How Do I Install? Raspberry Pi Image for WebControl

WebControl How do I ... ?
41

This is the status of the RAM on my test Pi3B (not the B+, the original B):

              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          926Mi        87Mi       679Mi       6.0Mi       158Mi       782Mi
Swap:          99Mi          0B        99Mi

Looks like it’s not using half of it.

42

OK thanks, then the a+ should work. I’m looking for a used b but if I can’t find one I’ll go that route. Thanks for helping.

43

I can confirm that this works on the Pi 4. Setup was flawless. Nice work on this! Super easy for a non-pi guy.

Now I just need to finish moving everything into a larger electronics enclosure.

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44

Trying to log into my Pi with this and am not sure if I missed something. “webcontrolcnc”, with the password “raspberry” doesn’t get me into the actual Pi.

45

Default user is pi. Did you try that?

46

Yep I tried pi/rasberry as well.

47

It’s been a while, so my memory is a bit fuzzy on the details, but it should be “pi/raspberry”. Don’t forget the “p” in “raspberry” (you did in your last message).

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48

That may be it, lol, PEBKAC for the win.

49

Giving this thread a bump as didnt find one specific to Raspberry Pi 4

Seems that the prebuilt Pi Image with WebControl on the Buster release will not run out of the box on a newer Pi due to security warnings.

I had to do a Raspberry Pi install and then the WebControl install. Note the 64 Bit Raspberry PI OS release had issues with the current WebControl for me too.

Had to go to a 32 Bit current Pi OS release and then manually install WebControl.

That worked.

If anyone has instructions on how to get WebControl going on the current 64 Bit Raspberry Pi OS on a Pi 4, please post the details. Maybe I am missing some tricks.

Regards,

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50

There should be a Linux release you can use for x64

51

Welcome Anthony!

I wrote this procedure almost a year ago. It was written for an audience that didnt have a whole lot of Linux or RasPi experience so I apologize if it seems a bit elementary. If you follow it through this should get WC up and running. It was tested on a RasPI 4B running the current Debian 11 Bullseye based x64 RasPI OS.

Going forward, I will try to explain what the commands are and what they do in italics. Don’t type these statements, they are there for you information. Also, don’t type the “$” symbol. It is there to represent the user prompt that you will see in the CLI. Just type everything after it. If you are working on the Pi while doing this then you should be able to copy and paste the commands below into the CLI.

First, open a terminal window. If you are on the Raspberry Pi desktop, look for an icon on the desktop (upper left) that shows what looks like a small computer screen with a >_ symbol in it and a black background. When you open this up you may see some characters followed by a blinking cursor. This is known as the Command Line Interface (CLI).

Type (or copy) the following commands. Hit enter after every line:

$ cd ~

  • The “cd” command is the command to change directory. The tilde (~) means “HOME Directory”. What you are doing here is changing the current working directory to the HOME directory of the Linux user.

$ mkdir webcontrol

  • The “mkdir” command is the Linux command to make a new directory.

$ cd webcontrol

  • This command will change the directory to the webcontrol directory you just created.

$ wget https://github.com/webcontrolcnc/webcontrol/releases/download/v0.94/webcontrol-0.94-rpi-singledirectory.tar.gz

  • Or if using a generic Linux OS:

$ wget https://github.com/webcontrolcnc/webcontrol/releases/download/v0.94/webcontrol-0.94-linux-singledirectory.tar.gz

  • “wget” is a linux command used to copy and retrieve a file from some remote source. It can be used in many different variations and locations but in this case you are telling Linux to go to a particualr website, navigate down through a file structure, and copy the specific file you need to install WebControl. In this case it’s the “webcontrol-0.94-rpi-singledirectory.tar.gz” file. The “.tar.gz” file extension means the file an archive that is also compressed.

$ ls -l

  • The “ls -l” command will list the contents of the current working directory. You should now see the “webcontrol-0.94-rpi-singledirectory.tar.gz” file listed in the directory.

$ tar -zxvf webcontrol-0.94-rpi-singledirectory.tar.gz

  • This command will decompress and expand the archive file. It’s similar to un-zipping a file in Windows. Once it completes, it should contain all of the files needed to run WebControl. At this point WebControl is effectively “installed”

$ ./webcontrol

  • This command will start the WebControl web server. It is telling Linux to “run” the WebControl startup script. After it starts, WebControl should be accessible by any internet browser on any computer connected to the same network that your Pi is connected to. You should be able access the main WebControl web page by typing in the correct ip address of your Pi followed by the port number in the address bar of your browser.

  • For example, to access my WebControl web page I type the following into my browser’s address bar The ip address for your Pi will probably be different:

    http://192.168.10.118:5000/

  • You should be greeted with the main WebControl web page. If you have connected your Pi to the Maslow’s Arduino (via USB), you should be able to configure the connection to it from within the WebControl interface and verify that you can actualy control your Maslow.

ONE CAVEAT

When you typed ./webcontrol, you started the web server. Right now, if you were to reboot the RasPi, you will have to manualy re-start the service. You will need to do this EVERY time you shutdown or reboot the Pi. There is a way to set webcontrol to autostart at start-up so you don’t have to manualy do it but I would save that for the next step.

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52

Thanks. Followed that to get it going on the 32bit as I had no joy with the attempts with the 64bit, but based on your statement that it works on the Bullseye release, I will probably go round again with it. Doesn’t take too long to do.

Regards,

53

strange as I currently have it running on a 64 bit RasPI to take full advantage of the memory. Let me know how it goes.

1 Like