Files
MeterVault/README.md
T
schmidt.florian 9eb3f7d53c
ci / build-test (push) Successful in 1m9s
Update: add an opt-in "Update now" button, gated on an API key
Adds the button, plus POST /api/v1/system/update for driving it from Home
Assistant or curl. Both pull the latest source, rebuild and restart the service.

The gating is the substance of this change. The updater builds whatever is on
the branch and the LXC runs MeterVault as root, so triggering it is
root-equivalent on that host, and the web UI has no login — "reachable from the
dashboard" alone would mean any device on the network could take the machine.
Three independent conditions must hold before anything runs: the operator set
MeterVault__AllowInAppUpdate, at least one API key is configured, and the caller
presented one, compared in constant time so retries cannot time out the key.

AllowAnonymousApi cannot reach it. That flag opens reads, and opening reads must
not open root, so the endpoint checks the presented key itself rather than
relying on the shared group filter that honours it. Availability is re-checked
inside LaunchAsync rather than trusting the caller to have done so.

The UI button asks for the key every time instead of remembering it: with no
login, a browser left open on the dashboard would otherwise be a standing
permission to execute code on the host. The key is cleared from component state
immediately, and a wrong key and a keyless deployment give the same message so
an unauthenticated caller cannot tell them apart.

Launched detached through systemd-run: the updater restarts the service, so a
child process would be killed part-way through, leaving the app down with a
half-published build. --collect reaps the transient unit so a later update is
not blocked by the remains of the previous one.

Off by default, and where there is no /usr/bin/update — a container, a dev box —
it reports that rather than half-running something. Tests pin every refusal,
including through the real HTTP pipeline; none of them launch anything.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01V6joyergfvVLFEizH1hJLd
2026-07-18 20:23:47 +02:00

