smartVISU for Docker

Run smartVISU as a visualization frontend for your smart-home simply as a Docker container or stack on your favorite or personal Docker host.

smartVISU for Docker is a php-fpm based Docker image to use with fpm-capable web-servers like Apache httpd or nginx.

Have a look at the example and the tutorial.

What is smartVISU?

"smartVISU is a framework to create a visualisation for a knx-installation with simple html-pages." (s. smartVISU repository).

Supported smart-home backends

But you can run it against various smart-home backends.

• smarthomeNG
• linknx
• ioBroker
• openHAB2
• FHEM
• knxd
• eibd (deprecated)

Key features

• Pretty: Responsive design, auto adjustment to smartphones and tablets
• Strict: One template for all devices
• Easy: Implementation with HTML5
• Simple: Connect to KNX with commands directly in HTML
• Universal: Small concept of widgets
• Connectable: Using drivers for different KNX installations

And why should I run smartVISU on my Docker host?

Well, that's a good question. Probably you will have to to so because your NAS does not allow you to install custom software. But there are some more advantages.

• Do not care about installing, updating and hardening a local web-server and PHP.
• Do not care about installing and updating smartVISU.
• Focus yourself on your visualization.

And finally: Spend your time for the things that really matter.

Usage

I recommend to use docker-composeto create, to run and to manage a stack of microservices for your smartVISU visualization.

Create a docker-compose.yml with a content similar to the example taken from this repository.

version: '2'

services:
  app:
    build: ..
    # image: migoller/smartvisu
    networks:
      - default
    volumes:
      # Map date and time settings from Docker host
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /etc/timezone:/etc/timezone:ro
      # Offline storage for demo (DO map in productional environments, too)
      - ./temp:/var/www/html/temp
      # Your smartVISU global configuration file
      - ./config.ini/:/var/www/html/config.ini
      # Your custom smartVISU page
      - ./mypage/:/var/www/html/pages/mypage
    
    # Run as user with id=1001 and gid=1001. Set to something that matches your needs!
    user: 1001:1001
  
  web:
    image: nginx
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    links:
      - app
    volumes:
      - ./nginx.conf:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf:ro
    volumes_from:
      - app

Ensure you have created an empty directory temp for smartVISU's offline storage and a clear file config.ini for smartVISU's global configuration.

Create an empty directory mypage for your personal smartVISU page, too.

Adjust the user setting to your account user id (uid) and group id (gid). To get theses ids simply run the following command on your Linux shell.

$ id

uid=1001(abc) gid=1001(abc) groups=1001(abc),...

Now start your smartVISU stack. Type in your shell (assuming your running this from the example directory):

$ docker-compose up

Creating network "example_default" with the default driver
Creating example_app_1 ... done
Creating example_web_1 ... done
Attaching to example_app_1, example_web_1
...

You should be able to open the smartVISU configuration page in your browser: http://localhost:8080 .

Creating a new page from the smartVISU template page

The smartVISU author recommends to create new pages based on the smartVISU template.

After you have started your smartVISU stack (s. previous chapter), you can create a new page from the command line.

$ docker exec -it example_app_1 cp -r /var/www/html/pages/_template/. /var/www/html/pages/mypage

Ensure you have mounted a volume or folder to /var/www/html/pages/mypage to persist your new page.

Go on and build your smartVISU visualization for your smart-home.

Good luck and enjoy.