Pachube

JoelHaggar

Hi,

I'm playing around with Pachube and it looks really interesting. I don't know if I'm the only one but their website seems so confusing although I'm starting to understand it.

I created an input but I can not find the feed ID or datastream ID that the Mango publisher asks for

I also couldn't find this for an output that I wanted to map to a Pachube data source in Mango

I would greatly appreciate being pointed in the right direction.

Thanks.
Joel.

JoelHaggar

After playing around a bit more I'm going to answer my own question.

The feed ID is the number at the end of the URL that ends in xml. Looks like for now they are 4 digit numbers but looks like will soon go to 5 as more people create feeds.

The Data Stream ID is the number that shows up on the far left of the datapoints under that feed. These numbers seem to usually start at 0 and go up.

The mistake I made was I set up a feed but did not add any data streams which is why I couldn't find it's number.

Thanks,
Joel.

mlohbihler

All correct. The feed ids appear to be sequential, so they will eventually become 5 digit numbers, yes. And data stream ids are automatically generated starting from 0, but i believe they can be overridden with custom labels.

peadar

hi, well done with the recent version of mango! this product just keeps improving day by day..

i set up a basic pachube publisher and all seems work fine under the free account from pachube.
my test scenario:
i read two fields from a database and then use the pachube publisher to send to pachube.

however i cant seem to stay under the rate limit! i understand the limitations and and am happy to comply, however, when i look at my upload stats on the pachube site, it says i'm publishing too many per minute.

my question: how does one slow down the rate at which mango publishes to pachube?
i've tried sending on "all updates" which seems to blast pachube with reems of data.
my data changes about once every minute, my sql data source collects every 2 minutes.
If i set to "changes only" it works ok until a data change which then blasts the pachube with up to 28 api requests in 7 seconds.

i know i'm missing something, i just cant see what :-)
please let me know if i've got something wrong...

Peadar

mlohbihler

What version are you using? A problem was discovered in 1.9.0, and fixed in 1.10.0. Some quick testing didn't reveal any 1.10.0 issues like you describe.

peadar

its the latest upgrade 1.10.0

peadar

ah think i made a mistake

its working now

will come back later and explain...sorry

peadar

Ok, i'm gonna volunteer a walkthrough to integrating with pachube...it should be ready by the end of the day...

Pachube are a bit weak on the documentation side, despite the absolutely fantastic product they have.

i think the 'mango - pachube' marriage is one made in (ahem...geek) heaven :-)

anyhoo....watch this space :-)

ps. thanks again for the quick reply...

peadar

Ok, here's a quick and dirty guide on how to create a pachube publisher in mango to a pachube feed

1. 'signup' for a free account with pachube at www.pachube.com

2. you'll be sent a welcome email with an API key, so copy that key to the clipbaord

3. go back and sign in to pachube

**4. ** on the right hand side of the page, click "register a feed"
feed type = Manual
feed title = test

then click 'add' under datastreams

ID = 1
type = basicSI
 add another datastream
ID = 2
type = basicSI
	these are your 'Datastream ID"s for mango

5. Now click 'save feed' and you'll be taken to your feeds page:

**6. ** note the 4 or 5 digit number just before ".xml", ".csv", ".json". this is your 'Feed ID' for mango.

**7. ** Create a pachube publisher in Mango
name = test
update events = changes only
send regular snapshots = Do not Tick

API Key = paste in the key from the welcome email from pachube

Add one or two points you'd like to publish, then fill in the boxes:
	Feed ID = see step 6
	Datastream ID = see step 4

8. click 'save' and enable the publisher.

9. if all goes well, you should be able to see a green 'live' in your "my feeds" page on pachube.
Bear in mind this may take a few minutes to come live. mine took about 5-10 mins initially.

10. click "use a feed" on the right of the page to see what you can now do with all this data flying about the internet

11. let me know how you get on :-)

here's one i did earlier:
http://www.securi-trax.com/?p=141

mlohbihler

Thanks for this peadar. Can you describe what was going wrong before so that others can avoid, or so that the software can be enhanced to avoid?

peadar

nothing wrong with mango at all!

The hiccup is, its not so clear from an initial glance how mango correlates to pachube in relation to feed ID and Datastream ID.

It's easy now i understand it, but is a steep learning curve for a novice like me. Plus Pachube is a little weak on the documentation side of things

in my case i didn't put the correct 'Feed ID' into mango so although the publisher was sending the API key and getting a response, it was a 404 or 503 response, so i imagine mango just kept trying to send it until a 200 would come back.

sorry for the confusion, i'll try not to accomplish large tasks like this at night time...all was clear after a few hours kip :-)

hope that can help a few of the members

Peadar

mlohbihler

Ok, thanks. We'll take a look at how non-200 responses are getting handled and see if there's anything more elegant than pounding Pachube with requests.

mlohbihler

Follow-up: the pachube send thread has been changed so that 4xx-type HTTP errors are treated as non-recoverable, under the assumption that the same request sent again will have the same result. This will prevent the publisher from trying to resend the same data over and over, and your receiving a complaint from Pachube.

mhradom

I am successfully pushing data out to Pachube from Mango. Thanks for the tutorial above it was a BIG help. Pachube documentation is lacking or hard to find. Go to www.pachube.com and type in "Mikes House" in the search field and you will see me on the map. Double click the push pin and you will find my first few feeds. More to come. I gave Mango a little plug there as well.