[Lazarus] Environment monitoring software on Linux?

Bo Berglund bo.berglund at gmail.com
Thu Sep 26 17:12:25 CEST 2019


I am looking for some advice on how best to approach my project...

I have to create monitoring control software that will run on a Linux
computer (Raspberry Pi) and will be responsible for controlling a few
measure systems to take readings at regular intervals and
saving/forwarding the results.
The system will be unattended, probably housed in a box of some kind
outdoors. THere will be an Internet connection through a mobile
broadband router in the system.

I have developed instrumentation control software that works to
interface with the instrumentation to run the measurements and collect
the data afterwards. This is all written in ObjectPascal in Lazarus
IDE.
Control of the equipment is done via GPIO connected relays (for power
switching and battery control) and RS232 for instrument data
interfacing.
I have simplified the software by using the ser2net service on the RPi
to be able to use TCP/IP socket connections for "everything" related
to system control and data handling.

Now I am at the point where I should create the scheduler running on
Linux. About 10-12 years ago I had a similar task and then I was using
Delphi and I created a Windows service that would handle the
scheduling. But I do not want to mess with Windows anymore so I need
to figure out a way to have similar functionality on Linux, i.e.
something that will run whenever the computer is started and could
check if one or several tasks are due for execution and if so run
them.
Is cron the best way or is there some similar function like the
Windows services one can easily create? If so is there some sample
code in FreePascal for implementing a service?

Any advice welcome.


-- 
Bo Berglund
Developer in Sweden



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