Track your weight with a CGI script and Go
Programming Snapshot – Go CGI Scripting
© Lead Image © mathias the dread, photocase.com
Mike Schilli steps on the scale every week and records his weight fluctuations as a time series. To help monitor his progress, he writes a CGI script in Go that stores the data and draws visually appealing charts.
Capturing datapoints, adding them to a time series, and showing values over time graphically is usually the domain of tools like Prometheus. The tool retrieves the status of monitored systems at regular intervals and stores the data as a time series. If outliers occur, the messenger of the gods alerts its human to the fact. Viewing tools such as Grafana display the collected time series in dashboards spread over the last week or year as graphs, if so desired, so that even senior managers can see at a glance what's going on in the trenches.
However, my el cheapo web host won't let me install arbitrary software packages for this purpose on my rented virtual server. Plus, maintaining such complicated products with their continuous updates would be too time consuming for me, anyway. However, there is a '90s-style CGI interface on the web server. How hard could it be to write a CGI program in Go that receives measured values via HTTPS like an API, formats the time series generated from them into an attractive chart, and sends the results back to the browser in PNG format? Let's find out.
Figure 1 shows the graph of a time series that outputs my weight in kilograms over the past few years (possibly embellished for this article) as a chart in the browser after pointing it to the URL on the server. The same CGI script also accepts new incoming data. For example, if my scale shows 82.5 kilograms one day, calling
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Nitrux 6.0 Now Ready to Rock Your World
The latest iteration of the Debian-based distribution includes all kinds of newness.
-
Linux Foundation Reports that Open Source Delivers Better ROI
In a report that may surprise no one in the Linux community, the Linux Foundation found that businesses are finding a 5X return on investment with open source software.
-
Keep Android Open
Google has announced that, soon, anyone looking to develop Android apps will have to first register centrally with Google.
-
Kernel 7.0 Now in Testing
Linus Torvalds has announced the first Release Candidate (RC) for the 7.x kernel is available for those who want to test it.
-
Introducing matrixOS, an Immutable Gentoo-Based Linux Distro
It was only a matter of time before a developer decided one of the most challenging Linux distributions needed to be immutable.
-
Chaos Comes to KDE in KaOS
KaOS devs are making a major change to the distribution, and it all comes down to one system.
-
New Linux Botnet Discovered
The SSHStalker botnet uses IRC C2 to control systems via legacy Linux kernel exploits.
-
The Next Linux Kernel Turns 7.0
Linus Torvalds has announced that after Linux kernel 6.19, we'll finally reach the 7.0 iteration stage.
-
Linux From Scratch Drops SysVinit Support
LFS will no longer support SysVinit.
-
LibreOffice 26.2 Now Available
With new features, improvements, and bug fixes, LibreOffice 26.2 delivers a modern, polished office suite without compromise.