156 lines
8.9 KiB
Markdown
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters
This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.
# MeterVault
A self-hosted, local-first **energy & utility metering platform**. MeterVault pulls meter data
from Home Assistant, Tasmota and raw MQTT on a schedule, stores every reading timestamped and
immutable, normalizes it into consumption, and turns it into cost dashboards. Energy types
(electricity, water, heating oil, gas, district heat, …) and meters are **user-defined — nothing
is hardcoded**.
Successor to a hand-maintained *Energiebilanz* spreadsheet. See [`docs/SDD.md`](docs/SDD.md) for the
full design.
## Features
- **Automatic ingestion** from MQTT/Tasmota (persistent subscriptions) and Home Assistant (REST
poll or push), plus manual entry, a REST push API, and CSV import.
- **Immutable raw readings** on a TimescaleDB hypertable; a normalized, append-only **consumption**
layer on top — reproducible, auditable.
- **Seven measurement modes** (cumulative/generation registers, burner runtime, tank/consumable,
direct delta, instant rate, virtual). Handles meter swaps, counter resets, tank dip-sticks with
calibration, and **virtual meters** defined by an expression (PV self-consumption, savings, net).
- **Tariff engine** with time-ranged price history (unit/base/feed-in), scoped global / per type /
per meter; **cost categories** decoupled from energy types; meterless manual costs.
- **Continuous aggregates** (daily/monthly/yearly, local timezone) so dashboards never scan raw.
- **Dashboard**: cost KPIs with period-over-period deltas, "what costs most", a "what cost more/
less" difference view, trends, a **PV/Solar panel** (generation, self-consumption, autarky %,
savings), an **oil/consumable panel** (tank gauge, deliveries, burner runtime, effective L/h,
forecast-to-empty) and a **per-meter detail view** (raw readings, consumption, sources, tariff
timeline, events), one-click reference-data load, CSV dry-run.
- **Per-energy-type flow pages** (Electricity, Water, …): a **Sankey diagram** of the meter chain —
a downstream meter is a *subsection* of an upstream one (main → car, pool, garden, …), arrow
thickness ∝ amount, with an auto-computed "Other/unmetered" remainder. Meters can have several
upstreams (a merge, e.g. grid + solar → house).
- **Admin UI**: full create/edit/delete for energy types, meters (with consumption recompute on
mode/baseline change, and cycle-safe upstream-meter wiring), ingest sources, tariffs, cost
categories, and MQTT/Home-Assistant connectors; a "Test connection" for Home Assistant;
effective-settings view.
- **REST API + OpenAPI/Swagger**, API-key auth, reverse-proxy trust (Authelia/Traefik).
- **JSON config export/import** for portability; Docker Compose + multi-arch image.
## Quick start (Docker)
```bash
docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.yml up -d
# open http://localhost:8760 → Import → "Load reference data" for a populated demo
# ...or start pre-populated: METERVAULT_SEED=true docker compose -f deploy/docker-compose.yml up -d
# API docs at http://localhost:8760/swagger
```
## Quick start (Proxmox VE LXC)
A community-scriptsstyle installer builds a self-contained LXC (Debian + PostgreSQL/TimescaleDB +
the app as a systemd service). Run **on the Proxmox host**:
```bash
bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://git.finalfactory.de/FinalFactory/MeterVault/raw/branch/master/deploy/ct/metervault.sh)"
```
It asks the standard container questions, optionally loads the demo dataset, and prints the URL
(`http://<ct-ip>:8760`) plus the generated DB password. Re-run `update` inside the container to pull
the latest source and rebuild. It builds from this public Gitea repo (there is no prebuilt tarball —
releases ship as a container image). See [`deploy/ct/metervault.sh`](deploy/ct/metervault.sh) and
[`deploy/install/metervault-install.sh`](deploy/install/metervault-install.sh).
Configuration is via environment variables (`Section__Key` double-underscore mapping), e.g.:
| Variable | Purpose |
|----------|---------|
| `ConnectionStrings__Default` | PostgreSQL/Timescale connection string |
| `MeterVault__TimeZone` | Local timezone for buckets/display (default `Europe/Berlin`) |
| `MeterVault__ApiKeys__0` | An API key accepted on the `X-Api-Key` header |
| `MeterVault__AllowAnonymousApi` | `true` to open the REST API without a key (trusted LAN only) |
| `MeterVault__ReverseProxyTrust` | `true` to honour `X-Forwarded-User` behind an auth proxy |
| `MeterVault__EnableLiveIngestion` | `false` to disable the MQTT/HA workers |
| `MeterVault__SeedReferenceData` | `true` to load the bundled demo dataset on first start (idempotent) |
| `MeterVault__DataProtectionKeyPath` | Where the key ring for UI-entered connector secrets lives (default `/var/lib/metervault/keys`) |
| `MeterVault__UpdateCheckEnabled` | `false` to stop the dashboard checking for a newer release |
| `MeterVault__AllowInAppUpdate` | `true` to allow updates triggered from the UI/API — grants root-equivalent access to anyone with an API key; see below |
| `MeterVault__UpdateCheckUrl` | Tag listing consulted by that check (repoint at a fork; blank also disables it) |
The REST API is **closed by default**: with no `ApiKeys` configured and `AllowAnonymousApi` off, it
returns 401. Set at least one API key (or open it explicitly for a trusted network).
> **The web UI has no authentication.** There is no login: anything that can reach the port can read
> and change everything, including connectors and their stored secrets. Put it behind a reverse proxy
> with auth (Authelia, Traefik forward-auth, …) — `MeterVault__ReverseProxyTrust` then honours the
> user header — or keep it on a trusted network.
The dashboard compares the running build against the newest tag in the source repository and shows a
banner when it is behind. That is a plain GET of a public tag list — nothing about the instance is
sent — cached for six hours, and it never blocks or fails a page render. Turn it off with
`MeterVault__UpdateCheckEnabled=false`.
### Updating from the UI (opt-in)
`MeterVault__AllowInAppUpdate=true` adds an **Update now** button to that banner, and a
`POST /api/v1/system/update` endpoint for scripting it from Home Assistant or `curl`:
```bash
curl -X POST http://metervault:8760/api/v1/system/update -H "X-Api-Key: $METERVAULT_API_KEY"
```
Both pull the latest source, rebuild, and restart the service — a few minutes during which MeterVault
is unavailable. Readings are untouched; ingestion resumes on restart. LXC only: containers are
replaced by pulling a new image, and the endpoint reports that rather than pretending.
> **Understand what this grants before enabling it.** The updater builds whatever is on the branch,
> and the LXC runs MeterVault as **root** — so a valid API key becomes arbitrary code execution on
> that host. Three things must all hold before anything runs: the opt-in above, at least one
> configured API key, and a caller presenting one. In particular `MeterVault__AllowAnonymousApi` can
> **never** reach it — opening reads must not open root — and the UI button asks for the key every
> time rather than remembering it, because the UI itself has no login. Leave this off unless the UI
> is behind an authenticating proxy or on a network you fully trust.
Secrets (broker/HA tokens) are **never** stored in the database as plaintext. Each connector picks
one of two forms: the *name* of an environment variable, resolved at runtime, or the secret typed
into the admin UI and encrypted at rest under the data-protection key ring. Either way a `pg_dump`
or JSON export carries nothing usable.
Keep the key ring on persistent storage outside the app directory — the default
`/var/lib/metervault/keys` survives an LXC update, and the Compose file mounts a named volume for it.
Lose it and every UI-entered secret must be re-entered. The key ring is on disk, so this protects
against leaked database content, not against an attacker who already has the host; that is the same
trust boundary an environment variable has.
## Pushing readings (Home Assistant)
```bash
curl -X POST http://localhost:8760/api/v1/readings \
-H "X-Api-Key: $METERVAULT_API_KEY" -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '[{"meterId": 1, "time": "2026-01-01T12:00:00Z", "value": 47200}]'
```
See [`docs/wiring.md`](docs/wiring.md) for wiring up Tasmota, MQTT and Home Assistant.
## Development
```bash
dotnet build
dotnet test # integration tests spin a TimescaleDB via Testcontainers (needs Docker)
dotnet test tests/Core.Tests # fast unit tests, no Docker
dotnet run --project src/App
```
Architecture, project layout and conventions live in [`CLAUDE.md`](CLAUDE.md).
## Releasing
Edit the [`VERSION`](VERSION) file on `master`; Gitea Actions tags `vX.Y.Z` and builds/pushes a
multi-arch image to the Gitea container registry (`.gitea/workflows/`). Locally:
`pwsh deploy/build-and-push.ps1 -Registry git.finalfactory.de -Image finalfactory/metervault -Push`.
Requires a Docker-capable `act_runner`; the image build itself is self-contained.
## License
Not yet chosen (see SDD §14). Add a `LICENSE` before the first public tag.