CitofonoWeb is a low-cost system to control doors with some hardware authentication module (MSR, RFID reader, keyboard, etc...) developed for the Raspberry Pi. It has some modules to perform various actions and/or support more devices. It should work with any pc with some GPIOs and at least an USB port with some tuning.

The basic workflow is simple: it monitors a HID device, and if an allowed sequence is received, it opens the door (you should configure how). You can change the configuration to read from serial device instead of HID, to switch from GPIO output to PiFace output and many more.

The default CitofonoWeb module needs a database to store users and keys. You can choose at compile time the database with the BACKEND directive: "mysql" or "sqlite".

• Sqlite is the best choice for a single unit with rare changes: it is a local database only, very lightweight, but editing isn't straightforward.
• MySql is the best choice for a large number of units: you can connect them to a remote database and manage the configuration from a single place.

There is a step-by-step guide for Raspbian and the PiFace: https://github.com/pierinz/citofonoweb/wiki/Installation-step-by-step-on-Raspbian-with-PiFace

Before you start dowloading, make sure you have all needed hardware & software.

• Hardware: a Raspberry Pi (or any board you like), a HID device, a board with relay (PiFace is a good choice)
• Software: libjson >= 0.11, sqlite3 or mysql, a working toolchain

On Debian you need those packages:

• libjson-dev
• libsqlite3-dev | libmysqlclient-dev (choose one)
• build-essential

You should choose which tools you need to open your door at compile time. By default you will get both gpio and piface tools, but you can exclude one with the DOOR_TOOLS directive. If you don't exclude the piface tools, they will be fetched and compiled from their repository. You should also choose a BACKEND as described before.

When you are ready, launch:

• make BACKEND=(yourbackend) DOOR_TOOLS=(toolsyouchoose)

If you are confortable with default values (BACKEND="sqlite" DOOR_TOOLS="gpio piface"), just run "make".

From version 0.3 the daemon aims to run as simple user instead of root. So it won't create the pidfile anymore (the initscript will create it). To get the previous behaviour add OPTIONS=-DMK_PIDFILE, so the daemon will create the pidfile. Ensure to have write access, or it will crash. If you are using systemd or you don't like the logfile, you can disable and redirect all messages to stdout with OPTIONS=-DNO_LOGFILE.

When "make" has terminated, you can install with "make install".

The default configuration file is /etc/badge_daemon/badge_daemon.conf, the documentation is inside it. You can split the configuration for "door_open" or the other modules if you like it.

The "source" directive in the configuration file by default use the hid_read program. You can tune various parameters, run "hid_read -h" to get an extended explanation.

Briefly, you have to change the device path (look in /dev/input/by-id/ for your device). If you have a cheap and buggy device, you can tune "timeout" (-t) and "max_retry" (-r) parameters to get better results.

You can use different configuration files to get different instances of the same service.

• Edit configuration file
• Start badge_daemon

You can find a SysV initscript and a systemd unit in the "resources" folder. The initscript has the LSB header, so you can simply use "insserv" to enable it in the right runlevels. For convenience, "make install" will enable the daemon at startup for you.

If you need other infos contact me and i'll add more documentation.