Website on a separate webserver

[gintasd]

Hi,
Very nice project Thomas - thank you.
I have built Allsky camera and a webserver on the same RPi - runs without any issue.
Now I am trying to move the Allsky Website to a separate webserver, that runs on RPi as well.
I will call this separate RPi as Allsky-web, but the folder where everything is is "Allsky".
This RPi has Apache2 webserver running and serves as my Meteo station webserver.
I want to add the Allsky to it as well.
This server has installed PHP7.4 and MariaDB (not sure if it is needed by Allsky).
I have downloaded the allsky-website from https://github.com/thomasjacquin/allsky-website.
Extracted the Allsky to a home folder.
Created symlink to HTML directory.
Modified virtualhost config file to have access to both my webpages: meteostation and allsky.
Configured all ftp connections and folders (and the all files transfer from Allsky to Allsky web works fine)
The result is that the Main allsky page opens as expected: correct data, current image updates e.t.c.
But if I select to show Keograms, Videos or Startrails, I get:

"Please run the following from the 'allsky' directory before using the Website:
website/install.sh --update"

What do I do wrong?

I see that Allsky in a/etc/apache2/conf-available has php7.4-cgi.conf but allsky-web does not have it.
As well the /var/www/html/allsky on Allsky has different content from that one which is on Allsky-web

BR

[EricClaeys]

@gintasd, the software on the remote server detects that it's on a Pi so thinks it's on the Pi allsky is on. The next version handles this better, but in the meantime, change line 14 of functions.php to $is arm = false;. That should solve the problem.

[gintasd]

Hi Eric, thanks for a reply.

I was trying to find a solution I have broken my webserver and now I am rebuilding it.
Reinstalled Rpi OS.
Now I try to go different way. On the second Pi installed the same allsky package, Web UI, Webserver.
Disabled allsky service sudo systemctl disable allsky.service.
Remote Web page it seems is OK.
But now I have a file transfer problem.
Sftp its self works - I can transfer files using Filezilla from one Rpi to another in to a "home/astrometeo/allsky/tmp" folder where current image and data.json should be.
So it looks like permissions are OK.
But allsky ftp script does not transfer files now.
I see an error in the log:
REMOTE_HOST='10.10.10.156'
Oct 23 22:12:07 allsky allsky.sh[2765]: REMOTE_DIR='/home/astrometeo/allsky/tmp/'
Oct 23 22:12:07 allsky allsky.sh[2765]: TEMP_NAME='SaveImage-4416'
Oct 23 22:12:07 allsky allsky.sh[2765]: DESTINATION_FILE='sky.jpg'
Oct 23 22:12:07 allsky allsky.sh[2778]: cd: Fatal error: max-retries exceeded
Oct 23 22:12:07 allsky allsky.sh[2778]: cd /home/astrometeo/allsky/tmp/ failed!
Oct 23 22:12:07 allsky allsky.sh[2765]: Commands used are in: /home/allsky/allsky/tmp/lftp_cmds.txt

In my previews tests today, before crash, file transfer did work. At first I had similar errors in the log, but played with the path in the allsky ftp-settings.sh and got it working.
Now I have tested I guess all possible paths variants and have no success.

I am lost a little bit.
Tomorrow will try again.

[EricClaeys]

@gintasd look at the last section of the Wiki page on Troubleshooting Uploads. It should help determine what the problem is. I suspect lftp is not able to login.

[gintasd]

Hi,
have found why is that error but do not understand the root of it.
As ftp server I have installed vsftpd.
Rpi has enabled ssh. But after installation of web server at first the lftp cannot login using sftp protocol. The user name, password and path is 100% good.
I changed the protocol to ftp and the transfer started to work.
Before the server crash sftp protocol worked as well. So, just in case, I have reinstalled vsftpd (I mean second time on top) and sftp protocol started to work as well.
But after tweaking vsftpd settings sftp protocol again does not work, even if I return default vsftpd settings.
It might be some wrong settings is in vsftpd.conf.
Or could it be that the behavior has changed because of different OS: before crash it was Buster and now is Bullseye?
So I keep just ftp for now.
And I have fully working separate RPi webserver that can be set to DMZ now. :)
Files uploads, thumbnails generates and so on.

My unexperienced experience.
Everything is quite straight forward and simple if use ftp protocol.
On a separate RPi installed Allsky, Allsky UI, Allsky Webserver.
Disabled Allsky service "sudo systemctl disable allsky.service"
The Allsky remote webserver needs for settings in "config.js" and "virtualsky.json" as in Allsky local webserver.
Installed vsftpd ftp server. In "vsftpd.conf" did not enable "chroot_local_user=YES" and do not set local_root folder.

In Allsky PC ftp_settings.sh set the protocol ftp, and path to folders on remote server as it would be local (because ftp access all folders on the remote RPi):
IMAGE_DIR="/home/[user]/allsky/tmp"
VIDEOS_DIR='/var/www/html/allsky/videos'
KEOGRAM_DIR='/var/www/html/allsky/keograms'
STARTRAILS_DIR='/var/www/html/allsky/startrails'

And that is it.

