Networking help needed for 1-Wire/ SQL database

[StBarnabas]

Want to get my 1-Wire system on a more serious basis. Have a PC with Network card in the attic which can see my LINKSYS wireless/router/ADSL box (192.168.1.1) via the local wireless network address of attic PC is  192.168.1.102. My main PC is hardwired to the LINKSYS box (ethernet) and I want to be able to access the SQL tables from it. I was going to set up an ad hoc network but the main PC and attic ones are too far away to be visible from each other. I have set up file sharing but am unable to see the attic PC. Any suggestions anyone?

[CeeBee]

Sounds liks it should just work. What's the IP address of the main PC then? Given that you seem to be using 192.168.1.*, then I'd imagine it should be some number like that, with something other than 1 or 102 for '*'. If it's (say) 192.168.0.* then there might be more difficulty.

Can you 'ping' the PCs from each other? i.e. DOS command box, ping 192.168.1.102 etc. and see whether it says "Reply...". That had better work before anything else will.

When you say "can't see", what are you trying? I never know how windows works out 'names' corresponding to IP addresses - seems like a black art sometimes. So rather than just peering in "Network neighbourhood", "My network", or whatever it's called today, try (after setting up some shared folders) Start Button, then Run..., then type e.g.  \\192.168.1.102 in the box

[StBarnabas]

Hi Clarke,
thanks Ping certainly seems to work but map does not. Winders don't you just love it!

[CeeBee]

"Map network drive" wants a share name on the end of the string: e.g. \\192.168.1.102\share (where 'share' is the name you gave it when you set the folder shared). Have you actually set any particular folder to be shared, even the whole drive if you must?

Try what I said with Start Button, then Run... - it should list all available shares rather than just trying to connect to a particular one.

[sleepybubble]

Ok just to translate to my own way of thinking...

You have a PC in the attic acting as an SQL server, upon which you have allowed Windows file sharing.
You have this machine connected to you network via wireless.

You have a workstation on the network connected to the switch/router via cables.

Firstly can you 'see' the server using network browsing, or can you ping the server from the command prompt. This will proove network connectivity.

Secondly On the SQL server have you allowed remote connections in SQL? I know that in MySQL on linux you have to define which users and address ranges can connect to the server.

Just starting points for now....

Oh by the way if you activate RAS on the server machine you can drive it from the client as if you were sat at it....

<edit> as Ceebee posted before me... if you can ping, then you should see the machine, things to look out for within the vageries of windows networking, it can take a while for machines to notice each other, up to 15 minutes. It helps if they are in the same WORKGROUP.

It helps to disable windows firewall completely, you dont actually need it as your ADSL router is already acting as a firewall, it just prevents cross contamination within a windows networking framework. If you dont disable it, it will soon annoy you with permission requests.

</edit>

[wyleu]

Any chance of a diagram? Pictures?, long winded moments of spontaneous enlightenment mixed with crushing realisation?
What are you running your one-wire kit on? presumably MySQL and Digitemp?

Is the PC genuinely in the attic? I have found PC's don't last long there.

[StBarnabas]

Help slow down!

My DB skills are limited to MS Access. As stared before what I can do possibly better than most on the forum is to create physical models of systems- algorithm driven rather than data driven applications! Anyway what I wish to do is to run things from the comfort of the chancel- because  I want to connect to the SQL server on the attic PC and pull out one-wire data.  CeeBee yes I have sort of mapped my attic PC - I shared my c: drive root - difficult to see this even inside the chapel so not worried about hackers...

Wyleu I will try to get photos tomorrow..

The attic environment is transformed since the PV went in. Used to boil in sunshine but now cool! 




How sophisticated do I need my tank model to be to mimic the StB tank?

[sleepybubble]

I think to make things easy for you, if it is a PC running windows Remote access is going to be your friend. Look it up in windows help....

