as described here and here, I was using NAT for the Network Connection. To use a Bridged Network Connection is not easy, but can work.

    Click to Read More

    I wanted to reconfigure all my Virtual Synology to use NAT instead of a Bridged Network Connection.

    But once this is done, the Virtual Synology does not appear anymore as configured in the Synology Assistant (which opens the Network Wizard). And trying to reach it via a browser, on its admin port,  results in connection timeout.

    If I wait for several minutes (sometimes more than 10′) and try again and again to reach my various Virtual Synology on its admin port, I finally get them.

    I don’t know yet why this is not immediate ?!… I seems to be an issue with the Bridged Connection of VMWare under Windows 10.

     

    I tried to clean the arp table (Run as Command Prompt as Administrator on Windows and type: arp -d *). But without success. And the problem comes back not only each time the VM is restarted, but also sometimes while running since a while…

    I did check that the Mac Address of each Synology (displayed by the Synology Assistant) was correctly defined in VMWare:

    See here how to customize the MAC Address of a Synology image.

     

    I also checked that the Bridged Connections were correctly configured in VMWare as suggested here:

    1. Be sure your vm is stopped.
    2. Run the VMWare Virtual Network Editor (click Start and search for Virtual Network Editor)
    3. Run it as administrator (or click the button at the bottom of the screen that says, “change settings.” VMNet0 will dislpay when running as administrator. Otherwise, it will not be visible)
    4. Highlight VMNet0 and click on “Automatic Settings”
    5. You will see a list of adapters. De-select all but the physical network card. (When I set up up with player, I had selected only the 1. After install of workstation, all of the items were checked.)
    6. Click “OK”
    7. Click “Ok”
    8. Start the VM and test.

     

    I tried next various tips from here and here, such as stopping and restarting the vmnetbridge. The best results are achieved by deleting all the virtual adapters in the VMWare Virtual Network Editor, creating a new one bridged to a specific Ethernet Adapter and finally using that one as a “Custom: Specific virtual network” as Network Adapter for each VM.

     

    But I still have randomly some VM with a “Connection Failed” status in the Synology Assistant. If I found how to definitively fix this issue, I will post it here.

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  • Synology’s Scheduled Tasks

    I would like to find how to create Scheduled Tasks to execute a User-Defined Scripts on Synology using commands in a shell script. But I don’t find how-to. Here are the only info I was able to get.

    Click to Read More

    The tasks created via Control Panel > Task Scheduler > Create > Scheduled Task > User-defined Script, are stored in the file /etc/crontab. Ex.:

    The tasks id are stored in /usr/syno/etc/scheduled_tasks. Ex.:

    [1]
    id=1
    last work hour=23
    can edit owner=1
    can delete from ui=1
    edit dialog=SYNO.SDS.TaskScheduler.EditDialog
    type=daily
    action=#common:run#: /usr/local/bin/php73 /var/packages/MODS_ServerMonitor/target/ui/cron/status.cron.php
    can edit from ui=1
    week=1111111
    app name=#common:command_line#
    name=Update Server Mon
    can run app same time=1
    owner=0
    repeat min store config=[1,5,10,15,20,30]repeat hour store config=[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23]simple edit form=1
    repeat hour=0
    listable=1
    app args={“notify_enable”:false,”notify_if_error”:false,”notify_mail”:””,”script”:”/usr/local/bin/php73 /var/packages/MODS_ServerMonitor/target/ui/cron/status.cron.php”}
    state=enabled
    can run task same time=0
    start day=0
    cmd=L3Vzci9sb2NhbC9iaW4vcGhwNzMgL3Zhci9wYWNrYWdlcy9NT0RTX1NlcnZlck1vbml0b3IvdGFyZ2V0L3VpL2Nyb24vc3RhdHVzLmNyb24ucGhw
    run hour=0
    edit form=SYNO.SDS.TaskScheduler.Script.FormPanel
    app=SYNO.SDS.TaskScheduler.Script
    run min=0
    start month=0
    can edit name=1
    start year=0
    can run from ui=1
    repeat min=15

    The task can also be displayed via a command line run as root (See here):  sudo synoschedtask –get id = 1

    ID: [1]
    Name: [Update Server Mon]
    State: [enabled]
    Owner: [root]
    Type: [daily]
    Start date: [0/0/0]
    Run time: [0]:[0]
    Repeat every [15] min (s) until [23]:[45]
    Command: [/usr/local/bin/php73 /var/packages/MODS_ServerMonitor/target/ui/cron/status.cron.php]
    Last Run Time: Mon Oct 28 23:00:02 2019
    Status: [Success]


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  • Use opkg instead of ipkg on Synology

    IPKG is not maintained anymore since 2014. As a replacement, one can use Entware, which offers more than 1800 packages.

