Integration tutorials

Introduction

This guide includes device integration tutorials for the following devices:

• Via thin-edge.io on a Raspberry Pi.
• Via thin-edge.io on a Revolution Pi.

For further information on supported devices refer to the Cloud of Things Device Partner Portal, which offers an extensive collection of devices with guaranteed plug-and-play compatibility and full functional support in the Cloud of Things platform. You will find descriptions on how to configure and connect each device included there.

thin-edge.io on a Raspberry Pi

This tutorial provides an overview of the installation and configuration of thin-edge.io. A Raspberry Pi serves as the example device. The tutorial explains how to reach the goal of sending data to Cloud of Things and performing some additional device management tasks in a series of steps.

Introduction

thin-edge.io is an open-source project to provide a cloud-agnostic edge framework. It is much more generic than the device management agent, so it can connect to multiple IoT cloud platforms, and it allows flexible logic being executed on the device. It is optimized for a very small footprint and high performance.

The Raspberry Pi is a relatively simple and cheap yet powerful device. This makes it ideal for testing and trying out as well as some production use cases.

Prerequisites

To follow this tutorial, you need the following:

• A Cloud of Things trial tenant.
• A Raspberry Pi (3 or 4) with Raspian installed. For other boards and operating systems, refer to thin-edge.io platform support on GitHub.
• An updated device. To update it, run:

  $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
  

Steps

The tutorial is divided into small steps. The first three steps are needed to install and connect to Cloud of Things. The last three are optional but needed to get a good overview of the capabilities of thin-edge.io.

Step 1 Install thin-edge.io

Step 2 Configure and connect to the platform

Step 3 Sending device data

Step 4 Monitor the device

Step 5 Add software management

Step 6 Manage configuration files

Step 7 Manage log files

Step 1 Install thin-edge.io

There are two ways of installing thin-edge.io:

• Use a script
• Manually

The easiest way is to use the installation script with this command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/thin-edge/thin-edge.io/main/get-thin-edge_io.sh | sudo sh -s

This script will install the latest version of thin-edge.io with the following components:

• Mosquitto
• Command line interface (CLI) tool
• Tedge mapper

It is possible to do the installation of thin-edge.io manually or install another version or upgrade the current version. For more information, refer to User Documentation > Installation > thin-edge.io manual installation in the thin-edge.io docs.

After a successful installation, it is possible to use thin-edge.io via the CLI and to use the tedge commands.

Tedge CLI

In the previous step, the CLI tool was installed, which is a very powerful tool. Use it like this:

tedge [OPTIONS] [SUBCOMMAND]

Adding the parameter -h shows the help for the latest subcommand.

When running this command something like the following will be displayed:

$ sudo tedge -h

tedge 0.8.1
tedge is the cli tool for thin-edge.io

USAGE:
    tedge [OPTIONS] [SUBCOMMAND]

OPTIONS:
        --config-dir <CONFIG_DIR>    [default: /etc/tedge]
    -h, --help                       Print help information
        --init                       Initialize the tedge
    -V, --version                    Print version information

SUBCOMMANDS:
    cert          Create and manage device certificate
    config        Configure Thin Edge
    connect       Connect to connector provider
    disconnect    Remove bridge connection for a provider
    help          Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
    mqtt          Publish a message on a topic and subscribe a topic

For an overview of the commands for the CLI tool, refer to the Command Line Reference in the thin-edge.io docs.

You will also use the CLI to configure the thin-edge.io installation on the device in the next steps.

Step 2 Configure and connect to the platform

To connect the device to the Cloud of Things platform it needs to be configured. The following configuration parameter is mandatory:

C8Y URL

The URL is needed to allow the upload of the certificate to the specific tenant and the registration of the device. It can be configured via:

sudo tedge config set c8y.url {{YOUR_C8Y_URL}}

Certificate

thin-edge.io connects via MQTT protocol using an X.509 certificate for authentication. To do so, a certificate must be trusted by Cloud of Things. A certificate is trusted when it is added to the trusted certificates and is in an activated state. See also Device management > Managing device data > Managing trusted certificates in the User guide.

First, create the device certificate locally:

sudo tedge cert create --device-id {{YOUR_UNIQUE_DEVICE_ID}}

The device ID is a unique identifier, for example, the MAC address that identifies the physical device.

