Docker image for meterN

A self-configuring multi-arch Docker image to run Jean-Marc Louviaux meterN energy metering and monitoring.

Introduction

meterN is a metering and monitoring app for energy management, that can be used also for monitoring others meters like: water, gas, temperature, etc...

Why this Docker image

Just a meterN enviroment with already available additional tools like jq command-line JSON processor and mosquitto mqtt client.

Credits

The original docker image work was done by EdoFede in 123Solar-meterN-Docker

Both 123Solar and meterN apps are developed by Jean-Marc Louviaux and are based on Web interfaces with PHP and shell scripts backend.

The SDM120C script used to read meter data via ModBus is developed by Gianfranco Di Prinzio.

Some of the interface scripts used to get data inside the Web apps are written and maintained by Flavio Anesi. Flavio has also published many very detailed and well done guides (in Italian) about the whole setup for these apps. Since these are the most detailed guides you find online about this topic, I suggest you read them.

meterN ModBus setup

As the original docker image, it's included a config_daemon.php template file (provided by Flavio that points to meter address 2. If your meter address, USB device address or communication speed are different, edit this line:

exec("pooler485 2 9600 /dev/ttyUSB0 > /dev/null 2>/dev/null &");

If you have more than one meter on a single RS485 line, you can add the meter IDs, separated by commas, in the config_daemon.php file, as explained by Flavio in his tutorial, for example:

exec('pooler485 1,2,3 9600 /dev/ttyUSB0 > /dev/null 2>/dev/null &');

Docker image details

The image is based on Alpine linux for lightweight distribution and mainly consist of:

• runit init scheme and service supervision
• Nginx web server
• PHP-FPM FastCGI process manager for PHP interpeter

All components are automatically configured by the Docker image

Limitation & future enhancement

At the moment, the image supports only one USB>RS485 communication interface, so you must have all meters on the same RS485 bus.