Internet Speed Monitor

Keep track of your internet connection speeds over time with a Raspberry Pi.

This Helm chart deploys:

• InfluxDB 2.x database for time series data.
• Grafana dashboard.
• Python app to run the speed test on a schedule.

Prerequisites

1. Set up your Raspberry Pi.
2. Install and configure MicroK8s (or another lightweight Kubernetes distribution with DNS and Helm addons) on your Pi.

Note: MicroK8s by default uses Dqlite as its storage backend instead of etcd. Further securing of Secret objects with encryption at rest for either storage backend is outside the scope of this project.

Install

1. Prepare your Raspberry Pi's local storage for both the database and dashboard

   # On your Pi
   sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/influxdb2
   sudo mkdir -p /etc/influxdb2
   sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/grafana

2. If installing from the repository

   # On your Pi
   
   helm repo add santisbon https://santisbon.github.io/charts/
   # or 
   helm repo update
   
   CHART="santisbon/speedtest"

   Or if installing from source

   # On your Pi
   git clone https://github.com/santisbon/speedtest.git && cd speedtest
   CHART="./speedtestchart"
   
   nano $CHART/values.yaml
   # edit the values

3. Install the Helm chart which will enforce the installation order. Set parameters like the schedule to run the test if you didn't do it through the values.yaml file.
   If using MicroK8s add it to the typed commands e.g. microk8s helm, microk8s kubectl.

   # On your Pi
   RELEASE=speedtest
   NAMESPACE=speedtest-n
   
   helm install $RELEASE $CHART \
       -n $NAMESPACE \
       --create-namespace \
       --set nodeHostname=raspberrypi4 \
       --set influxdbpassword=supersecret \
       --set influxdbtoken=my-super-secret-auth-token \
       --set schedule="*/10 * * * *"

4. Grab the NodePort assigned to the Grafana service (by default in the 30000-32767 range).

   # On your Pi
   kubectl -n $NAMESPACE get svc $RELEASE-grafana-svc
   
   NAME                    TYPE       CLUSTER-IP       EXTERNAL-IP   PORT(S)          AGE
   speedtest-grafana-svc   NodePort   10.152.182.171   <none>        3000:32425/TCP   52s

   In this example it's 32425.

5. From your desktop, access the Grafana dashboard using your Raspberry Pi's IP address or DNS name and the NodePort from the previous step e.g. http://raspberrypi4.local:32425. The default credentials are admin/admin.

6. Add a new connection with data source InfluxDB.

   1. Set query language to Flux.
   2. Set the URL using your Helm release name and InfluxDB port e.g. http://speedtest-influxdb-svc:8086.
   3. Use the organization, token, and bucket you set in values.yaml or the command line. If you didn't set a token, one was created for you. You can retrieve it from a shell in the influxdb-c container with the command influx auth list.
   4. Click on Save & Test.
   5. Build a dashboard and add a visualization (panel) with the data source you created.
   6. Write the Flux queries you want for your visualizations filtering by _measurement or _field. Some examples:

      speeds = from(bucket: "internetspeed")
          |> range(start: -1d)
          |> filter(fn: (r) => r._field == "download" or r._field == "upload")
          |> yield(name: "_results")
      
      latency = from(bucket: "internetspeed")
          |> range(start: -1d)
          |> filter(fn: (r) => r._field == "ping" or r._field == "jitter")
          |> yield(name: "_results")
      

   7. Save your dashboard. You can add multiple panels and set units like megabits per second (Mbps) and ms. The units are in the Standard options section of the panel.

Upgrade

helm upgrade $RELEASE $CHART -n $NAMESPACE

Uninstall

helm uninstall $RELEASE -n $NAMESPACE --wait
kubectl delete namespaces $NAMESPACE