Category Archives: Linux

How to Install Tasmota on Shelly 1 from Linux

ESP8266, How to, Linux, Shelly 1

This guide will show you how to flash Tasmota firmware onto a Shelly 1 device using Linux. You will use the PlatformIO toolchain to communicate with the device, erase the existing firmware, and install the Tasmota firmware via serial communication. After flashing, you’ll configure the device to connect to your Wi-Fi and MQTT broker.

Prerequisites

  1. Linux PC
  2. Shelly 1 device
  3. USB to Serial adapter (e.g., FTDI adapter)
  4. Jumper wires to connect the Shelly 1 to the USB-to-serial adapter
  5. Tasmota binary downloaded to your local machine

Make sure that PlatformIO and Python 3 are installed on your system.

Step 1: Install PlatformIO

If you don’t already have PlatformIO installed, you can install it via Python’s package manager pip:

pip install platformio

This installs the platformio command-line interface (CLI), which will be used to flash the firmware onto the Shelly 1.

Step 2: Connect Shelly 1 to Your Linux PC

  1. Disconnect Shelly 1 from mains power to avoid electric shock.
  2. Connect the TX, RX, GND, and VCC pins of the Shelly 1 to the corresponding pins of your USB-to-serial adapter (TX->RX, RX->TX, GND->GND, VCC->3.3V). GPIO0 has to be temporary connected to GND to enter programming mode.
  3. Plug the USB-to-serial adapter into your Linux PC.
  4. You can now disconnect GPIO0 from GND or leave it as is.

Step 3: Test Communication with the Device

Before proceeding with the flashing, test whether your Linux PC can communicate with the Shelly 1 via serial.

Run the following command to check communication (replace /dev/ttyUSB0 with your actual serial device if needed):

python3 ~/.platformio/packages/tool-esptoolpy/esptool.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 flash_id

If the communication is successful, you should see information about the connected ESP8266 chip inside the Shelly 1.

Step 4: Erase the Flash Memory

You have to reconnect the device to the pc as seen in Step 2.

Next, you need to erase the existing firmware on the device to ensure a clean installation of Tasmota. To erase the flash memory, run the following command:

python3 ~/.platformio/packages/tool-esptoolpy/esptool.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 erase_flash

This process clears the current firmware from the Shelly 1.

Step 5: Flash Tasmota Firmware

You have to reconnect the device to the pc as seen in Step 2.

Once the flash memory is erased, you can now flash the Tasmota firmware onto the device. Replace the path ~/Downloads/tasmota.bin with the actual path to your downloaded Tasmota binary file:

python3 ~/.platformio/packages/tool-esptoolpy/esptool.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 write_flash -fm dout 0x0 ~/Downloads/tasmota.bin

This writes the Tasmota firmware onto the Shelly 1.

Step 6: Configure the Device via Serial

After flashing, you can configure the Shelly 1 via serial connection using picocom. If it’s not installed on your system, you can install it with:

sudo apt install picocom

To open a serial connection, run:

picocom --echo --omap crcrlf --baud 115200 /dev/ttyUSB0

Once connected, you will see the device’s output. You can now paste the following configuration string to set up Wi-Fi and MQTT parameters:

Backlog ssid1 YourSSID; password1 veryStrongWiFiPassword; MqttHost 192.168.1.200; Template {"NAME":"Shelly 1","GPIO":[1,1,0,1,224,192,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0],"FLAG":0,"BASE":46};

Parameters in the Configuration String:

  • ssid1: Replace YourSSID with the name of your Wi-Fi network.
  • password1: Replace veryStrongWiFiPassword with your Wi-Fi password.
  • MqttHost: Set this to the IP address of your MQTT broker (e.g., 192.168.1.200).
  • Template: This defines the GPIO pin mapping for the Shelly 1.

Step 7: Verify the Device Connection

Once the Shelly 1 reboots, it should connect to your Wi-Fi and MQTT broker based on the configuration provided. You can now control it via the MQTT interface or the Tasmota web interface.

Congratulations! You have successfully flashed and configured Tasmota on your Shelly 1 device from Linux.

