Raspberry Pi and Belkin WeMo Switch: Restart Fritzbox if no Internet connection

I am using my Raspberry Pi to check if my Internet connection is still working. If the connection to the Internet fails, my Internet router (Fritzbox) should automatically be restarted. For that I am using a Belkin WeMo Switch which can be controlled from the Raspberry Pi via a Python.

First you need to install Python and the ouimeaux library. I used the directions from this website.

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sudo apt-get install gcc-4.8 gcc-4.8-base python-setuptools python-dev

sudo easy_install ouimeaux

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This takes some time, so be patient.

After the WeMo support for Python has been installed, you can use the “wemo” command e.g. from inside a shell script.

I created the following script and saved it as “/home/pi/checkInternetAccess.sh”:

 

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#!/bin/bash
# Check if Internetaccess is working and restart Fritzbox if this is not the case
# MU / 2015-02-23-1656
logger -t "WEMO FRITZBOX" "Check Internet access ..."
# Trying to reach "google.de"
/usr/bin/wget -q --tries=5 --timeout=10 --spider http://google.de
if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
      # "google.de" was successfully reached
      logger -t "WEMO FRITZBOX" "Internet access OK - Nothing to do ..."
   else
      # "google.de" could not be reached. We assume broken Internet connection
      logger -t "WEMO FRITZBOX" "Internet access not working ..."
      logger -t "WEMO FRITZBOX" "Switch off Fritzbox ..."
      # Clear the device cache
      python /usr/local/bin/wemo clear >nul
      # Turn WeMo switch with name "FRITZBOX" off
      python /usr/local/bin/wemo switch "FRITZBOX" off
      # Wait for one minute so that the Fritzbox can cool down a bit ;-)
      sleep 1m
      # Now turn on the WeMo switch again
      logger -t "WEMO FRITZBOX" "Switch Fritzbox on again ..."
      python /usr/local/bin/wemo switch "FRITZBOX" on
      # Wait for 4 minutes (my Fritzbox needs about 3 minutes until it rebootet and reconnected to the Internet)
      sleep 4m
      # Now try again if the Internet connections is working ...
      /usr/bin/wget -q --tries=5 --timeout=20 --spider http://google.de
      if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
         logger -t "WEMO FRITZBOX" "Internet access OK again after restart of Fritzbox ..."
      else
         logger -t "WEMO FRITZBOX" "Internet access still not working after restart of Fritzbox ..."
      fi
   fi
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This script is called by cron every 30 minutes. For that I created the following cron entry with “contab -e”:

 

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# Check Internet access and restart Fritzbox if needed
*/30 * * * * /home/pi/checkInternetAccess.sh
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The output via the “logger” command will be written to “/var/log/messages”. So every 30 minutes you should see in that file what the script is doing.

I also activated the Raspberry Pi hardware watchdog so that the Pi will be restarted as well if hangs for some reason.