    Click to Read More

    First enter a SSH session on your nas as root (See here).

    Check if your CPU model is a armv5, armv7, mips, x86-32 or x86-64. You can do so with one of the following command:

    • cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep -m 1 ‘model name’ | cut -d “:” -f 2 | cut -d “@” -f 1
    • uname -a

    Create now a folder to install Entware (NB.: The folder /opt may not yet exist. I.e.: Optware may not be installed yet. We will delete it if it exists. If it cannot be deleted – you could have a message that it’s in use – then reboot your Synology first).

    mkdir -p /volume1/@entware-ng/opt
    rm -rf /opt
    ln -sf /volume1/@entware-ng/opt /opt

    Depending on your CPU, execute one of the following commands

    • For armv5: wget -O – http://pkg.entware.net/binaries/armv5/installer/entware_install.sh | /bin/sh
    • For armv7: wget -O – http://pkg.entware.net/binaries/armv7/installer/entware_install.sh | /bin/sh
    • For mips: wget -O – http://pkg.entware.net/binaries/mipsel/installer/installer.sh | /bin/sh
    • For x86-32: wget -O – http://pkg.entware.net/binaries/x86-32/installer/entware_install.sh | /bin/sh
      For x86-64: wget -O – http://pkg.entware.net/binaries/x86-64/installer/entware_install.sh | /bin/sh

    Go now to your DSM and open the “Control Panel”. There, select the “Task Scheduler” > “Create” > “Triggered Task” > “User-defined script”

    Configure this new task to run at “Boot-up” :

    And to run the following commands:

    /bin/ln -sf /volume1/@entware-ng/opt /opt
    /opt/etc/init.d/rc.unslung start

    Finally, to include /opt/bin and /opt/sbin to the PATH variable, add . /opt/etc/profile at the end of /etc/profile with this command:

    echo “. /opt/etc/profile” >> /etc/profile

    You can now use the command opkg. The first action to do is: opkg update

    Check the list of packages available with: opkg list | more

     

     

    NB.: To remove IPKG from your Synology:

    1. umount /opt
    2. rm -R /opt
    3. rm -R /volume1/opt or rm -R /volume1/@optware (depends on where IPKG was installed)
    4. delete every reference to optware in /etc/rc.local
    5. rm /etc/rc.optware
    6. check that there is nothing related to ipkg in /etc/crontab
    7. reboot your NAS

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  • Fix SD card or Memory of external devices not visible

    Recently, I plugged on my PC various devices having an internal SD card or an internal Memory. And although I could hear the typical sound made by Windows when a device is plugged in, no new Drive appeared in Windows Explorer. The problem was with a Mounted Network Share using the same letter as the one assigned by Windows to the new Drive.

    Click to Read More

    Looking into the “Device Manager” console, I didn’t see any devices not recognized as illustrated here under. So, the device was correctly recognized and its drivers correctly installed.

    I tried different USB cables and different USB ports (both 2.0 and 3.0), but without success either.

    Finally, I opened the “Computer Management” Console and looked into the “Disk Management” part. There I saw a Drive greyed out. I noticed that it was assigned with a letter which was actually used by a Mounted Network Drive. I did simply right click on it to “change Drive letter” with another one and it appeared magically into the Windows Explorer. 

    To be complete, I have to mention that the conflicting Mounted Network Drive was not available and all letters between C: and the one used for the Mounted Network Drive where in use . This was maybe the actual root cause of Windows assigning the same letter to a new USB Drive.

    Et voilà.

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  • Retrieve files and folders from a Synology C2 backup

    My Nas Synology died recently and I wanted to retreive some content from my Synology C2 Backup.

    Click to Read More

    After 3 years being 24/7, my DS1815+ does not turn on anymore when I press the power button. The problem is not with the power supply. I did change it, but with no luck.

    Fortunatelly, I was using Hyper Backup to daily compy everything into “Synology C2 backup”. 

    But it’s not possible to retreive a complete foder from the backup via the Synology C2 web page. One can only download file by file 🙁

    To download a complete folder at once, you need the “Synology Hyper Backup Explorer” for desktop available in the Destkop Utilities section of the downloads.

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  • How to change the langage of the “Samsung Account” webpage

    When I visit my account on the website of Samsung, it is always displayed in Dutch (used in Brussels, my location) instead of French (my language).

    Click to Read More

    Setting the language “French (European)” in my profile is not fixing this issue. The solution is to change the language on this membership page.

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