Continuous Network/ Server Tester with Arduino Uno with WiFi - VoiceTube: Learn English through videos!

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Welcome back.
There's something that experience I T technicians know is that it's important to know that there are problems with your servers or your networks before the users know that there is a problem with the servers or the networks.
Many times, if you have some kind of monitoring system, some type of alert system and you find out that there is a problem, you can actually fix the problem before the end.
Users even know there was a problem, which means you don't have to talk to the end users, right?
As an I T technician, the less time you spend 1/2 in a talk with end users about who the hell knows what the better, right?
So if you have monitoring systems alert systems to tell you when there are problems with your servers and your networks, that could be very valuable, because you will know that there are problems before the end users d'oh!
And then you can try to fix those problems or at least be solving the problem when the end users come to start bothering you.
So the project that we're going to be creating today is a little network server up time monitoring system so that we're going to use an Arduino you know, with WiFi.
And what this is going to do is this is going to ping your default gateway.
It's going to paying a local server.
It's going to ping salesforce dot com, and it's going to ping google dot com.
And what we're going to get back is we're going to get back, the millisecond replies.
So how long it takes for these different servers to reply to ping requests so we can see again if the connection is good or if the connection isn't so good?
And if one of the servers is not reachable, then what we're going to do is we're going have a red led a light turnout, so we're gonna have our nice little oh led screen.
And so this led screen will show us what the current status of these different servers are.
And then, while everything is good, at least while the millisecond in reply is in the positive side, we'll have a green led.
You could just have this green led in the corner.
You know, if they led is green, everything is probably fine.
Then what will happen is if one of the servers is no longer reachable, the red led will turn on, and that will be able to alert you to come over and take a look at that little oh led screen and see what server is having an issue.
Are you having an issue getting to google dot com?
Are you having an issue simply getting to the Gateway?
This is one of those things where you can use it as a troubleshooting routine.
So you can say, OK, I can't get to google dot com, but I can get to my gateway.
What does that mean?
Or I can't get to the gateway and I can't get to google dot com, but I can't get to the local server.
What does that mean?
So this is a little tool that you can use, so you get a quick idea of what the network conditions are, and then you can start trying to solve the problem again before the end.
Users even know what's going on.
So with that.
Let's go over the work bench so I can show you how this little thing is built.
Then I'll show you the code, and then we'll bring it all together and show you how it works in the real world.
So here is our assemble project.
So the board that we're gonna be using today is the Arduino, you know, with WiFi.
So this has the full T c p i p for a wife I stack built on the board so we don't need an additional shield.
We don't need additional module or anything like that.
Then we're going to be using our 1 28 by 64 0 led screen that we've used for many projects.
This is an eye to see or i square see Display to see is a communication protocol that allows us to simply use to data wires to be able to communicate with this display and actually use simply to data wires to communicate with.
I think up to 112 different devices if you wanted to, But anyway, so we're just gonna be using this led screen as our display for the project.
And then we have a bread board and we have our standard red, red and green led lights here.
So we have the 220 ohm resistors on the positive side.
So these things are going to be powered by the digital pens.
So green is going to be powered by digital pen eight.
Red is going to be powered by digital pen and nine and so that will go to the 220 ohm resistors.
And then in our code, if everything is good, green light will show up.
If everything if something is wrong, the red light will show up.
Now, one thing with this Theo led screen and the are we know, you know, with WiFi an important thing is many times when we're using normal, aren't we know boards the S C l and the S D A.
Pens.
So those S S C L S d A.
Pens are in the back of the oil in the screen.
Those will many times we plugged into pens a four and a five on standard Arduino uno boards.
I will say with the Arduino, you know, with WiFi, there is actually a dedicated S c l S D A pen on this particular board and you will need to use that for this project to work.
If you try to plug into a four and a five simply funds is out for whatever reason.
So just plug in the S C.
L S d A into the appropriate ports on the Arduino board and so that that's really all that's required to build this project.
So let's go over and take a look at the code.
So here is the code for this project.
It may look a little complicated, but really, all we're doing is we're creating a whole bunch of different variables, and then we're simply printing out those variables.
If you take a look at the code itself, it is not complicated.
There's just a lot of it.
So let's go up here and take a look at the library's.
