FHEM Howto

Starting fhem

Skip this section if you installed fhem via the Debian package.

First install the Device::SerialPort (or Win32::SerialPort) perl module with the command "sudo cpan Device::SerialPort"
The default configuration will install fhem into /usr/bin, /usr/share/fhem and /var/log/fhem and /etc/fhem.cfg. Edit the Makefile to change this. To install & start fhem type:

      make install-pgm2
      perl /usr/bin/fhem.pl /etc/fhem.cfg

After starting, the logfile should look like:

      2008.06.15 16:17:03 2: FHEMWEB port 8083 opened
      2008.06.15 16:17:03 2: FHEMWEB port 8084 opened
      2008.06.15 16:17:03 0: Server started (version ...)

Attaching the USB device for the PC (CUL / FHZ1x00PC / EM1010PC)

Connect to fhem with an internet browser: http://localhost:8083/fhem or http://localhost:8084/fhem if you are using a small-screen browser (e.g a smartphone).

Attach the USB device (CUL, FHZ1000PC/FHZ1300, EM1010PC) to your computer, and look for the corresponding device in the /dev directory.
For CUL a file named /dev/ttyACM* will be created under Linux and /dev/cu.usbmodem* under OS X. Note the exact name of the device. Define it for fhem (by typing it in the "Fhem cmd" input field in the browser):

      define CUL1 CUL /dev/ttyACM0 1234

You can find details about CUL define parameters here.

The same is to be done for the FHZ with slightly different parameters:

      define FHZ1 FHZ /dev/ttyUSB0

For the FHZ on OSX you need to install the ftdi driver first from http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm, the device name will be /dev/cu.usbserial-xxxxxxxx.

Note: Don't forget to type "save" in the "Fhem cmd" input field of the browser after defining a device or setting its attribute. Otherwise the changes will disappear after the next start.

Automatically creating transmitters

The sample configuration file installed via "make install-pgm2" has configured an autocreate instance. This will automatically create fhem devices upon reception of a message from this device (typically a sensor like S300 or FHT). Just wait for a while, watch the log and re-check your browser for newly appeared devices. You can use rename to rename the automatically created device, e.g. type in the input field of the web frontend:

      rename FHT_1234 fht.kitchen

NOTE: you have to rename the device itself, the attached FileLog and weblink will be renamed automatically. The other way round (renaming the FileLog or weblink) does not work correctly right now.

Misc. RF transmitters (FS20/EM/S300 etc.)

autocreate will create automatically fhem FS20/EM/S300/HMS devices, the following description is for doing it manually.

Wait a while, until the transmitter sent some data. In the logfile (Browser window: "All together" -> Logs:Logfile:text) a line will appear:

      FS20 Unknown device <HOUSECODE, Button <BTN> Code <CDE>, please define it

Now define a device:

      define piri1 FS20 <HOUSECODE> <BTN>

Set the model attribute of the device:

      attr lamp1 model fs20piri

to get only the commands available for this device. Here is a complete list of FS20 models.
For other device-types similar messages should appear.

Configuring FS20 receivers

Configure the FS20 device in fhem first with:

      define lamp1 FS20 1234 56

Now press the button on the device for a while until its LED starts to blink. Click on the "on" link in the fhem window to send a command. The LED should terminate blinking, the device is programmed to housecode 1234, device code 56. You can also use the 4-base ELV notation. Now set the model attribute of the device:

      attr lamp1 model fs20st

to get only the commands available for this device. Here is a complete list of models.

Configuring FHT devices

Note: Creating a fhem FHT device automatically or manually does not imply that the CUL or the FHZ is paired with it. For this purpose you have to set the FHT to accept new "Cent" devices, and send a command to it (e.g. set fht.kitchen desired-temp 20)

autocreate will create automatically FHT devices, the following description is for doing it manually.

Wait for a while (2-5 mins) till the FHT is sending some signals. In the logfile ("All together" -> Logs:LogFile:text) a line should appear:


      FHZ1: Unknown FHT device detected, define one to get detailed information

Define your FHT device with an arbitrary code in order to load the FHT module, see this link for details:

      define MyFHT FHT  1111

The next message in the log will contain more details:

      FHT Unknown device <HOUSECODE>, please define it

Delete and create your device again:

      delete MyFHT
      define MyFHT FHT <HOUSECODE>

If there is no signal for a while, then check this FAQ entry.

Timed commands / Notification

To execute commands at a given time / periodically, you have to define devices of the type at. See the definition here and the examples here The last link only works if you are reading this HOWTO from your fhem Web.