Statically compile redis 3.0.2 on CentOS 5 (RHEL 5)

How to, Linux, Programming, , , ,

How to statically compile redis 3.0.2 on CentOS 5 (RHEL 5)

wget http://download.redis.io/releases/redis-3.0.2.tar.gz
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tcl/tcl8.5.18-src.tar.gz

Install tcl8.5

tar xfz tcl8.5.18-src.tar.gz
cd tcl8.5.18/unix
./configure
make
make test
make install

Compile redis

Statically linked binaries

make CFLAGS="-static" EXEEXT="-static" LDFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/"

Dynamically linked binaries

make LDFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include/"

How to manually install redis

cd src/
cp redis-{server,cli} /usr/local/bin/
chown root: /usr/local/bin/redis-{server,cli}
chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/redis-{server,cli}
mkdir /{var,etc}/redis /var/redis/6379
chmod 775 /{var,etc}/redis
cp redis.conf /etc/redis/6379.conf
sed -i 's/daemonize no/daemonize yes/' /etc/redis/6379.conf
sed -i 's,pidfile /var/run/redis.pid,pidfile /var/run/redis_6379.pid,' /etc/redis/6379.conf
sed -i 's/^# bind 127.0.0.1/bind 127.0.0.1/' /etc/redis/6379.conf
sed -i 's,logfile "",logfile "/var/log/redis_6379.log",' /etc/redis/6379.conf
sed -i 's,dir ./,dir /var/redis/6379,' /etc/redis/6379.conf

Useful aptitude commands

Linux, , , , , ,

A simple list of installed packages

max@wonko:~$ aptitude search '~i' -F '%p'

Search for installed packages from the testing repo

max@wonko:~$ aptitude versions '~i ~Atesting' --group-by=none

Finding why a package is installed

I found fonts-font-awesome in my headless server, but there’s a reason

max@wonko:~$ aptitude why fonts-font-awesome
i   owncloud Depends fonts-font-awesome

Select packages that were removed but not purged

max@wonko:~$ aptitude search '~c'

Search in the package description

max@wonko:~$ aptitude search '~d"web browser"'

Upgradable packages

max@wonko:~$ aptitude search '~U'

How to compile rsync for Android in Ubuntu

Android, How to, Linux, Programming, , , , , , , ,

My situation

My machine

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Release:    14.04
Codename:   trusty

The latest rsync version to compile (for me it was rsync-3.1.0.tar.gz)

$ curl -s http://rsync.samba.org/ftp/rsync/ \
    | sed -r 's/^.*href="([^"]*)".*$/\1/' | grep 'rsync-[0-9].*\.tar\.gz$'

Procedure

  1. save the tarball name in a variable 
    $ RSYNCTGZ="rsync-3.1.0.tar.gz"
  2. install needed software 
    $ sudo aptitude install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi
  3. download sources 
    $ wget http://rsync.samba.org/ftp/rsync/$RSYNCTGZ
$ tar xzf $RSYNCTGZ
$ cd rsync-[0-9]*
  4. compile 
    $ ./configure --host=arm-linux-gnueabi CFLAGS=-static
$ make
  5. install on the device 
    $ adb push rsync /data/local/tmp && adb shell chmod 775 /data/local/tmp/rsync
  6. test execution 
    $ adb shell /data/local/tmp/rsync

References

How to display PHP errors only in public_html directories

How to, Linux, Programming, Uncategorized, web, , , , , , , , , ,

How to display PHP errors

I always use servers where PHP errors are not shown by default and I always forget how to enable error messages in development environments.

My situation

On a server I usually prefer Debian OS, but when I develop on the go I use laptops with Ubuntu.
In this case I’m running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS with Apache2 (v2.4.7) and libapache2-mod-php5 (v5.5.9).

I want PHP errorors displayed for projects in my public_html folder.

Solution 1 (only Apache conf files)

Create the file /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/800-public-html.conf with this content:

<Directory /home/*/public_html>
  AllowOverride Options
  php_admin_flag display_errors On
</Directory>

Solution 2 (using .htaccess)

Create the file /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/800-public-html.conf with this content:

<Directory /home/*/public_html>
  AllowOverride Options
</Directory>

Create the file /home/max/public_html/project1/.htaccess with this content:

php_admin_flag display_errors On

Conclusions

It’s easy and easily forgettable. Don’t forget to add

error_reporting(E_ALL | E_NOTICE);

in your .php files.