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NodeMCU-tool

NodeMCU-tool allows you to manage files (list, upload, download, delete) on an ESP8266 device. It also allows you to execute LUA code stored on an ESP8266 device.

Installation

You should have Node.js and Npm (better Yarn) installed on your machine. You can make a global installation, so that nodemcu-tool is available from any location on your machine:

$ npm install -g nodemcu-tool
$ nodemcu-tool --version
# 3.0.1

or you can install it locally in your project folder to avoid unnecessary pollution of your system:

$ npm init -y
$ npm install --save-dev nodemcu-tool
$ npx nodemcu-tool --version
# 3.0.1

Usage

Search for connected ESP8266 devices

$ nodemcu-tool devices

# when no ESP8266 device is connected:
# [device]      ~ No Connected Devices found | Total: 0

# when one ESP8266 device is connected:
# [device]      ~ Connected Devices | Total: 1
# [device]      ~ - /dev/tty.wchusbserial1410

Please note that if you are missing USB-UART converter driver nodemcu-tool will not be able to find your connected ESP8266 device. To learn more go to Drivers page.

Alternatively, you can list your system devices and filter by 'usb' keyword like:

$ ls /dev/tty* | grep usb
# /dev/tty.wchusbserial1410

Open serial terminal

nodemcu-tool --port [device port] terminal

You should specify device port that you got from the previous devices command. On successfull connection you should get something similar to:

powered by Lua 5.1.4 on SDK 2.2.1
> _

At this point you are interacting with your ESP8266 device through LUA REPL. For instance, print some message:

> print('hello')
# hello

or get an IP address (in case you have already connected your device to some access point):

> print(wifi.sta.getip())
# 192.168.1.27 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1

Please note, that in order to exit from a terminal you press ^C instead of ^D that we are used to on Linux/Unix.

Note: Environment configuration

To communicate with your ESP8266 device you always need to specify which port it is connected to. For instance, in the previous terminal command we specified it through --port parameter. There are other parameters that you probably will specify for every command you run. It becomes tedious really quickly. There is an easier way:

nodemcu-tool init

it will ask you for the parameters once and save them in .nodemcu configuration file in a current directory. Next time you execute some nodemcu-tool command you can skip those common parameters.

Note that by default, --connection-delay parameter is not saved. In case you need it, you can edit the configuration file manually:

{
  "connectionDelay": 100
}

File operations

Upload files to ESP8266 filesystem:

nodemcu-tool upload script.lua

Download files from ESP8266 filesystem:

nodemcu-tool download script.lua

Remove a file from ESP8266 filesystem:

nodemcu-tool remove script.lua

List files and get other file system related information:

nodemcu-tool fsinfo

Executing code

To execute some LUA code on ESP8266 you first need to upload it. For instance, let's assume you have a script.lua code on your development machine. Then, to execute it you would run the following commands:

nodemcu-tool upload script.lua
nodemcu-tool run script.lua

Another way to execute some code in a file stored on a device filesystem is through a serial terminal. Assuming you have uploaded script.lua file and opened a terminal to your device, the following command will execute it:

> dofile('script.lua')

LoLin modules from Wemos

There is a special case for LoLin modules (D1, D1 mini, etc) from Wemos manufacturer. The problem is that device is restarted every time connection is established and we need to introduce a little delay to let device to startup when using nodemcu-tool. If you see that device is connected (using devices command), but get the following error for file related operations

# [NodeMCU-Tool]~ Unable to establish connection
# [NodeMCU-Tool]~ No response detected - is NodeMCU online and the Lua interpreter ready ?

you should include additional parameter --connection-delay

nodemcu-tool fsinfo --port /dev/ttyUSB0 --connection-delay 100

In case it still does not work, try to increase delay from 100ms to 200-1000ms