Iceland geology

I need some technical help, for the reason that I am not a programmer and I never have. I guess that I never am going to be one, since I lack the talent of doing numerical math (I possibly have dyscalculia).

I problem is this, I run a internal counter on my local server. This counter helps me by telling me the total number of earthquakes during the day, week, month and a year in Iceland, it is really useful when large earthquake swarm takes place.

I used Gentoo Linux on my server, but I have now moved over to FreeBSD for technical and practical reasons. The move to FreeBSD did work as I expected, with the exception of this counter, it does not work in FreeBSD, I do not get any reading to mrtg (the counter software). The script I have been testing work when run from command line, but when I run the cron job on them. Nothing more happens and no data is handed over to mrtg.

Here are the scripts,

#!/usr/local/bin/bash

#earthquake count shell V0.0.6

URL=”http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/eqlist.html”
TODAYSDATE=`date +%Y-%m-%d`
#TODAYSDATE=`date +%Y/%m/%d`
#TODAYSDATE=`date +%Y-%m-%d`

COUNT=`lynx -dump ${URL} | grep ${TODAYSDATE} | grep -vi updated | wc -l`
#COUNT=`wget -O ${URL} | grep ${TODAYSDATE} | grep -vi updated | wc -l`
echo ${COUNT}
echo ${COUNT}
#echo ${COUNT}
#echo “uptime”
#echo “hostname”

exit 0

This script does not give me any error, but no data is handed over to mrtg as it did in Gentoo Linux. I do not know why that it and I have been unable to resolve this issue.

The second script I was testing is this one here, more details and discussions can be found here on FreeBSD forum.

#!/usr/local/bin/bash

#earthquake count shell V0.0.7

URL=”http://hraun.vedur.is/ja/englishweb/eqlist.html”
TODAY=`date +%Y-%m-%d`
HOURS=`date +%H`
MINUTES=`date +%M`
OUT=”$TODAY.txt”

NOW=`echo “($HOURS * 60) + $MINUTES” | bc`
EARTHNUM=`wget –quiet -O – $URL | grep $TODAY | grep -vci updated`

if [ $OUT ]; then
touch $OUT
fi

echo “$NOW $EARTHNUM” >> $OUT

exit 0

When run in mrtg, I get this error here. The script runs without a issue when run it from command line.

2013-05-20 22:46:09: WARNING: Could not get any data from external command ‘/usr/local/etc/mrtg/eq.imo.sh’
Maybe the external command did not even start. (Illegal seek)

2013-05-20 22:46:09: WARNING: Problem with External get ‘/usr/local/etc/mrtg/eq.imo.sh’:
Expected a Number for ‘in’ but nothing’

2013-05-20 22:46:09: WARNING: Problem with External get ‘/usr/local/etc/mrtg/eq.imo.sh’:
Expected a Number for ‘out’ but nothing’

2013-05-20 22:46:09: ERROR: Target[localhost_eq][_IN_] ‘ $target->[0]{$mode} ‘ did not eval into defined data
2013-05-20 22:46:09: ERROR: Target[localhost_eq][_OUT_] ‘ $target->[0]{$mode} ‘ did not eval into defined data

I am bit lost what is the issue here, since the script works from command line. If anyone out there has any idea what this might be. A help is most welcomed in this matter, since I am no programmer at all and I have little understanding on how to deal with this problem.

I guess that being broke has finally cached up with me. I have a failed power supply in my main server computer that I run locally. It handles several important jobs. One of the being a counter for earthquake activity in Iceland and Canary Islands (El Hierro volcano). This allows me to see if anything is taking place, estimating number of earthquakes if anything happens. A earthquake swarm is a good sample of what this helps me with. So my server computer is close to being mission critical for me in what I am doing.

What is failing is the power supply as I did say before. The part that is failing in the power supply it self is the main fan. It is making noise and not spinning properly, suggesting it is almost dead. I also am seeing that my current motherboard suffers from the capacitor plague. It still works. But it is going to end its life span once the capacitors finally blow or just plain out die.

What do I need. A power supply that looks like this. Sadly I cannot afford it. I am going to check with my bank and see what they say, but I might be able to work something out. I do not know yet if I am going to get a deal with my bank. Buf I do it is going to increase my current money issues, since it is going to increase my payments back to the bank and therefor lower my already almost non-existent money once I have paid all my bills and debt. It is clear that my money issue are going to continue for a good while longer it seems.

The price is, EUR 41.19 or 307.10DKK, or something like this on lower price. This is the price if anyone wants to donate towards me so that I can buy this.

I cannot turn on the server computer at the moment. Since I am afraid the power supply might damage the already weakened motherboard (due to bad capacitor on it) . I am going to keep my server computer off until I can replace the power supply. Regardless if that is going to take a short or a long time. If I manage to buy a new power supply, it is going to take a few days until I can get it. The future plan for the sever computer is to get it compact and without any fans and such things if possible. Since it is not under heavy load and is only serving my internal network in several ways, including handing out local IP numbers and my IPv6 connection to the internet.

Thanks for the help.

Update 1: There is little help to get from my bank. Because I am really, really broke. This is going to be pain for me.

Blog post updated at 11:29 UTC on 30.04.2013.