We're going to include So for this, in order to make the O led screen work, we're going to need these to libraries the out of fruit underscore SSD 1306 library.
You can get that by going to tools, manage libraries and install it from there.
Do make sure you get the ad of fruit s SD one a 306 library.
There are other SST one through six libraries out there, but they don't give you the functionality you need, so you'll need the ad of fruit one.
And then you also need the out of fruit key FX A library.
There's a core library for displays using Add a fruit libraries.
So you'll need those two.
And you will need to install both of these two.
Then we're also going to need the WiFi nine a library.
And that was where the library is wanted for this project work.
Now, the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to be simply defined our led pen.
So Green led is going to be pin digital pen number eight Red led is going to be digital pin number nine.
This is for turning on the ladies.
Then we're going to come down here, and we're going to define the information required for the oh led screen.
So to find oh, led with.
So the width is gonna be 100 and 28.
Define.
Oh, led height is going to be 64.
So depending on what oh led screen you're using.
You may have a different height and width, so just keep that in mind.
So for here I'm plugging in 1 28 64 If you have a different screen, you may need to plug in different numbers there.
Then the important one is the ol lady address again.
Remember I to see her.
I square see, electron ICS.
Protocol is an addressable protocol, much less like an I p address or a Mac address.
In order for the art we know to be a bit communicate with the device, you have to tell it what addressed that devices acts of this device is that zero x three.
See if you don't know what the address of your devices, there's an eye to see scanner project video that we did in the past s o just Google search I to see scanner or look for the video that we did on and basically scan to find out what your eye to see addresses.
Then we're gonna come down here, and they were going to use the Adam through underscore SST 1306 in order to create the display.
So this is how we're going to reference the led screen going to the future.
We're simply calling it display.
And then we're going to say it's a display of ol lady with comma led height.
So we're creating this display of this with height.
Then we're gonna come down for the information that's required for the WiFi.
So again, my s s idea My my WiFi network that I use for these projects, I created a test guest network with no password.
And so there's charm as s I d brackets equals and test.
So that's literally what the SS idea of my network is.
And then sharp ass for password equals, and I have it as blank again.
I've done that just for lab purposes in your situation to make sure you have passwords and said they were gonna come down.
We're going to create a variable for the WiFi status, so it's just gonna be in status equals W l idol status.
So this is going to be used for the wild loop in order to try to connect to the WiFi network.
Then we're going to come down, and we're going to create the variables that are required to help put the information that we need in order to actually do the network testing.
So the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to create a string, so make sure it's it's uppercase s string.
The first string is going to be Google, and Google is going to equal www dot google dot com.
So we will go to Ping Google.
It's going ping www dot google dot com.
We're gonna create a string sales force equals www dot salesforce dot com.
So these air to obviously, you know, public WiFi service is, and our service is that you may be using so again if you're using female.
If you're using other service is you can plug those domain names in there and then use those for testing.
I'm just using these as just General General wants to dio on, then the next thing that we're going to do is we're going to create a variable and I p address variable.
So I p a all upper case and then dress on.
We're going to call this the local server.
So what?
The local server actually is the local server is actually, um, my own little laptop here, right So my little laptop, it has an I p.
Address of 1 72 not 16 not 42 5 So doing this whole troubleshooting thing, we're going to use this as something to test against.
So basically, can we paying a local server.
So for that, we're going to call local server and then there is no equal.
There is no equal.
We just simply going to parentheses and then 1 72 comma comma, not period, because that would be way too damn easy.
1 72 comma, 16 comma, 42 comma, five close parentheses.
Semi colon again.
This is one of those things that that will screw you up in the tech world.
I don't know why it's not periods, but for whatever reason, they decided No, we're not gonna make it periods.
We're gonna make it commas here.
If you don't put in Kamas, it's not gonna work, right.
So anyway, so that's that's if you for if you want to peeing and i p address versus domain.
So this is how you they're variable.
You would use your opinion, a domain name, and this is how you would do it if you're gonna be trying to ping it.
I p address.
We're gonna come down here or we're going to create int results.
So Google results, Salesforce results, server result and gateway result.
So these are going to be the millisecond response times that we will be getting back from the pinging on.
Then we will test against those They were going to go down, and we're going to actually set up the environment so avoid set up.
