There seems to be a hacker maxim that whatever gadget you are working with, it would be better to have several of them running together. That might explain the ESP8266 web server farm that [Eldon Brown] has built. Yup, a web server farm made from three of everyone’s favorite WiFi dongle, the humble ESP8266.
Eldon’s server farm is currently serving web pages here, running on three ESP8266 boards. Or it was before this posting reduced it to a smoking ruin (screenshot below just in case). Each module is running a dynamic web page and some clever programming he came up with that makes transferring data over these cheap devices quicker.
His page isn’t anything too fancy but it is impressive considering it is running on about $30 worth of hardware, including the breadboard it is wired into. The page includes dynamically-generated graphics and some back-end stuff. I don’t think that it will replace any LAMP servers anytime soon (the ESP8266 took about 2.6 seconds to generate the page below), but it is an impressive hack. [Eldon] has made the full code of the web server that is running the pages available. So, lets add web server farm to the list of things that this neat little device can handle, next to plant weigher, Bitcoin price tracker, MP3 player and many more…
Thanks to [PuceBaboon] for the tip!
Well, it isn’t a smoking ruin quite yet…
What? 3 ESP8266s can’t serve all of the HaD audience clicks? I’M OUTRAGED!
I know, he should have built it out of a bunch of 555’s.
+1 :-)
For the other devices in my Esp Farm (and bench), use PORT: 8162, 8168, 8169 and/or 8172 (note: one of these will also be also connected to the generic 8160 port). Note: one or more may not be working at any point in time, try one of the others.
http://dc02.ebcon.com:8160/
http://dc02.ebcon.com:8162/
http://dc02.ebcon.com:8168/
http://dc02.ebcon.com:8168/
http://dc02.ebcon.com:8172/
http://dc02.ebcon.com:8169/
VERY GOOD, The Esp8266 did better than expected !!
The onslaught and mayhem on my ERB-EspWebServer resulting from the HACKADAY post was (and is still is) entertaining.
I have not assembled all of the load and connection data yet, but will post it when I can.
NOTE: if I have known that HACKADAY was going to post the info, I would have better prepared my Esp8266 Web Server Farm. As it was, I was doing some work on the Farm, and only had ONE Esp (nod169) working at the time. I would have had some kind of Round Robin Port forwarding implemented for the three Farm systems, which would have provided a much better user experience.
As it was, I re-compiled the ERB-EspWebServer Code three times during the first hour (or two) of the onslaught, I made changes to the Home Page AutoRefresh rate (to 120Sec), and implemented a “lost connection” Flush and Stop function.
The single (nod169) faithfully rebooted it self sever times and I had to power-reboot only a few times. I think the changes helped the Esp to keep up with most (some) of the connection requests.
Thanks for playing :-)
Eldon – WA0UWH
Internet user-storm hug of death. Nothing says “Hey, I like your stuff” like crashing it into the ground.
+many! Oh my, got a great belly laugh from the very humorous comment immediately above! :-)
Eldon, glad that your system held out. I wasn’t sure when this was going to run, so I couldn’t give you any warning. Thanks for the neat hack!
Two days later and it’s down already? I was kind of hoping to see what this was all about. :-(
I had to leave my shop for a day, and had to leave the single Esp to it own fate, and sure enough it crashed non-recoverablely from the network load.
I now (9/7 12:30 PST) just restarted the single Nod169, along with two others, at Port 8162 and 8172. Only one of which I will try to maintain as long as there is interest.
See at: http://dc02.ebcon.com:8160
Eldon – WA0UWH
Obligatory “…a beowulf cluster of ESP8266’s”
Well It’s dead now, but I will definitely try this out!
I am more impressed by all the stuff a single ESP can handle, otherwise the router delivering this traffic is probably more capable than quite a few ESPs.
Well done!