The certificate is uploaded to the Cloud of Things tenant via:

sudo tedge cert upload c8y --user {{YOUR_USERNAME}}

If the password prompt appears, enter your password.

Connect

Connect the device to Cloud of Things via:

sudo tedge connect c8y

When the connection is established, the device will be created in Cloud of Things. If you navigate to Device management > Devices > All devices, the device is visible in the list.

Step 3 Sending device data

Once your device is configured and connected to Cloud of Things, you can start sending measurements, events or alarms. With the standard configuration you cannot connect externally to the mosquito broker and the messages must be sent directly from the device.

The tedge CLI allows you to send payloads via MQTT:

tedge mqtt pub {{TOPIC}} {{PAYLOAD}}

thin-edge.io comes with a tedge-mapper daemon. This process collects the data from the tedge/# topic and translates them to the tedge payloads on the c8y/# topic which are mapped directly to Cloud of Things. The mapper translates simple JSON to the desired target payload for Cloud of Things.

Sending measurements

Measurements within Cloud of Things represent regularly acquired readings and statistics from sensors.

A single-valued measurement like a temperature measurement can be represented in Thin Edge JSON as follows:

{ "temperature": 25 }

The key-value pair represents the measurement type and the numeric value of the measurement. The endpoint that is supervised by the tedge-mapper for measurements is:

tedge/measurements

The temperature measurement can be sent as follows:

tedge mqtt pub tedge/measurements '{ "temperature": 25 }'

Sending events

Events are used to pass real-time information, which is not just plain sensor values, through Cloud of Things.

An event can be represented in Thin Edge JSON as follows:

{
    "text": "A door was closed",
    "time": "2022-06-10T05:30:45+00:00"
}

The endpoint that is supervised by the tedge-mapper for events is:

tedge/events/{{event-type}}

The “door closed” event can be sent as follows:

tedge mqtt pub tedge/events/door '{"text": "A door was closed","time": "2022-06-10T05:30:45+00:00"}'

An event entry will be visible in Device management > Your device > Events.

Step 4 Monitor the device

With thin-edge.io device monitoring, you can collect metrics from the device and forward these device metrics to Cloud of Things.

thin-edge.io uses the open source component collectd to collect the metrics from the device. thin-edge.io translates the collectd metrics from their native format to the Thin Edge JSON format and then into the cloud-vendor-specific format.

Enabling monitoring on your device is a three step process:

• Install collectd
• Configure collectd
• Enable thin-edge.io monitoring

Install collectd

Because thin-edge.io uses the MQTT plugin of collectd, the Mosquitto client library (either libmosquitto1 or mosquitto-clients) must be installed.

sudo apt-get install libmosquitto1

To install collectd:

sudo apt-get install collectd-core

Configure collectd

thin-edge.io provides a basic collectd configuration that collects CPU, memory and disk metrics.

Copy the file to the main collectd configuration file and restart the daemon:

sudo cp /etc/tedge/contrib/collectd/collectd.conf /etc/collectd/collectd.conf
sudo systemctl restart collectd

The data arrives on the collectd/# topic. You can check via:

tedge mqtt sub collectd/#

The output will be similar to this:

$ tedge mqtt sub collectd/#
INFO: Connected
[collectd/raspberrypi/df-root/percent_bytes-used] 1667205183.407:11.7998857498169
[collectd/raspberrypi/memory/percent-used] 1667205183.408:4.87045198079293
[collectd/raspberrypi/cpu/percent-active] 1667205184.398:1.52284263959391

Enable Collectd

To enable monitoring on your device, launch the tedge-mapper-collectd daemon process. This process collects the data from the collectd/# topic and translates them to the tedge payloads on the c8y/# topic.

sudo systemctl start tedge-mapper-collectd
sudo systemctl enable tedge-mapper-collectd

You can inspect the collected and translated metrics by subscribing to this topic:

tedge mqtt sub 'c8y/#'

The output will be similar to this:

