Installation

weewx-loopdata manual · weewx-loopdata on GitHub · Report an issue

Requirements: Python 3.7 or later and WeeWX 4.6 or later. No third-party Python packages are needed. (Versions 3.0 through 3.9 required sortedcontainers; as of 4.0 it is no longer used.) Python 3.7 is the floor because LoopData’s code carries type annotations, which do not work under Python 2 nor under earlier versions of Python 3.

LoopData is targeted at drivers that report loop packets on a regular cadence, with all observations present in every packet. It has been tested with the WeeWX vantage and cc3000 drivers and will likely work with any other driver of that kind. Drivers that report irregularly or send partial packets are untested: time-weighted aggregates assume the steady cadence set in [[LoopFrequency]] seconds.

WeeWX 5

Download the latest release, weewx-loopdata.zip.
Install the loopdata extension.

On a pip install weectl lives in the virtual environment, so activate it first (yours may sit elsewhere; ~/weewx-venv is the usual place):
```
source ~/weewx-venv/bin/activate
weectl extension install weewx-loopdata.zip
```
On a Debian or Red Hat package install there is no environment to activate and weectl is already on the path:
```
weectl extension install weewx-loopdata.zip
```
No sudo: that install put your account in the weewx group, which owns the files. If you installed WeeWX in this same login session, log out and back in first so the group membership takes effect.
Adjust the [LoopData] section the install added to weewx.conf (see First-time configuration below).
Restart WeeWX.

WeeWX 4

Download the latest release, weewx-loopdata.zip.
Install the loopdata extension:
```
sudo wee_extension --install weewx-loopdata.zip
```
Note: a package install has wee_extension on the path, as above. On a setup.py install use the full path, e.g. /home/weewx/bin/wee_extension.
Adjust the [LoopData] section the install added to weewx.conf (see First-time configuration below).
Restart WeeWX.

Already running an older loopdata? The command is the same, and your [LoopData] section is preserved — but some releases need a change to it. See Upgrading.

First-time configuration

The install creates a [LoopData] section in weewx.conf (the full section is shown in Configuration). Adjust the values accordingly. In particular:

Specify seconds with how often your device writes loop records — 2.0 is the shipped default and is right for a Davis Vantage. It is the weight given to each live packet in the accumulators, so it is worth getting right; see [[LoopFrequency]] for what a wrong value costs.
Specify the loop_data_dir where the loop-data.txt file should be written. If loop_data_dir is a relative path, it is interpreted as relative to the sample report’s directory (LoopDataReport, or the report named by target_report if you set one). The default works and is what most stations keep; see Where the loop-data file should live if you would rather have the file on a memory filesystem outside the web root.
There is no list of fields to fill in: the sample report declares the fields its panel reads in its own skin.conf, and a page of your own declares its fields the same way — see Declaring fields, later, after you are sure LoopData is running correctly. Another extension with a live page declares its own when installed — weewx-celestial does so from 9.0 (8.4 and earlier only add their fields to a line that already exists, and a fresh install of loopdata 7.0 or later writes none).
If you need the loop-data.txt file pushed to a remote webserver, you will also need to fill in the RsyncSpec fields; but one can fill that in later, after LoopData is up and running. See Syncing to a remote server.

Checking for a properly running installation

After a reporting cycle runs, navigate to <weewx-url>/loopdata/ in your browser to see the default loopdata report — the sample instrument panel. (Reports typically run every 5 minutes.) Once the page loads, its indicator should read LIVE and the needles should move with your station.

If something is off, see Troubleshooting.

Optional: SSH control master multiplexing

This applies only if you rsync loop-data.txt to another machine (see Syncing to a remote server). If you are rsync’ing loopdata to another machine every 2 seconds, inevitably some of these rsyncs will fail — perhaps on the order of 3 to 10 per day on the author’s systems. This is totally fine and is not noticeable, but there is an easy way to make the rsyncs lightweight and have none of them fail: create a .ssh/config file under the home directory of the user running WeeWX, with the contents below. The Host entered must match exactly the remote_server value entered in the RsyncSpec section of [LoopData] in weewx.conf.

Host www.paloaltoweather.com   # <-- CHANGE TO YOUR remote_server!
    ControlMaster auto
    ControlPath ~/.ssh/control-%r@%h:%p
    ControlPersist 10m
    ServerAliveInterval 15
    ServerAliveCountMax 3