Test environment setup

The PC machine

For the test environment a Nexcom NIFE 200 is used, but any Intel PC should work fine.

Linux OS

Debian Buster

A plain installation of it is sufficient, installation steps of additional packages with are required will be described below.

Signal-K

First create a user for Signal-K

sudo useradd -m -s /bin/bash signalk
sudo passwd signalk

NodeJS

Install NodeJS and install the required npm packages

sudo apt-get install nodejs npm
sudo npm install -g npm@latest
sudo npm install -g --unsafe-perm signalk-server

Server

Then setup the Signal-K server after switching to the signalk user

su signalk 
signalk-server-setup

After setting up the server copy the files in the systemd folder to /etc/systemd/system/ and start the signalk server

sudo cp systemd/* /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable signalk.service
sudo systemctl enable signalk.socket
sudo systemctl stop signalk.service
sudo systemctl restart signalk.socket
sudo systemctl restart signalk.service

The server is now reachable on port 3000. You now need to setup an admin account on the server by opening the server in a browser and clicking login. On this page you can create an admin account for the server.

InfluxDB

Install InfluxDB to store signalk data locally

wget -qO- https://repos.influxdata.com/influxdb.key | sudo apt-key add -
source /etc/os-release
echo "deb https://repos.influxdata.com/debian $(lsb_release -cs) stable" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/influxdb.list
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install influxdb
sudo systemctl unmask influxdb.service
sudo systemctl start influxdb

Then install the signalk-to-influxdb plugin by going to the signalk appstore and selecting it from the list. When the plugin is done installing, restart the server. The plugin can now be configured on the server > plugin config page. On that page you need to configure the following settings:

• Database
  • set this to the name of the database the data should be stored in, can be anything
• Resolution
  • set this to 0ms to store all data
• Record Track
  • Check this box
• Record Others
  • Check this box
• Type of List
  • set this to black to record all data

MODBUS simulator and plugin

To get some data into the server you can setup the modbus simulator in this repository by following the instructions in c32simulator.service, and then installing and configuring the modbus plugin with the instructions here. The example configuration file in that repository is already setup for the c32simulator.

cloud connection

To get data to a central cloud server you can install signalk-cloud-transport. To set this up, copy the example transmitter configuration file from the repository to /home/signalk/.signalk-cloud/config/transmitter and change the mqttbroker to the adress of the central server, change the mqtttopic to signalk.

Finally copy signalk-cloud-tx.service to /etc/systemd/system/signalk-cloud-tx.service and setup the systemd service.

Use case n°2

Description

1. Area like: Aboard Analysis Support
2. Originator: Luerssen
3. Title : Lube oil temperature sensor failure
4. Description: A lube oil temperature sensor failure occured onboard during a sail. The related auxillary engine stopped. It has to be interrogated if the engine stopped and the temperature raised subsequently or vice versa. Therefore the timestamps of both events have to be compared.

sensors and protocols

• a physical GPS HOLUX M215+ that will use NMEA0183 v2.2
  • NMEA Format GGA, RMC, VTG
  • NMEA Format optional
  • Baud Rate 4800 bit/Sek.
  • Baud Rate optional
  • Daten/Check/Stop -Bit 8/N/1
• RPM engine will use MODBUS with a software simulator to begin with
• Temperature sensor will use MODBUS with a software simulator to begin with
• The engine running status will MODBUS with a software simulator to begin with