$ tedge mqtt sub c8y/#
INFO: Connected
[c8y/measurement/measurements/create] {"type":"ThinEdgeMeasurement","time":"2022-10-31T08:35:44.398000001Z","cpu":{"percent-active":{"value":1.26262626262626}},"memory":{"percent-used":{"value":4.87024847292786}}}
[c8y/measurement/measurements/create] {"type":"ThinEdgeMeasurement","time":"2022-10-31T08:35:45.398000001Z","memory":{"percent-used":{"value":4.87024847292786}},"cpu":{"percent-active":{"value":1.01522842639594}}}
[c8y/measurement/measurements/create] {"type":"ThinEdgeMeasurement","time":"2022-10-31T08:35:46.398000001Z","memory":{"percent-used":{"value":4.87024847292786}},"cpu":{"percent-active":{"value":0.759493670886076}}}
[c8y/measurement/measurements/create] {"type":"ThinEdgeMeasurement","time":"2022-10-31T08:35:47.398000001Z","memory":{"percent-used":{"value":4.87024847292786}},"cpu":{"percent-active":{"value":2.01005025125628}}}
[c8y/measurement/measurements/create] {"type":"ThinEdgeMeasurement","time":"2022-10-31T08:35:48.398000001Z","memory":{"percent-used":{"value":4.87004496506279}},"cpu":{"percent-active":{"value":0.254452926208651}}}

The monitoring data will appear in Cloud of Things on the device in the Measurement tab.

Edit collectd

To change the monitored data, change the collectd.conf file. This can be done via Cloud of Things. See step 6 below.

Step 5 Add software management

Software management allows for installation and management of any type of software from Cloud of Things. Since the type is generic, any type of software can be managed. In thin-edge.io this can be extended with plugins. A particular plugin is necessary for every software type.

The following plugins are available:

• Docker
• APT
• Docker-compose
• Snap

To use those plugins, copy them to:

/etc/tedge/sm-plugins

The APT plugin is installed automatically. You can find the other plugins in the repository. Make sure to disconnect and reconnect the device after adding plugins via:

sudo tedge disconnect c8y
sudo tedge connect C8Y

Adding new software to the software repository in the platform

1. In Cloud of Things, navigate to Management > Software repository and click Add software at the top right.

2. In the resulting dialog, enter a name for the software and confirm by clicking Add new and select or enter a software, select a software type and enter a description and a version.

3. thin-edge.io contains a default plugin supporting debian packages from both apt repositories as well as remote locations. If you prefer to use packages from an apt repository, select the Provide a file path option and give an empty space (’ ‘). If you would like to use other sources (for example, a file uploaded to your cloud or an external source), provide the full URL to the file. If you would like to upload your binaries, select the Upload a binary option and upload the file to the Cloud of Things software repository.

4. Click Add Software.

See also Device management > Managing device data > Managing device software > To add a new software or software version in the User guide*.

Installing software on a device

1. In Cloud of Things, click All devices in the Device management application.

2. Select the desired device from the device list and open its Software tab. The Software tab shows a list of all available software installed on the device. If a given software has a type, it is displayed next to its name. It is possible to search for a particular software by its name or filter the list by software type.

3. Click Install software at the bottom of the page.

4. Find and select the software which was added to the repository in the previous step.

5. Select the correct version and click Install.

6. Click Apply changes and the software will be installed.

When a different version of the already installed software needs to be installed, choose in step 4 the installed software from the list and in step 5 the right version.

For more information on how to manage the software, refer to Device management > Managing device data > Managing device software > Managing software on a device in the User guide.

For more information on how to develop your own plugins, refer to Developer Documentation > Write my own software management plugin in the thin-edge.io docs.

Step 6 Manage configuration files

With thin-edge.io you can manage configuration files on a device by using the Cloud of Things configuration management feature as a part of Device management application.

This functionality is installed with the initial script. However, you must configure it in /etc/tedge/c8y/c8y-configuration-plugin.toml and add the entries for the configuration files to be managed. Add the following to the file:

files = [
    { path = '/etc/tedge/tedge.toml' },
    { path = '/etc/tedge/mosquitto-conf/c8y-bridge.conf', type = 'c8y-bridge.conf' },
    { path = '/etc/tedge/mosquitto-conf/tedge-mosquitto.conf', type = 'tedge-mosquitto.conf' },
    { path = '/etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf', type = 'mosquitto.conf' }
]

Where:

• path is the full path to the configuration file.
• type is a unique alias for each file entry which will be used to represent that file in the Cloud of Things UI.