If you are thinking of logging temperatures to MsAccess I would think again... Acess is a nice tool for mocking up Relational databases, and playing with interfaces etc but its not the best of tools as a 'server'. Don't be scared of coding in SQL its really simple and there is loads of online support for it.
I don't know if there is a version of MySQL which runs on windows, (there is bound to be!) but it would be worth installing that instead of access as your backend.
You can still use Access as your client software if you find coding a bit scary...

[wyleu]

MySQL is emerging is a db of choice, largely as digitemp spit's out to it. There is a windows implementation and it does what it say's on the tin.
Please avoid access for deep storage, as sleepy bubble says it has it's uses but they ain't this sort of application.

Now that doesn't mean you have to throw everything you know away. There is a thing called ODBC which is a clever little thing Microsoft did invent. ODBC is a layer that allows you to declare a Data source  which can be interpreted by Microsoft applications fairly easily.  This includes Access AND Excel, so if you can mock up a MySQL database as an OBC source in Microsoft land ( and you most certainly can http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ODBC+MySQL&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8) then all those hardwon skill in Excel can be put to good use on your temperature data stored in MySQL. Ain't that great everyone is happy. You can draw sexy graphs in Excel from MySQL data generated by Digitemp.

We will dance till dawn if Ivan will organise another party...   

[StBarnabas]

Guys
thanks. Maybe we can do something great here! I know little about databases but I do understand algorithms and can plot graphs. Excel is kindergarden from my point of view.   I can do modelling - will need a good algorithmic engine such as Octave. Sorry I am lazy and use Matlab  - but need a 100th order differential equation solving?

[wyleu]

Fantastic!

Really if we can produce a lowest common denominator system using generally available analysis tools like excel then that would be a great starting point. The important thing is to modularise things so each component is small and good at what it does. The temptation to believe that there is one solution say, Microsoft Measure or some such is not really the way to go.

But of course the sotfware salesmen won't like that approach, perhaps we can manage without them 

[kristen]

"I want to connect to the SQL server on the attic PC"

I'm reading that as "Grown up SQL" rather than "MS Access"?

MySQL probably the preferred tool-of-choice as it is the LCD for this type of job.

MS SQL is my day job, so happy to help with that if you go down that route. I'll PM you a phone number in case you need it

[StBarnabas]

Hi Kristen
Many thanks. Yes it is MySQL on the attic PC and will take you up on your kind offer within the next week or two.
I am currently also writing to ascii files and have got that up and running as a stopgap. I have had a few hardware problems which has slowed things down a bit - the heat sink paste I am using tends to short out the sensors and my thermal contact is still not great - but am getting there. Rejigged the sensors this afternoon and have currently 7 tank sensors going. Will try to post a first image later today..

[sleepybubble]

don't know about MySQL on windows but under linux you need to edit my.cnf

Code:

# Don't listen on a TCP/IP port at all. This can be a security enhancement,
# if all processes that need to connect to mysqld run on the same host.
# All interaction with mysqld must be made via Unix sockets or named pipes.
# Note that using this option without enabling named pipes on Windows
# (using the "enable-named-pipe" option) will render mysqld useless!
#
#skip-networking
server-id = 1

above is the relevent section... if the line with skip-networking isn't uncommented then you can only use the local machine for connections.
On my installation it remains commented as I use PHPMyAdmin for managing my database so basically all my SQL admin is done via a web interface, running on localhost.

Don't like the look of that proviso with regards windows machines and named pipes....

What was your linksys router again? can't it be flashed with 

[StBarnabas]

Many thanks Guys
I have rather cheated today and read the text files directly. Was messing about with the sensors till about 3:00pm today - I still have some more to put in.  Here is the first tank false colour temperature image - does not look too exciting apart from maybe to graph nuts like me. You can ignore the stuff before about 3:00pm as I was connecting sensors up then. The rest of the graph is pretty boring (you should be able to see the ASHP warming the tank till about 15:20) Almost no solar today and no water drawn off. Over the next few days it should look more interesting. I will try to play around with the format. Any suggestions welcome...