Using a Newport Electronics iTHX-SD with MRTG and external script

I recently purchased an iTHX-SD which I planned to use to monitor temperature and humidity measurements in my server and communications closet. I thought I would be able to query the device via snmp from an mrtg daemon running on one of my servers, so I could just add a chart to the several bandwidth monitoring charts created by mrtg. However, upon more careful reading, I discovered that, while the device does support some snmp queries, it doesn't support acquiring the temperature and humidity measurements via snmp.

I am sure someone else who is more fluent in bash and/or perl or other scripting language might be able to provide more elegant and robust methods, but I wasn't able to find anything on the internet related to using the iTHX-SD with mrtg and external scripts. I went ahead and developed my own version, which has been in operation for a couple of days with reasonable results.

The mrtg.cfg configuration for the ITHX-SD is as follows:

Target[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: `/data/usr/local/bin/get_ithxsd.sh`
MaxBytes[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: 100
WithPeak[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: wmy
Unscaled[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: dwmy
Title[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: ITHX-SD1
PageTop[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: <h1>ITHX-SD1</h1>
Options[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: gauge, nopercent, unknaszero
YLegend[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: RH(%),Temp(�F)
ShortLegend[ithxsd1_humidtemp]:
Colours[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: GREEN#00eb0c,BLUE#0000ff,GRAY#AAAAAA,VIOLET#ff00ff
Legend1[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: Humidity
Legend2[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: Temperature
Legend3[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: Peak Value of Humidity
Legend4[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: Peak Value of Temperature
LegendI[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: RH(%)
LegendO[ithxsd1_humidtemp]: Temp(�F)

The script get_ithxsd.sh is as follows:

#!/bin/bash
humidity=0
temperature=0
temptest=`{ echo "*SRTF"; sleep 0.2; } | telnet 10.1.4.61 2000 2> /dev/null | egrep "^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+"`
humtest=`{ echo "*SRH"; sleep 0.2; } | telnet 10.1.4.61 2000 2> /dev/null | egrep  "^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+"`
if [[ $humtest =~ [0-9]+\.[0-9]+ ]]
then
        humidity=$humtest
else
        humtest=`{ echo "*SRH"; sleep 0.2; } | telnet 10.1.4.61 2000 2> /dev/null | egrep  "^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+"`
        if [[ $humtest =~ [0-9]+\.[0-9]+ ]]
        then
                humidity=$humtest
        fi
fi
if [[ $temptest =~ [0-9]+\.[0-9]+ ]]
then
        temperature=$temptest
else
        temptest=`{ echo "*SRTF"; sleep 0.2; } | telnet 10.1.4.61 2000 2> /dev/null | egrep "^[0-9]+\.[0-9]+"`
        if [[ $temptest =~ [0-9]+\.[0-9]+ ]]
        then
                temperature=$temptest
        fi
 fi
echo $humidity
echo $temperature
echo 0
echo 0

Comparing Sourdough Fermentation Strategies

I thought it would be interesting to compare four different approaches to sourdough fermentation. I've baked four test loaves, each with 500 grams total flour (using a 50/50 blend of Heartland Mill Strong Bread Flour and Heartland Mill Golden Buffalo for a blended ash content around .85%), 72% overall hydration, and 2% salt. All loaves started with 18 grams 80% hydration white flour storage starter.

Home Milled and Sifted Wheat Montana Sourdough

Reconstituted Whole Grain Mash Bread

Flour Milling Lab Results

In order to fine tune my milling and sifting process, I ran a series of tests at different mill coarseness settings to see which setting might result in the best separation of bran from endosperm. I then ran a successive reduction multi-pass milling and sifting process at what appeared to be the best first pass settings and sent samples of all these tests to CII Labs to see what some of the ash content, protein content, and dough rheology might be. I also sent in some samples of Heartland Mill flours to use as a reference, since these are the types of flour I would like to emulate with my home milling process. In fact, I use Heartland Mill Hard Red Spring Wheat Berries in all these milling tests.

Accidental Sourdough Starter

As I conducted my home ash content tests during the latest home milling and sifting session, a sourdough starter was accidentally started. The home ash content test involves mixing 5 grams of flour with 100 grams of distilled water, stirring it periodically, and measuring the conductivity of the water until it stabilizes, about 24 hours later. All of that time was spent at about 69F, the temperature of my kitchen in the winter. I noticed a familiar smell, something like yogurt, that was reminiscent of the early stages of some of the starter starting experiments I have conducted in the past. The pH was measured and, sure enough it was around 3.4 for all the jars I was testing, even though the jars had various flours including Heartland Mill AP, Golden Buffalo, and whole wheat, as well as various flours from my milling and sifting experiment.

Home Milled and Sifted Sourdough