A Community and Forum For Aquaponic Gardeners

Linux web server (main controller)

There has got to be a better name for this...
What do you call a device that collects information from your greenhouse, displays it to you over a web page, send you alerts if there is a problem, can initiate a predefined series of commands based on a timer or triggers, logs data...

At a very basic level, a Server is the combination of a computer and an operating system very much like your home computer. A commercial server is designed to be very reliable. Two ways to make it more reliable are to simplify the design down to bare essentials and to add redundancy. A greenhouse server doesn't have to be all that powerful. Lower cpu power, memory, storage requirements translates into lower power consumption, less heat generated, and ability to replace traditional moving parts like fans and hard drives with heatsinks and solid state drives. This can be done very cost effectively. A new solid state linux server, under $200. I bought some of these at an auction for about $30/each. (see attached photos)
I wiped them and installed a M0n0wall firewall to test. Work great.

Next step is to determine what flavor of linux to install.

These are already mounted in a waterproof case with waterproof fittings.

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Permalink Reply by John R on January 27, 2011 at 2:22am

Nice! Oh yeah -- Happy B'day:)

I can see that they're AMD powered and have seen some really nice ones elsewhere. These tend to use quite a bit less power than the Intel powered systems. How much memory do they have?

I've seen things like these called main controllers too (relatively common) along with system controller, central controller and similiar. But maybe you're looking for a more greenhouse/AP centric name. I wish I had one. I call my house monitoring machine clever names like 'house1' or 'house2'. How about 'greenview' or 'fishweb' system? Or something more general like 'enviroserver'. I kinda like that last one since it doesn't exclude control and is applicable over a wide range of uses.

Looking forward to seeing what you use for a linux distro. DamnSmallLinux has a lot of appeal to me but I couldn't find a valid image of it to try though I did find a list of debian packages that they used.