The first thing that we're going to do is we have to set the pin modes for the green and red led pens to output a green led output Red led output pretty standard.
Then we're going to do a serial adopt begin at 9600 just to just to make sure again for troubleshooting purposes, make sure that the system is actually working.
Then we're going to display at the beginning.
So the display, That's what we created up here.
This is the O led screen, so display not begin.
And with that, we feed it this information.
So it's the begin function and says Dave, SST 1306 underscore switch Pat vcc And then this is where we feed the O led address.
So that address up here is that I too see, I squared C address.
So you plug that in there, so that starts both of those, Then the wild loop here.
This is what we use to connect to WiFi network.
So while status is not equal to W el under store connected serial print So this is printing to the serial monitor.
So that's one thing you have to start paying attention to is whether it's display print or serial print.
So this is pointing to the serial monitor attempting to connect to a network the network name S S I D.
And then the status equals uses function.
Wifi dot Begin feeds E S s i.
D.
It's the password and tries to connect to the WiFi.
It will delay, and then it will continuously loop until it is connected.
Once it has become connected, then we're going to create a few variables down here so we can actually print these out.
It's kind of like a splash screen.
So when the Arduino, you know, with WiFi boots up, it's able to get the get the information, then one of the things that I want to do is I want to print out some of its information so I can verify that it's getting the information that it needs.
Like what happens?
What happens if we can connect to the WiFi, but it doesn't grab an I P address or in grabs, Like like somebody screwed up the A c p anagrams, the wrong subject mask or something like that.
So I want to print out that information.
And so what I'm going to be doing here is we create a string for S s i d.
So we're going to have a variable called s s I d.
And that is going to equal this function.
So this gets what the wife I s s I d currently is.
Then we're going to create a variable for I p address, and that is going to get what the local I P addresses.
They were going to create a variable for gateway and using this function, the WiFi gateway i p.
We're going to get what the current gateway I p is.
Then we're going to do some net.
We're going to get what, the current subnet mask ISS and so we're actually going to be getting this information.
So we're creating these variables here because it is after we've connected to the WiFi network.
If we try to create these variables beforehand, there wouldn't be anything there.
So we're doing it afterwards because after you've connected to a WiFi network, that's when D.
A.
C P will hand out this information.
Then the first thing that we need to do when dealing with an O led display is we need to clear the display.
Any tiger dealing with the display you need to erase the display or will simply keep overriding itself will turn into a God awful mess.
The first thing we do is we do display, so we call the display and we simply use the clear display function.
The next thing we're gonna do is that basically, we're putting a little header up.
They're opening a little title eso display, so to display set text size tu sais tu es.
Whenever you're dealing with text size on oh led screen, it's between 1 to 8, so one is the smallest.
Aid is the biggest, so this is slightly bigger than the smallest, which is actually a decent size.
Then display set text color to white.
Remember, if you're dealing with monochrome screens than white is, whatever color shows up so again with these oh, led screens sometimes will be blue.
Sometimes will be read sometimes will be yellow, actually in the title area for this particular screen.
It's yellow, but I call it white because there's only one color there, so there's only one color for the monochrome screen you just put way.
Then we need to put display set cursor.
So we need to say, Where are we going to start printing this text out?
We're going to start printed it at the first position on the first row.
So 00 What that does is that puts it in the very first position of the first column in first position on the first row.
So remember, when you're dealing with screens, zero is actually the first position It starts 00 is the first position.
One is a second position, too, is 1/3 position.
So on so forth.
So basically all the way at the upper left hand corner.
What we're going to do is we're gonna display dot print line.
We're just simply gonna print out net tester So this is just gonna be a little title bar up there and says it's a net tester.
They were going to come down and then we're gonna print out the information that we actually care about again to verify that we're getting into the D A.
C P addresses like we're supposed to get eso display set text size.
So here, we're going to be sending this to one because of that size to would be too big.
We're setting the color again to white, even though in this section of the only L O l E D screens will actually look blue.
But blue is it's only color.
So we said it toe white, then we need to display set cursor.
So we're going to set where the cursor is going to start printing out.
So this is going to be in the first column position.
So all the way on the left hand side, 17 pixels down, so go 17 down, and that's where we'll start printing.
