Trying to Resurrect the WeatherPi

Now that I have most of the previous parts of the network seemingly working again (have found replacements for the two Netgear GS108Tv2s that crapped out), I can concentrate on some of the other items that seemed to have gone south.  The first up is the WeatherPi that is connected to my Personal Weather Station.  It doesn't seem to be pushing data out anymore.

I am also wondering if this would be a good time to replace the WeatherPi with a USB server and move the weewx program to the HA Server.  The HA Server is also giving me problems right now, but I can deal with that later.  First off, I am going to try to get the WeatherPi to at least push data to weather underground again.

I did manage to remove the WeatherPi from underneath the TV stand and discovered that the SD Card was pretty much done with (probably a result of the power outage).  I put a new SD Card into the RPi that used to be the WeatherPi and discovered that the RPi was okay.  The new designation was PiHoleLDAP; apparently this was the one that was going to be the one that I was going to use for the PiHole, Radius, and LDAP setup using Docker.  Which reminds me, there is no reason that I cannot run weewx under Docker, I just have to research it.

There seems to be a bit of a problem with weather underground.  Since IBM took over, the API has been removed; so things like predictions and the like are no longer available to gather for an html display.  Weewx has not been updated for Python 3, so should I go to a different outlet to publish the weather station data, or should I just abandon the weather station all together?  Part of me is saying the latter, because I still have to maintain the station, look at the stats, and generally update portions of this as my time allows.  Going into retirement, it would be a scheduled activity that I would do say once every two weeks.  Not sure if it is worth the trouble.

Update: it is looking like weewx under Docker is going to be a pain to complete.  There are a number of builds on the Docker site, but all of them are rather complicated.  I am going to have to delay getting this accomplished.

The Network is Starting to Show Signs of Life

After much pushing and proding, I can now see the network coming back to life.  I was very quickly able to get the Media portion of the network back online.  But I was having trouble getting the other things like the printer and the WiFi working again.  The main culprit was the Netgear switch that controlled the printer, HA Server, and UniFi WAP.  When that went down I couldn’t control anything because of the multiple vlan nature of my network.  The switch had all the appearance of being fried, and since I had not succeeded in gettin extra port connections in one of the patch panels upstairs I was limited in what I could do.  Fortunately, I found out that the switch I used on the Ubuntu server was still operational.  Since the Ubuntu server is currently down I decided to use the switch as a replacement for the one upstairs.

So I obtained the text configuration of the switch that failed, changed the IP, and pushed it onto the replacement.  By replacing the previous switch, I now have a working system - at least in part.  This has also given me time to think about how to get my network back and running should I have such a disaster happen again. First, I need some things to make sure that a power outage doesn’t decimate things again.  I ordered some coax surge protectors to put on the TiVo Edge and Mini. Those are installed and I should not have a problem from the coax side of things.  I also purchased a couple of Ethernet surge protectors.  Lastly I have a whole house surge protector on order that should protect that part as well.

Project #19 - Get the Network back to Normal after the Power Outage

After the power outage that took out the main part of my Network this project is to get the Network back to normal.

Catastrophic Surge Failure in the Network!

I am writing this for others to learn from my mistakes.  On July 23, 2020 at approximately 9:30 pm I experienced a power outage for about 30 seconds.  There was a loud bang followed by the power going out.  I looked up just in time to see some sparks fall from the pole outside my house.  This power outage produced a surge that took out:

1. my Verizon ONT
2. my Cisco RV325 router ($260 used)
3. my Netgear M4100-26G 26 port switch ($260 - $525 new)
4. two Netgear GS108Tv2 ProSafe 8 port switches ($66 - $80 new each)
5. my TiVo Bolt ($175 new)

Unfortunately, I didn't have any surge protectors in the circuit coming into the house.  This was not an electrical surge that took out the equipment, except for the ONT.  The surge came through both the Cable and the Ethernet coming out of the ONT.  Fortunately for me I had some spare router equipment (Edgerouter-X) and some unmanaged switches.  Since I had patch panels it became an easy rerouting of the cabling to get my Media up and running and get connected back to Verizon Fios after the ONT was changed out.

My plan going forward is:

1. put in a Cable surge protector between the ONT and the splitter outside my house
2. put in an Ethernet surge protector between the ONT and the main router
3. at each of the 5 points in my network, put a conditioned power UPS with both Ethernet and COAX surge protectors

Please learn from my mistake, this was expensive to undo.