It is possible to do like this to send files to home/user/allsky folder instead of var/www/html/allsky

Create symlinks in the Allsky Webserver to have folders shortcuts in "home/user/allsky" to "/var/www/html/allsky":

sudo ln -s /var/www/html/allsky/videos /home/astrometeo/allsky
sudo ln -s /var/www/html/allsky/keograms /home/astrometeo/allsky
sudo ln -s /var/www/html/allsky/startrails /home/astrometeo/allsky
NOTE: in a /home/astrometeo/allsky there is a file "startrails" that seems is not used when the allsky sevice is disabled It should be renamed before Startrails symlink creation. Otherwise the Symlink would not be created.

This way the path would be something like this:
IMAGE_DIR="/home/[user]/allsky/tmp"
VIDEOS_DIR="/home/[user]/allsky/videos"
KEOGRAM_DIR="/home/[user]/allsky/keograms"
STARTRAILS_DIR="/home/[user]/allsky/startrails"

Hope it would help.

BR.
Gintautas

[EricClaeys]

@gintasd Gintautas, I'm glad you got it working.
Since the Allsky Website looks in the same directory it's installed in (/var/www/html/allsky) for the image.jpg, videos, keograms, and startrails, it seems like it would be easiest to lftp the files to the /var/www/html/allsky directory on the remote Pi. You then wouldn't need to create any symbolic links and in fact wouldn't need any files in/home/[user]/allsky. You could then set IMAGE_DIR="/var/www/html/allsky" and set imageName: "image.jpg in config.js.

I am not familiar with vsftpd, but if you could set up a login with /var/www/html/allsky as itsroot directory, you could use:

IMAGE_DIR="/"
VIDEOS_DIR="/videos"

etc. That would make it even easier.

What's in the /home/astrometeo/allsky/startrails file? Allsky doesn't create that file as far as I know.

[gintasd]

Hi,
I cannot see what is in the /home/astrometeo/allsky/startrails fail as it is not text based.
But it is created doing installation I guess, as I do not create it. I can see it on two different Allsky installations,

The Symlinks I created as I was thinking to restrict ftp access to home folder only.

On a sepparate Allsky webserver after Sun rise I see Aurora forecast from NOAA webpage but not a current image.
And the page says "It's not dark yet in Vilnius, LT. Come back at 5:37 pm (8 hours 52 minutes)"
On a local Allsky webserver I see current day image.
As I can see the settings in "config.js" are identical on both webservers.
Where this difference could come?

[EricClaeys]

@gintasd, I had a brain freeze. The capture, capture_RPiHQ, keogram, and startrails programs in ~/allsky are the executable programs that take the images, create keograms, and create startrails.

The "it's not dark yet..." message is created when the data.json file has "streamDaytime": "false", i.e., Allsky isn't taking daytime pictures. That file is updated every morning. Check that data.json is being uploaded to /var/www/html/allsky - if you restricted ftp access to /home/[user]/allsky, you'll need to create a symbolic link. I'm pretty sure that if the file isn't updated after a few days you'll get a message about "sunrise is old", since data.json also lists the sunrise and sunset time for the current day, and the website checks if that date is old.

[gintasd]

Hello Eric,
you are correct, the data.json was not updated in /var/www/html/allsky.
But the issue is that remote webserver does not load current image if I change remote webserver config.js imageName to a different location from /current/tmp/image.jpg.
I set local ftp IMAGE_DIR="/var/www/html/allsky". Image are transferred and updated at the remote /var/www/html/allsky - I can see it.
But the remote sever shows "Loading" if I set in Remote server config.js imageName: "/var/www/html/allsky/image.jpg"

If I set ftp IMAGE_DIR="/home/astrometeo/allsky/tmp" and at remote server imageName: "current/tmp/image.jpg - everything works.
But data.json is in tmp folder as well in this case and not updated in /var/www/html/allsky

And after my tests I have several files "SaveImage-xxx" that I cannot remove and get response that there is no such file.
In Termnal sudo rm does not help.
I s there any way to cleanup?

Gintautas

[gintasd]

Hello,
solved the issue by creating symlink "ln -s /home/astrometeo/allsky/tmp/data.json /var/www/html/allsky/data.json"

Dummy files deleted by creating a new file with the same name on top and then delete.

Regards
Gintautas

[EricClaeys]

@gintasd Gintautas, do you want to run a local AND remote website, or just remote?
For the remote one, I think it would be a lot easier and clearer if you set up an FTP login on the remote Pi with a root of /var/www/html/allsky. That way, the local Pi simply uploads the files to "/", "/videos", etc. And the remote Pi would have `"imageName" : "image.jpg".

This is how other remote websites work. Now that you've installed Allsky and the WebUI on the remote Pi, you can remove /home/pi/allsky on the remote since it's no longer needed. You only needed Allsky/WebUI to install a web server.