To execute commands if a device sent a message you have to define devices of the type notify or watchdog. In order to understand the fhem events better you can open a telnet session to your fhem

      telnet localhost 7072

and type

      inform timer

Now you will receive in this telnet session all events, just like the notifies/watchdogs do. You can even simulate events by using the trigger command:

      trigger lamp1 on

FHEMWEB (pgm2) look and feel

It makes sense to group your devices into rooms by setting the room attribute. FHEMWEB puts devices without a room attribute into the "Unsorted" room. Devices in the room "hidden" will not be shown.

Set the title of the webpage by setting the title attribute of the global device ("All together" -> global)

Edit the colors / fonts by changing the style.css ("Edit files" -> style.css)

Further FHEMWEB attributes: webname, plotmode, plotsize.

Logging data

To log messages into files, define devices of the type FileLog. Autocreate will create logfiles for newly detected devices. To log messages into a database, see the contrib/dblog directory in the fhem distribution.

FHEMWEB has builtin support for displaying FileLog type logs as plots, see the plot section below.

The size of each logfile will be determined by its wildcard characters (year/month/week/day), look at the FileLog definition. Don't forget to enable archiving with the nrarchive or archivecmd attributes.

Plotting logs

Autocreate will create weblinks (i.e. plots) for newly detected devices. The following section describes how to do it manually.
To convert a log into a plot in FHEMWEB, set the logtype attribute of the corresponding FileLog. Take a look at the available gnuplot files in the "Edit files" section, they contain the corresponding FileLog definition example.
Note that the .gplot files are also used if you use SVG output and not the gnuplot backend!

When displaying the plot, you can convert it into a "weblink", which can in turn have a room attribute to group more than one Plot together. If the weblink refers to the current logfile, then it will be stored as a CURRENT weblink, and it will always display the most recent log (you do not have to redefine it if the logfile changes due to year/month/date parameters in its name).

The logs can be converted to a plot either with gnuplot (which must be installed and in your PATH), or via the builtin SVG module, in this case your internet browser must support SVG. Firefox, opera and the iPhone/Android borwser support SVG out of the box, Internet Explorer does it via the Adobe "SVG viewer" plugin. SVG mode is the default, to change it set the plotmode attribute to gnuplot or gnuplot-scroll.

In order to look at historic data, you can either convert at the archive entries to weblink in "plotmode=gnuplot" mode, or use the "plotmode=gnuplot-scroll" or "plotmode=SVG" modes. In the latter case you'll get the possibility to zoom or scroll in the plot.

Use the zoom and scroll icons at the top of the page.

The current time scope (day, week, month..) set at the overview page (containing weblinks) will also be used for graphics you open via links (current log or archive) - there are no zoom and scroll icons there.

Note: the gnuplot files must have #FileLog entries in order to be useable with scrolling, as the filtering happens with the FileLog get function, see the supplied gnuplot files for an example.

The order of the #FileLog lines need to match the corresponding 'awk'-(double-)lines!

It make sense to build large logfiles for scrolling in them (year resolution), or smaller ones if you do not want to use the zoom/scroll feature. The size of the logfiles will be determined by its wildcard characters (year/month/week/day), look at the FileLog definition. Don't forget to enable archiving with the archivedir or archivecmd attributes.

FHEMWEB tips

Click on the State link on the device page to get a documentation of all its settable values, similarly clicking on Attributes will guide you to the documentation of its attributes.

Password/HTTPS
These features are implemented by apache, and apache must be configured to redirect the page to 01_FHEMWEB.pm. For this purpose add the following lines to your httpd.conf:

      <Proxy *>
        AuthType Basic
        AuthName "Password Required"
        AuthUserFile /home/httpd/etc/passwd
        Require valid-user
        Allow from 127.0.0.1
      </Proxy>
      ProxyPass        /fhem  http://localhost:8083/fhem
      ProxyPassReverse /fhem  http://localhost:8083/fhem

and then restart httpd with apachectl graceful. To create the password file, execute
htpasswd -c /home/httpd/etc/passwd <username>
See also this fhemwiki entry for a more detailed description.

To enable HTTPS, please check the web. In essence:

• Edit httpd.conf, add:

        LoadModule ssl_module lib/apache/mod_ssl.so
        Include /etc/httpd/conf/ssl.conf

• Create a server certificate
• Start httpd with the startssl option (SSL or the like must be set in one of your system files, look at /etc/init.d/httpd).


To display "foreign" (non fhem) files as a plot or a just as plain text, configure a fake logfile with the correct filename and an unused regexp, e.g.


      define messages FileLog /var/log/messages fakelog

Complex structures

Put your devices in different rooms. You can now use the room=<roomname> specification to set different devices at once. See the devspec paragraph for details.
For more complex scenarios consider the structure module. You can define different structure levels like floors, buildings, etc. and set all elements of a given structure at once.