ZeroDash

Description

This is a simple project that shows basic stats on Adafruit Mini PiTFT display (on ST7789 controller). Currently designed specifically for Adafruit Mini PiTFT - 135x240 Color TFT Add-on for Raspberry Pi and Raspbery Pi Zero running PiHole DNS Ads Blocker to show you basic stats.

It uses:

• WiringPi to communicate with display/buttons
• GD library to draw and write text
• Curl to call PiHole API
• nlohmann/json to parse API json response

Example

Main screen. Displays Date and Time

Pressed Button A. Displays system stats for 10 seconds, then resets back to main screen

System stats:

• IP Address
• Load for 1/5/15 mins
• Memory used/total
• Disk space used/total
• CPU Temperature

Pressed Button B. Displays PiHole stats for 10 seconds, then resets back to main screen

PiHole Stats

• IP Address
• Hostname
• Total Ads blocked
• Total Clients
• Total DNS Queries
• Number of cached domains

Installation

Prerequisites

WiringPi installation

mkdir ~/wiringPi && cd ~/wiringPi

# 32 bit release Bookworm, Pi Zero 1, all 32 bit systems
wget https://github.com/WiringPi/WiringPi/releases/download/3.14/wiringpi_3.14_armhf.deb
sudo apt install ./wiringpi_3.14_armhf.deb

# 64 bit release Bookworm, PI Zero 2 and all other 64 bit systems
#wget https://github.com/WiringPi/WiringPi/releases/download/3.14/wiringpi_3.14_arm64.deb
#sudo apt install ./wiringpi_3.14_arm64.deb

Enable SPI

sudo raspi-config

Go to Interface Options, select SPI and enable it

Installation of all dependencies

sudo apt update
sudo apt install --no-install-recommends -y \
 libgd-dev curl libcurl4-openssl-dev nlohmann-json3-dev cmake

Compilation

mkdir -p ~/ZeroDash/src && cd ~/ZeroDash/src

copy/clone all code in this folder

Then compile:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .
cp build/{ZeroDash,default.conf} ../../ && cd ../../

Configuration

Now it needs to get API Password. It can be done by going to PiHole Web UI -> Web Interface API Settings. Switch to Basic->Expert, then in Advance Setting block click on "Configure app password". Generate and enable new app password.

Now open default.conf, configure apiServerUri and apiServerPassword parameters. Should be something like that:

> cat default.conf
#
# PiHole server
# example: http://localhost, http://192.168.0.3
apiServerUri=http://localhost
#
# PiHole password, app password, token
apiServerPassword=<APP_PASSWORD_HERE>

Make it run on boot

Open/create rc.local

> sudo nano /etc/rc.local

and add command to run on boot. Should be like that:

> cat /etc/rc.local
#!/bin/sh -e

su user -c 'sleep 60 && cd ~/ZeroDash && ./ZeroDash' &

exit 0

Replace user and adjust sleep time if clocks doesn't run after reboot, give more time to run all services before starting ZeroDash

Bonus. Configuration steps to setup pi from scratch

##### system update #####
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y

##### PiHole intallation #####

# https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole/#one-step-automated-install
curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

##### installing WiringPi #####

mkdir ~/wiringPi && cd ~/wiringPi
# 32 bit release Bookworm, Pi Zero 1, all 32 bit systems
wget https://github.com/WiringPi/WiringPi/releases/download/3.14/wiringpi_3.14_armhf.deb
sudo apt install ./wiringpi_3.14_armhf.deb

# 64 bit release Bookworm, PI Zero 2 and all other 64 bit systems
#wget https://github.com/WiringPi/WiringPi/releases/download/3.14/wiringpi_3.14_arm64.deb
#sudo apt install ./wiringpi_3.14_arm64.deb

sudo raspi-config
# go to Interface Options, select SPI and enable it

##### dependencies #####

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends -y \
 libgd-dev curl libcurl4-openssl-dev nlohmann-json3-dev cmake

##### compilation #####

# compile
mkdir -p ~/ZeroDash/src && cd ~/ZeroDash/src
# copy code here
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
cmake --build .
cp build/{ZeroDash,default.conf} ../../ && cd ../../

##### configuration #####

# go to PiHole Web UI -> Web Interface API Settings. 
# Switch to Bacic->Expert, in Advance Setting block click on "Configure app password". 
# Generate and enable new app password.
# open default.conf, configure apiServerUri and apiServerPassword parameters

##### run on boot #####

sudo nano /etc/rc.local
8<----cut-----
#!/bin/sh -e

su user -c 'sleep 60 && cd ~/ZeroDash && ./ZeroDash' &

exit 0
8<----cut-----

Acknowledgments

• Inspired by Adafruit CircuitPython RGBDisplay python library
• Very helpful display configuration info