Then start the configuration plugin process and enable it on boot via systemctl:

sudo systemctl start c8y-configuration-plugin.service
sudo systemctl enable c8y-configuration-plugin.service

Finally, do the following:

1. Navigate to the Device management application and to the desired device and click the Configuration tab.
2. Select the c8y-configuration-plugin from the list of supported configuration types, as declared in the plugin configuration file.
3. Save the configuration files in the repository or download them.

Change configuration files via the platform

If you want to change one or more configuration files, there are several options:

• Create a new configuration file
• Change an existing configuration file

This tutorial makes use of the second option.

1. In the Device management application, select a device from All devices, then select a configuration file from the list in the Configuration tab. Save the configuration file to the repository by clicking Save to repository.
2. From the left side navigation, select Management > Configuration repository.
3. Download the configuration file from the list by clicking the three dots at the end of the row and then Download.
4. Edit the file as needed.
5. Click Add configuration snapshot at the top right.
6. Fill in the fields and make sure that the device type is thin-edge.io. Select the correct configuration type, add the edited configuration file and click Add configuration.
7. Go back to the Configuration tab of the device. In the available supported configurations you can see the configuration file which was just created. Click it to see its content.
8. Click Send configuration to device to upload it to the device.
9. Click Get snapshot from device to verify the change of the configuration file.

Also see Device management > Managing device data > Managing configurations in the User guide.

Change collectd configuration file via the platform

To change the collectd metrics of the devices which are displayed in Cloud of Things, follow the steps below. They are similar to the steps in the previous paragraphs.

1. Add the line below to the /etc/tedge/c8y/c8y-configuration-plugin.toml file:

   { path = '/etc/collectd/collectd.conf', type = 'collectd.conf' },
   

2. Follow the steps in Change configuration files via the platform.

Step 7 Manage log files

With thin-edge.io it is possible to request log files from a device by using the Cloud of Things log request feature as part of Device management application.

This functionality is directly installed with the initial script. However, you must configure it in /etc/tedge/c8y/c8y-log-plugin.toml and add the entries for the configuration files to be managed. Add the following to the file:

files = [
  { type = "software-management", path = "/var/log/tedge/agent/software-*" },
  { type = "mosquitto", path = "/var/log/mosquitto/mosquitto.log" },
  { type = "daemon", path = "/var/log/daemon.log" },
  { type = "user", path = "/var/log/user.log" },
  { type = "apt-history", path = "/var/log/apt/history.log" },
  { type = "apt-term", path = "/var/log/apt/term.log" },
  { type = "auth", path = "/var/log/auth.log" },
  { type = "dpkg", path = "/var/log/dpkg.log" },
  { type = "kern", path = "/var/log/kern.log" }
]

The daemon is started and enabled with the commands below:

sudo systemctl start c8y-log-plugin
sudo systemctl enable c8y-log-plugin

To see the content of the log files in Cloud of Things, follow the steps in Device management > Device details > Logs > To request log information.

If c8y-log-plugin.toml is added to the c8y-configuration-plugin.toml file it is possible to do the administration from there. However, keep in mind that the daemon must be restarted if the /etc/tedge/c8y/c8y-log-plugin.toml file is touched via the command line.

References

The optional steps in this tutorial provide a better insight into the device management capabilities of thin-edge.io. Further topics are working with child devices, building your own plugin and so on. Tutorials for that can be found in the thin-edge.io docs.

thin-edge.io on a Revolution Pi

Refer to Getting started with thin-edge.io on a RevPi from Kunbus for a tutorial on how to install thin-edge.io on a Revolution Pi from by Kunbus.

The Revolution PI is an open, modular and cost-effective industrial PC based on the well-known Raspberry Pi. Housed in a slim DIN rail case, the three available base modules can be seamlessly expanded with a variety of matching I/O modules and fieldbus gateways.

Kunbus got their Cloud of Things device management certification and is listed as a partner within the Device Catalog of certified devices.

You can get more information about Kunbus and the Revolution Pi on the Revolution PI website.