EIBD KNX Controller

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Preparing our KNX/EIB System.

Eibd knxweb example.png

The howto is based on the following projects. The first two have been packaged for GNU/Debian, the latter has not.

  1. eibd-server: http://www.auto.tuwien.ac.at/~mkoegler/index.php/eibd
  2. linknx: http://linknx.sourceforge.net/
  3. webknx: http://knxweb.sourceforge.net/

Even though this HOWTO can be executed on the standard firmware as shipped with the SheevaPlug, there are several reasons to start from a clean system instead. See http://crichton.homelinux.org/~marc/eib_sheeva.html for a description how to sanitise your SheevaPlug.

The interfacing towards the bus is done by eibd-server and linknx is a small daemon that keeps track of simple tasks and states. knxweb provides a AJAX interface on your installation that shows the current state of the system (lights on/off, shutters, heating, temperature, ...). The linknx configuration is done with a XML representation and tasks can be specified (amongst others) on a time base; or even at sunrise/sunset; calculated based on your coordiates.

Firstly, add the scorpius repository to your sources.list

deb http://scorpius.homelinux.org/~marc/debian lenny main contrib non-free
deb-src http://scorpius.homelinux.org/~marc/debian lenny main contrib non-free

Install lighttpd in order to get a webserver (boa or apache will do as well)

[marc@ahkna ~]$ sudo apt-get install php5-cgi lighttpd
[marc@ahkna ~]$ sudo lighttpd-enable-mod fastcgi

Install the required packages (eibd-clients is optional)

[marc@ahkna ~]$ sudo apt-get install linknx eibd-server eibd-clients

Have a look in /etc/defaults/eibd-server and /etc/defaults/linknx, enable the services and correct the IPs to match your configuration. Of course, you'll need a valid XML description of your EIB installation. The default /etc/linknx/house.xml should give you a pretty extensive description to start with.

[marc@ahkna ~]$ cat /etc/default/eibd-server
# To enable eibd at startup set this everything != NO
START_EIBD=YES

# Options where EIBD should connect to
# -i usb: for usb or -i ip: for EIBnet/IP routing
REMOTE_ARGS="-i ipt:192.168.123.124"
[marc@ahkna ~]$ cat /etc/default/linknx
# To enable eibd at startup set this everything != NO
START_LINKNX=YES

# Daemon options
REMOTE_ARGS="--config=/etc/linknx/house.xml"

For the userfriendly interface, you'll need to extract knxweb in /var/www/. A program like Sweet Home 3D (www.sweethome3d.eu/download.js) can be use to create a 3D version starting from e.g. a scan of the plans of the house.

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