So we do display, not print, and so simply gonna say, S s I d e colon and then print line.
So then it's got to say, S s I D E Colon.
And then it will say what the SS ideas test that'll do display dot print on the next line I p print line, Whatever the I P address is, then on the next line of sub net print line with some that mask is Gateway with the gateway.
So this way, basically, we're having essentially, like, a diagnostic splash screen.
It's gonna tell us what the s s i d is that it's connected to is gonna tell us what the I P addresses is gonna tell us what it's some that mask is and what it's gateway is it is born, understand is what it actually is like what it actually received from the D a.
C p.
Again to verify, you know, having some weird ass the HCP issues, then display dot display.
So we referenced the display, and then we use the display function.
And what this does is this then prints all of this information from memory to the O led screen.
So, while we're doing this, this load this in the ol ladies memory, and then this is the function that is required to print through the screen.
If you don't do this function, then you're not gonna see anything on the screen.
Then we're going to delay for 5000 milliseconds.
Five seconds.
You can put this whatever you want.
Basically, I just want this to be long enough that I can sit there.
I can take a look at the ol lady screaming.
I could say Yep.
Everything looks right.
And then it will continue if you need longer, you longer shorter.
Now we're gonna come down here and we're going to go into the actual loop itself.
And this is what's gonna blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue poop and keep dynamically doing the testing.
So here we're going to create an I P address variable for gateway.
So creating a gateway variable within the loop and that is going be wifi dot gateway i p function.
So we're going to create a variable down here, make it equal to this.
Then we're gonna have the Google result.
So when we created all those imager variables up here, these are the results that we're testing against.
The Google result equals y fi dot ping function.
Google go up here and take a look at what Google is.
So Google is www dot google dot com.
So it's going to WiFi not Ping.
Www dot google dot com.
The reply that's gonna get the response that is going to get is the milliseconds of response time and so that milliseconds of response time is then going to be set as the value for the variable Google result.
The same is going to be true for sales force result.
So that's gonna paying.
Salesforce dot com Server result is then going toe wifi dot paying the local server.
So that's going to paying Theo I p.
Address that we put up here and then finally here we're going to gateway.
Result equals Y fight upping gateway.
And so what I'm doing here This is one of the reasons why I created this variable.
So I created this variable.
So then I couldn't call this variable here, so wifi dot gateway i p that value is going to go to the gig way variable, and then it's going to ping that value here.
Then we're also going to have a counter so long I use a counter as a troubleshooting routine, especially with these.
Aren't we no devices just to make sure they haven't locked up.
You know, I want those old school people.
I'm always concerned that things have frozen.
You know, I'm saying, like because that's when the problems.
If you're looking at a screen, how do you know if nothing has changed or if you're aren't we know has locked itself up for some reason.
So what I do is I create a counter.
I set the value of that counter to the middle of second function.
So what the middle second function does is it says in milliseconds how long it's been since the yard we know has been powered up.
And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put that at the at the bottom on the bottom row, and so that will constantly be ticking up as long as yard we know is doing what it's supposed to dio.
And it just gives me a nice little number that I go.
Okay, I know that number is always about the cake.
If that number changes every five seconds, then I know the yard we know is at least doing something.
It's running if that If that number locks up for some reason I go?
Oh, maybe I need to root through reboot, my lord, We know device.
So that's why create a counter and I'll show you where that is in code.
So now we're actually going to start printing everything out to the screen.
We're actually gonna start doing the testing.
So the first thing we have to do is again clear the display.
So up until this point, all this information that we put up there on the splash screen is still on the display.
And so now we need to clear this place.
Oh, display not clear display function erases everything on the display.
Now we can write the new stuff.
So that little that little header that I had before at Net Tester thing, we're just gonna leave it the same way Set text size to to set text color to white cursor to 00 were simply just going to call it a tester.
That gives us a little title of top.
Then we're gonna go down and put the results for the gateway local server.
Google sales force the whole nine yards.
So then we're going to do display set text size to one.
So the smallest excise.
We're gonna set the text color to White.
We're going to set the cursor position to 0 17 So that's all the way on the left, 17 pixels down and then we're going to be printing out what the current results are for the gateway local server.
