Help getting the "balenaDash" project working

Though I believe I’m not a noob to Linux, Docker, or even the Resin Dashboard (that was what it was called the last time I played with it) I’m stumped on trying to get the “Make a web frame with raspberry pi in 30 minutes” project to work.
I think I’ve gotten far enough that I’ve deployed the base balenaDash container to the RPI. But the container only shows a status of “Exited” and no logs appear if I start/restart it. Alas, the blog (https://www.balena.io/blog/make-a-web-frame-with-raspberry-pi-in-30-minutes/) is really light on details if/when things don’t go exactly as planned. :frowning:

I’m using a REALLY old RPI (version 1, methinks). Could that be the issue?

Quick update. I happened to have an RPI 3B+ too. I created a new Application in BalenaCloud, pushed the balenaDash to this device, increated GPU Memory, rebooted, created my own customer URL and it all worked!

So, I’m betting that my RPIv1 is just too old. :frowning:

RPi model 1 is supported, according to the documentation.

However, curiously enough, I’m trying to deploy, too, on a Raspi1 and am a bit confused on what’s happening.

You might want to check the logs of the exited container with balena logs ${container_id} to see if anything useful shows up there.

That is part of my point. There are no logs. The container just shows “Exited” no matter what you click and/or if you view the logs.

Hi, could you tell us what exact Pi1 model are you using? There should be some version information printed on the device top. We should be supporting all Pi1 versions (in a Raspberry Pi 1 application) just fine. And have a lot of old hardware to test things out if there’s some info from you :slight_smile:

Heya @daxm - any news on this one ? If you could look into the questions from imrehg above we could also take a look into that deeper. Thanks !

Hey Guys,

It seems like there hasnt been any other documentation on this project for some time. I stumbled upon this after having messed around with Dakboard on my Raspi2. I read and watched the documentation and video but I am having issues with installing the CLI tools on my systems. I have tried 3 different systems ( 2 BASH on Windows and 1 Ubuntu system and I keep getting the following errors:

npm ERR! Linux 4.4.0-17763-Microsoft
npm ERR! argv “/usr/bin/nodejs” “/usr/bin/npm” “install” “balena-cli” “-g”
npm ERR! node v4.2.6
npm ERR! npm v3.5.2
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE

npm ERR! ext2fs@1.0.27 install: prebuild-install || node-gyp rebuild
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the ext2fs@1.0.27 install script ‘prebuild-install || node-gyp rebuild’.
npm ERR! Make sure you have the latest version of node.js and npm installed.
npm ERR! If you do, this is most likely a problem with the ext2fs package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR! prebuild-install || node-gyp rebuild
npm ERR! You can get information on how to open an issue for this project with:
npm ERR! npm bugs ext2fs
npm ERR! Or if that isn’t available, you can get their info via:
npm ERR! npm owner ls ext2fs
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR! /mnt/c/Users/CondeFam/npm-debug.log

Can anyone let me know if something is wrong with the CLI tool install?

Hello @hugo3conde

I see this is your first post, welcome to the forums :slight_smile: In the future can I ask you to please open up a new thread if your issue does not match the post title (in this case the problem would be related to the CLI rather than the balenaDash project) it just makes it easier for us to track what is working, and what has issues we need to look into. Thanks.

Anyway, the CLI requires a node version > 6 (alongside a couple more requirements you can read here). Try updating to a newer version of Node and let us know if it solved the problem.

@nazrhom Thank you for your guidance and I will definitely keep that in mind when posting. I was able to figure out my issue by actually installing the CLI tools via the links rather than via NPM. In order to see my device online though, I actually had to hard-wire it as for some reason my credentials for my wifi were not working (even though i was typing them correctly). I did see a solution for this so i will try it.

@hugo3conde glad you got it working! Do follow up and let us know why you are having to hard-wire the device when you figure it out :+1:

@chrisys I’ve been trying to get my device to work with my wifi. I am using an RPI2 with a usb wifi. I have checked the /etc/NetworkManager/System-Connections/resin-wifi-01 file and it has my SSID and correct PAK. The only way i was able to get the device online was to hard-wire it. Doing “iwconfig” shows below:

 resin-dns  no wireless extensions.
 br-8bdbcfbc9d1a  no wireless extensions.
 balena0   no wireless extensions.
 lo        no wireless extensions.
 veth75a445e  no wireless extensions.

