Support for ring-mqtt

[basil-dsouza]

Has anyone considered adding ring-mqtt support into IOTStack? Based on my limited knowledge of IOTStack, it seems like it should be possible to integrate this: https://github.com/tsightler/ring-mqtt/wiki/Installation-(Docker)

  ring-mqtt:
    container_name: ring-mqtt
    restart: unless-stopped
    image: tsightler/ring-mqtt
    ports:
      - 8554:8554                      # Enable RTSP port for external media player access
    volumes:
      - <host_path>:/data           # Mapping of local folder to provide persistent storage
    logging:                           #limit logs to 10m and 3 files
      options:
        max-size: 10m
        max-file: "3"

Am interested in hearing if anyone has already tried this? or if anyone is interested in trying it? I know enough docker to add this locally to my docker-compose file and try to get it working, but do not know enough IOTStack to integrate this well into the menu system.

[Paraphraser]

I've submitted pull requests to implement this suggestion:

• 633 for master branch ("new menu")

• 634 for old-menu branch ("old menu")

• 635 for experimental branch ("new new menu")

I've no idea how long it will take before the PRs are accepted/rejected.

If you want to try it out in the meantime, follow these instructions to apply #633 to your local copy of IOTstack. That assumes you are running on master branch ("new menu").

I've also added some documentation to the IOTstack Wiki which explains a couple of changes (setting time zone and the MQTT broker) that are either recommended or necessary when running ring-mqtt in a container. As a convention, we only add/update documentation on master branch because that is what drives the Wiki. In the interim, you can see the documentation here.

[basil-dsouza]

Wow that was a really fast response and solution!

I had a look through the PRs, and I notice that for 633 (the PR to master) you have made a change to only the service.yml (ignoring the md file for a sec) and not any menu files. I dont know much about IOT Stack, but will that mean the menu picks it up automatically?

And reading through the MD file, the instructions are really helpful, I spent several hours trying to figure out some of those things! The part that I didnt find in there was on how to generate the refresh token. This was something I still havent tried either, mainly cause I wasnt sure if there was any difference in running the command when the image is in a docker compose file as opposed to a stand alone docker run. And also if that then needs the generated token to be stored somewhere or not.

https://github.com/tsightler/ring-mqtt/wiki/Installation-(Docker)#acquire-the-refresh-token docker run -it --rm --mount type=bind,source=<host_path>,target=/data --entrypoint /app/ring-mqtt/init-ring-mqtt.js tsightler/ring-mqtt

[Paraphraser]

I had a look through the PRs, and I notice that for 633 (the PR to master) you have made a change to only the service.yml (ignoring the md file for a sec) and not any menu files. I dont know much about IOT Stack, but will that mean the menu picks it up automatically?

Yes. To give you a more complete answer, IOTstack has three "menus":

• "new menu" (master branch) works by detecting the presence of a service definition in a templates folder. If you add something like:

  ~/IOTstack/.templates/fred/service.yml

  then "fred" will show up automatically in the menu.

  If the setup for a particular container needs to go further, python scripts can be added to the template to do that but I try to avoid those like the proverbial plague.

  The downside of new-menu service definitions is they are "left shifted" by two spaces and can't be concatenated onto the compose file. If you want to bypass the menu and "do it yourself", you need to re-add those spaces. Something like:

  $ cd ~IOTstack
  $ sed -e "s/^/  /" ./.templates/fred/service.yml >>docker-compose.yml

• "old menu" (old-menu branch) has service definitions in its templates folder which can be concatenated directly, as in:

  $ cd ~IOTstack
  $ cat ./.templates/fred/service.yml >>docker-compose.yml

  However, the old menu doesn't auto-discover and needs two extra lines of code to be added to the menu script per service definition.

• "experimental" (experimental branch) is something I don't understand. I believe the basic idea is that the menu itself should run in a container. I tried to get it to work a couple of times but my system always stalled. I'm not sure of the exact status of this menu (whether it's in a holding pattern, is an idea now abandoned, etc). When I submit PRs, I "hope for the best" by trying to keep the experimental templates in parallel with those of new menu so as to minimise the overhead if development resumes.

Anyway, I hope that answers your question and helps you to see what's going on.

And reading through the MD file, the instructions are really helpful, I spent several hours trying to figure out some of those things! The part that I didnt find in there was on how to generate the refresh token.

Full disclosure: I don't have any "ring" devices and I don't understand anything about the "ring" ecosystem or environment. For me, this is all seat-of-the-pants.

When I constructed the pull requests, I:

1. Did a skim-read of the docs you pointed me at;
2. Re-jigged a couple of things in your original service definition to make it IOTstack-friendly;
3. Spun-up the container and nosed around.

My nosing around led me to discover the issue with localhost:1883 so I made sure the "obvious solution" (editing the config file and restarting the container) would work and persist properly, and documented it.

Having done that, I fleshed-out the old-menu and experimental branches, wrote the doc, and turned it all into pull requests.

That was as far as I went. I don't recall focusing on the specific issue of the token in my skim-read but if I noticed it, I probably looked at the docker run and assumed it would be taken care of correctly in a docker-compose scenario. And that assumption was well-founded … but I missed a step. My bad.

I won't give you a blow by blow but a bit more nosing around led me to this in the log:

2022-12-26T22:33:09.254Z ring-mqtt No refresh token was found in the state file, use the Web UI at http://<host_ip_address>:55123/ to generate a token.
2022-12-26T22:33:09.254Z ring-mqtt Succesfully started the token generator web UI

I did see those lines before but did not appreciate their significance. What they are telling us is:

1. The container also needs to map port 55123; and
2. The doc needs to include the instruction to fire-up the web page.

I've just amended the PRs accordingly. I can see the UI but, not having an account, I can't really test the process end-to-end with 2FA etc. I'll leave that to you. Please let me know if it works.

[Paraphraser]

Doco with extra material is here