Google had sales force, so are on display dot prances through.
This is printing to the display gateway colon, and then the value of gateway results.
So the milliseconds in response time from when Thea aren't we know, Ping, it's gonna say gateway, and then whatever that number is, and I'll say local server.
So again, we're doing this in a troubleshooting routine.
So gateway, so is the gateway.
Working is the local server working so local server and in the middle of seconds, reply time for the local server.
Then we're going to do for Google, and they're gonna do Google results and we do sales force and we salesforce results were simply gonna print those out.
And then we're going to print how many milliseconds in response time, Then the final thing that we're gonna print.
So we have displayed that print line and then under that, we're going to then simply display dot print line the counter numbers of that counter that I created up here in milliseconds That's gotta count constantly, be ticking along as long as the yard we know is functioning, how it should.
And so that counter will update every time the Arduino goes through the loop and so I can verify that it's still moving along.
Then we're going to write all of this through the display again until until you actually call that display function.
This is simply in memory, so display dot the display function.
This then writes all of this data from the old lady's memory onto the O led screen, and that's all we need in order to write to the screen.
But the thing is again when you're looking at you user interface and user experience design won the issues with the AU led screen is how teeny tiny it is.
It is a tie and a tiny screen again, literally 128 by 64 pixels.
That's not very big, so one of the problems is is it prints everything out.
But you know if if all you're going to do is have an output that's on the screen itself.
It's very likely nobody's going to see it right.
If you have a teeny tiny screen with teeny tiny text, even Fuller and alert pops up on the screen.
There's a good chance nobody's going to see it.
So I want something that will call somebody's attention to the screen that there's a problem.
So basically, the question is, is how How does yard we know?
Get somebody's attention to say, Hey, there's a problem.
There's a problem and that's where we're going to go and use the green and the red L E D's so under.
Once we print it out to the display, we're going to simply doing if else statement.
So if the gateway result is less than zero, so basically, if it is negative, wants a negative one negative, too negative, three of its in the negatives.
What we're going to want to have happen is we're wondering what the red led like to turn on, and obviously the green led like to turn off.
So, basically, if it's less than zero now, I have seen some people when they do the code where they say less than or equal to zero.
When I found, though, is that many times when you get a zero millisecond response time, the network device is actually still working, and so is really when it's negative one, right?
So it's in the negatives.
So if the gateway result is less than zero or the server result is less than zero or the ghoul result is less than zero, or this salesforce result is less than zero, then turned the green led off turn the red led on medals.
So basically, if it's anything above zero or above, then digital right, we're going to turn the green led on green led high digital right Red led low or I turn the red led off, and then we're going to delay for 5000 milliseconds or five seconds, and then it's just going to continue to loop through.
So this is the code that we're dealing with.
So with that, let me upload this code to the yard.
We know and I can show you how this works.
Okay, so I have a zoomed in so that we hopefully can see what's going on with the AU led screen again.
It's a teeny tiny 128 by 64 0 led screen.
So it's pretty small.
And that's why we're using the green and red led us here to try to bring our attention to the screen.
If there is a problems, we could take a look.
If it's green led, we know there's no problems, nothing to worry about.
It's relative, right?
Led.
We're gonna come over and take a look at the screen.
So let me plug this thing in, okay?
And so initially, right now, we're getting someone's gobbledygook.
So when you, uh, initially boot up the oil lady screen, sometimes you get this as the yard we know is loading its code.
So just wait a second.
There we go.
We got our splash screen and so we can see RS s i d or I p r.
Seven a and our gateway.
That then goes into the actual testing itself.
So you see the gateway, the local server, the Google Server and Salesforce.
So gateway, we intense a millisecond response time.
Now, zero local servers 10.
Google's 20 Salesforce's 20 and you can see that going up and down every five seconds as this loops through.
Now, since you can see, everything is zero or above.
Then the green led light is on.
And again, I have this little counter down here.
Guess so.
I can verify that the code is actually running that D Arduino hasn't somehow got locked up.
You see how that just keeps ticking along?
That's one of those little troubleshooting routines that I build into projects like this just to make sure that something hasn't gotten locked up.
So with that just verified that everything is working, What I'm going to do is I'm going to turn off the WiFi on my laptop here so again with local server that has the i.