But when doing an “lsusb” you can see the device is there.

root@46eedd4:/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections# lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0424:ec00 Standard Microsystems Corp. SMSC9512/9514 Fast Ethernet Adapter
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 148f:7601 Ralink Technology, Corp. MT7601U Wireless Adapter
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0424:9514 Standard Microsystems Corp. SMC9514 Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Below is the output of my ifconfig:

balena0   Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 02:42:FF:99:C9:2B  
          inet addr:10.114.101.1  Bcast:10.114.101.255  Mask:255.
255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
br-8bdbcfbc9d1a Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 02:42:4D:48:DB:AE  
          inet addr:172.18.0.1  Bcast:172.18.255.255  Mask:255.25
5.0.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::42:4dff:fe48:dbae/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:378663 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:449030 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier
:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:48467697 (46.2 MiB)  TX bytes:104531857 (99.6 MiB)
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr B8:27:EB:D1:F4:5D  
          inet addr:192.168.1.125  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.
255.255.0
          inet6 addr: 2605:a601:20ec:6600:3171:6d11:80b6:800b/64 
Scope:Global
          inet6 addr: fe80::4767:3b16:f33f:66ec/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:1230843 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:
0
          TX packets:1006605 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrie
r:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:175800714 (167.6 MiB)  TX bytes:144881228 (138
.1 MiB)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:33206 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:33206 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:3218781 (3.0 MiB)  TX bytes:3218781 (3.0 MiB)

resin-dns Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 3A:6F:EF:27:B8:E8  
          inet addr:10.114.102.1  Bcast:0.0.0.0  Mask:255.255.255
.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::386f:efff:fe27:b8e8/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:133237 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:19838946 (18.9 MiB)

resin-vpn Link encap:UNSPEC  HWaddr 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
-00-00-00-00-00-00  
          inet addr:10.240.39.37  P-t-P:52.4.252.97  Mask:255.255
.255.255
          inet6 addr: fe80::1d6b:9d0f:4b3d:2bd9/64 Scope:Link
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metri
c:1
          RX packets:2306 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2307 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:179877 (175.6 KiB)  TX bytes:210278 (205.3 KiB
)

supervisor0 Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 02:42:23:98:4F:C3  
          inet addr:172.17.0.1  Bcast:172.17.255.255  Mask:255.25
5.0.0
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

veth404e534 Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 72:F8:4C:68:42:BF  
          inet6 addr: fe80::70f8:4cff:fe68:42bf/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:199938 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier
:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:30162888 (28.7 MiB)
veth75a445e Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr B2:1B:9D:AE:4C:83  
          inet6 addr: fe80::b01b:9dff:feae:4c83/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:378663 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:515739 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier
:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:53768979 (51.2 MiB)  TX bytes:114856876 (109.5
 MiB)

Is there anything else I may be missing? Thank you for your help!

@hugo3conde looking at this, I’m not sure your USB WiFi dongle is supported on balenaOS. We have a list of supported devices here (note there’s an additional link to a wiki page with a lot more that should work too): https://www.balena.io/docs/reference/hardware/wifi-dongles/

Do you have any other dongles you could try in order to figure out if this is the issue? It should “just work” :slight_smile:

You could also try lsmod to list the loaded modules and see if there is one there for your dongle, and maybe lshw as well to see if your dongle has a driver.

@chrisys Thank you for your assistance and the link. I was able to manually install the driver for my Wifi dongle by searching it here https://elinux.org/RPi_USB_Wi-Fi_Adapters and then following the instructions here : https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=462982

My usb wifi dongle is: TL-WN725N v2. Based on the Realtek RTL8188EUS in case anyone needs help installing this manually.

Cheers!

Thanks for posting your findings.

I use the same wifi usb adapter. It is listet in balena os with raspberry pi 3 and can also connect to wifi. but ap ist not starting. (network manager claims no ap support but the adapter does have)