better installation guide

[canadamadman]

hi I'm a meshtastic user who would love you use your ?program?, but i keep running into errors and haven't got it to work at all. what do i need installed on a raspberry pi to get this to run? what other programs do i need first? could you all all the connection setting in the yml file and just // the ones not in use out? what this says it dose i would love to use and if it does what it says i think it should be on mehstastics front page.

currently i have a fresh flashed pi5 where do i go from here plz help.

[artiommocrenco]

Hello @canadamadman ! It depends on the interface you want to use to connect to your Meshtastic node. Is it Bluetooth, TCP, USB/Serial or MQTT?

[canadamadman]

i would prefer to use usb/serial connection. as the host node will be connected to the pi by usb for power anyways. and thank you for getting back so soon.

[artiommocrenco]

i would prefer to use usb/serial connection. as the host node will be connected to the pi by usb for power anyways. and thank you for getting back so soon.

@canadamadman

Try first getting Meshtastic CLI to work with your node through USB. This is not required but is a good way to test if there is anything preventing you from connecting to your node.

For this, you need to install Meshtastic CLI. It can be done this way:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install pipx

# those below do not need sudo/root, should be executed under normal user
pipx install meshtastic
pipx ensurepath

Then, because your PATH changed you need to open a new SSH session or just type bash in your existing session. This should make meshtastic command available for you.

Connect your node, wait for it to power on and type meshtastic --info as a normal user.

If this works, you should install docker and docker compose v2. I will post the docker compose file for you today in several hours

[artiommocrenco]

@canadamadman After doing the above, (btw, meshtastic --info --port /dev/ttyUSB0 should work), see if this works for you:

sudo apt install docker.io docker-compose

# download latest release
wget https://github.com/hacktegic/meshtastic-prometheus-exporter/archive/refs/tags/2.4.tar.gz
tar -xzvf 2.4.tar.gz
cd meshtastic-prometheus-exporter-2.4/

Then replace docker-compose.yml with below contents and run docker compose up. Then, navigate to http://ipaddressofyourrpi:3000/dashboards and authenticate using default Grafana credentials (username admin, password admin). Should work depending on the version of your RPi. If it doesn't you can share the logs and I will try to help

version: "3"

volumes:
    prometheus_data:
    grafana_data:

services:
  prometheus:
    image: prom/prometheus:v3.4.1
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:9090:9090"
    extra_hosts:
          - "host.docker.internal:host-gateway"
    volumes:
      - prometheus_data:/prometheus
      - ./docker/prometheus.yml:/etc/prometheus/prometheus.yml
    networks:
      - mesh-bridge
  grafana:
    image: grafana/grafana-oss:12.0.2
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - grafana_data:/var/lib/grafana
      - ./docker/grafana/provisioning/datasources:/etc/grafana/provisioning/datasources
      - ./docker/grafana/provisioning/dashboards:/etc/grafana/provisioning/dashboards
      - ./grafana-dashboards:/var/lib/grafana/dashboards
    ports:
      - "0.0.0.0:3000:3000"
    networks:
      - mesh-bridge
  exporter:
    image: ghcr.io/hacktegic/meshtastic-prometheus-exporter:2.4
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - MESHTASTIC_INTERFACE=SERIAL
      - SERIAL_DEVICE=/dev/ttyUSB0
    devices:
      - /dev/ttyUSB0:/dev/ttyUSB0
    networks:
      - mesh-bridge

networks:
  mesh-bridge:
    driver: bridge

[artiommocrenco]

@canadamadman Try sudo docker-compose up

[canadamadman]

Status: Downloaded newer image for ghcr.io/hacktegic/meshtastic-prometheus-exporter:2.4
Creating meshtastic-prometheus-exporter-24_exporter_1 ... error
Creating meshtastic-prometheus-exporter-24_grafana_1 ...
Creating meshtastic-prometheus-exporter-24_prometheus_1 ...

Creating meshtastic-prometheus-exporter-24_grafana_1 ... done
Creating meshtastic-prometheus-exporter-24_prometheus_1 ... done

ERROR: for exporter Cannot start service exporter: error gathering device information while adding custom device "/dev/ttyUSB0": no such file or directory
ERROR: Encountered errors while bringing up the project.
batcave@raspberrypi:~/meshtastic-prometheus-exporter-2.4 $

[artiommocrenco]

@canadamadman I think the issue is that it is an older docker compose, not v2, since v2 is docker compose instead of docker-compose.

I would do sudo apt purge docker.io docker-compose and then

curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh

This might get you docker compose v2

[artiommocrenco]

@canadamadman for the device path issue, try unplugging your meshtastic node, then on RPi execute sudo dmesg -w, and plug it back in

I am getting something like

[  646.444944] usb 3-3: New USB device found, idVendor=1a86, idProduct=55d4, bcdDevice= 4.44
[  646.444965] usb 3-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=0, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[  646.444971] usb 3-3: Product: USB Single Serial
[  646.444976] usb 3-3: SerialNumber: XXXXXX
[  646.496554] cdc_acm 3-3:1.0: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
[  646.496605] usbcore: registered new interface driver cdc_acm
[  646.496607] cdc_acm: USB Abstract Control Model driver for USB modems and ISDN adapters

which suggests that the device for me is at /dev/ttyACM0

alternatively, you can use meshtastic --info --debug 2>&1 | grep 'Connecting to' and it will give you the path

DEBUG file:serial_interface.py __init__ line:47 Connecting to /dev/ttyACM0

Then you need to replace /dev/ttyUSB0 in docker-compose.yml with the appropriate path. I assumed it is at /dev/ttyUSB0 for you but it is not

[canadamadman]

Error response from daemon: error gathering device information while adding custom device "/dev/ttyAMC0": no such file or directory
but thats what it shows up as

[artiommocrenco]

@canadamadman there is a typo I think, it should be /dev/ttyACM0, not /dev/ttyAMC0

[artiommocrenco]

@canadamadman so, in docker-compose.yml it should look like this

...rest of the file...
  exporter:
    image: ghcr.io/hacktegic/meshtastic-prometheus-exporter:2.4
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - MESHTASTIC_INTERFACE=SERIAL
      - SERIAL_DEVICE=/dev/ttyACM0
    devices:
      - /dev/ttyACM0:/dev/ttyACM0
    networks:
      - mesh-bridge
...rest of the file...

[canadamadman]

sorry last ones on my i miss spelled the port

[canadamadman]

Thank you thank you thank you so much. Ive been trying for so long to get this running 🥹🥹🥹🥹 seem to be actually working now. I must have missed something before.

Sorry couple more questions. Will this auto run like lets say i need to restart the pi or power goes out? If no, can it?

And how long dose it store data for? Can i calso change that?