P.
Address of my laptop.
So I'm simply going to go here.
I'm going to turn off the WiFi on my laptop and then in a couple of seconds, five seconds like that keeps looping through and the next next time it goes to Ping, There we go.
We see there's a problem, and that happened literally that quickly so us.
We can see that the gateways find zero and see Google's find all that.
But then, for the local server, we can see we're getting the negative one to say that there's a problem there.
So that way the red led you can go off and go, Oh, let me see what's happening.
I come up here, I think, and then read what's going on with the ol lady Scream and try to figure out what the problem is.
Now, let's say is like Oops, it was just an autopsy, right?
Somebody disconnected the server for some reason.
So if I turn on the WiFi, we can see this is gonna take a couple of seconds.
So the wife I will get turned on.
And then again, after about five seconds, it'll go through the ping process and then hopefully there we go.
It goes back to being green.
So the server of the server is now back up and running again.
We're now getting a local server reply, a millisecond reply time.
It's currently zero.
Now it's pretty high.
670 but we can see that it is now reachable.
So this is just how you can have his automatic little network tester.
Little server tester.
It can be continuously running on.
It can alert you if there's any problems.
So there you go.
That's how you can build your own continuous network and server tester using a nard we know you know, with WiFi.
Basically, just using that WiFi dot peeing function to ping whatever domain names or I p addresses you want to.
So you could be pinging multiple different servers within your network.
Multiple servers outside of your network.
You can print out whatever you want onto the ol lady screen.
And then again, you could even trigger led lights or buzzers or whatever else you want to have happen if there's a problem.
So this is one of the reasons that I think are DWI knows.
They're very cool.
There are some people out there that are hardly knows, not really technology.
Uh, let me tell you, back when I used to support businesses, if that's little device, I could get suction cup of the wall, and you could just turn on led lights whenever there was a problem connecting different servers, that would have actually been a very useful, very valuable to May.
So I do think that this is a nifty Nate thing again.
If you're working in the help desk environment, if you're working to desktop support environment, just go out there find the different servers that you're users need to use throughout the day.
Plug all that information into a project like this, have different outputs for, you know, if if if you're not able to ping to those things and that could be a great resource for you again to start to realize that there is a problem before before the user start coming to you the other thing too again with those if l statements, something you then you may want to dio is if the millet millisecond response times are too high.
That may also be showing that there's some type of problem.
So with this, I'm just simply showing you when the servers are down.
So if the server completely has no connective ity, then the red led obviously goes off.
One thing to be thinking about is, if you're dealing with servers a lot of times, the server doesn't go all the way down.
Is just performance really gets pretty crappy.
And so you could have some type of threshold in here.
Not only is it below zero, you get a red light goes off, but maybe if it goes above 1000 a yellow light turns on you can go.
Okay, I know we can still connect to the server, but obviously there's some kind of network problems, and that's one of the issues you run into in the real world, with users where users can get to a website.
But then they try to upload something, or they try to download, you know, trying to interact with the website and there on the Web site within crap keeps failing for some reason, especially things like VPN servers.
Imagine if you have a VPN server.
People are trying to connect the VPN server.
They're able to get the initial connection, but it keeps dropping.
You're trying to figure out what's going on again, that middle second response time.
You may be like, Oh, there's something going on with the network.
Let me go and see what's happening.
What you might find is maybe your main network connection to the VP and server that has gone down for some reason, and everything's getting routed through some like weird ass back up connection that was installed 20 years ago.
He's in some crappy 10 100 hub, right?
So those are some of things to be thinking about If you're gonna be building little, we know projects like this and again how this could be useful in the real world.
And then also somebody think about is if you have a teeny, tiny screen again if you have a teeny tiny oil, any screen and love these oil lady screens because they could give you a lot of information.
But there were that small.
That's all right.
If you just put this on the wall, nobody.
Nobody's ever gonna look at it right.
And so again, one of things to be thinking about with these projects is what?
What can you use to bring people's attention to a screen if there's a problem?
Okay, the screen is so small.
Okay, again, there was led lights or a buzzer or something like that to say, Hey, there's a problem here and then you can come and go, Oh, crap, There's a problem.
Let me figure out what's going on.
So anyway, that was That was the project for today.