Presenting Coreflux Central v1.2 🚀
Coreflux v1.2, or “one-two” as we internally call it, is the latest version of the IIoT Data Hub that is changing the paradigm in Industry, Energy and Smart Cities.
This new version brings a host of new features and improvements.
A Hubless Solution
The most significant update in this version is the hubless solution, which allows you to install Coreflux Central on a Terminal machine and handle remote stations using MQTT. This makes it much easier to manage your data hub, as you no longer need a separate hub, all by just getting geeky with commands. 🤓
Using the same concept as Linux with the root user, you can provide commands directly in the MQTT Broker. This provides a much simpler and more streamlined user experience. Additionally, user administration, asset installation, config preparation, and even tag management can all be changed via your MQTT client. These MQTT topics can enable automation of your data hub, automatically create connections, manage users, and manage your data hub configs.
The hubless solution of Coreflux Central v1.2 offers many benefits, including improved flexibility and ease of use. With this solution, you can install the software on a wide range of devices, including Raspberry Pi, which is a popular choice for IoT applications. You can also use the terminal to interact with the software, making it easy to manage your data hub remotely.
System Health Monitoring
Coreflux Central v1.2 provides a fast and easy way to check the health of your Linux, Mac OS, Docker, or Windows system. By showing you important information about memory resources, active connections, and listening ports, you can quickly determine if your data hub is running smoothly or if there are any issues that need to be addressed.
One of the ways Coreflux Central v1.2 provides this information is through the use of MQTT topics. For example, the $SYS/Linux-x64/Comms/TCPActiveConnections topic provides a JSON string with the state, local endpoint, and remote endpoint of all active TCP connections. This allows you to quickly check if there are any unwanted connections to your system and monitor real port serving, which can help identify potential security risks.
By using this information, you can connect to an application, dashboard, or database and check if any backdoors have been opened or if any events have been triggered. You can also monitor active connections and identify potential security risks before they become a problem.
Overall, Coreflux Central v1.2 provides a powerful system health monitoring tool that allows you to quickly check the health of your data hub. By monitoring active connections and listening ports, you can identify potential security risks and ensure that your system is running smoothly. If you’re looking for a fast and easy way to monitor the health of your Linux, Mac OS, Docker, or Windows system, Coreflux Central v1.2 is the perfect solution.
In order to access the $SYS/Coreflux you can use the user <root> and pass <coreflux> when connecting using a brouser like MQTT Explorer.
New Assets “Container Style”
In Coreflux Central v1.2, we introduce a new Asset with an architecture similar to a Container that offers several benefits. This Asset Container style is an encapsulated package that includes all the necessary assets and dependencies required for a particular asset. This allows us to easily distribute and deploy our assets across different environments, without the need to manually install dependencies on each machine.
One of the key benefits of the Asset Container style is improved performance. By bundling all the necessary assets and dependencies into one package, we reduce the overhead of loading and accessing files from multiple locations. This can result in faster load times and more responsive applications.
Another benefit is improved security. By keeping all the necessary assets and dependencies in one package, we reduce the risk of external interference or tampering. This can help to keep our assets secure and protect against malicious attacks.
Overall, the new Asset Architecture in Coreflux Central v1.2 provides a more efficient and secure way to manage our assets. By encapsulating all the necessary assets and dependencies into one package, we can easily distribute and deploy our assets across different environments. This saves us time and effort and ensures that our assets are always consistent across different systems.
Commands to Automate your DataHub
Asset containers provide a powerful and convenient way to package and deploy software components, especially in distributed systems. By encapsulating all necessary dependencies and configurations, asset containers make it easier to distribute, manage, and update software components across different environments and platforms.
You will be using the following topic to communicate with your Data Hub and respective assets:
$SYS/Coreflux/Cloud/CommandWith Coreflux, you can easily install and manage asset containers using a set of command-line options. For example, to install the fins2mqtt asset container for Omron PLCs, you can use the following steps:
1 -Login to our cloud using the -L command, by providing the following payload in the topic $SYS/Coreflux/Cloud/Command:
-L <User> <Password>
2- Install the fins2mqtt asset using the -I command by providing the following payload in the same topic:
-I coreflux_fins2mqtt(Please run the list command first to check if you have assets, otherwise, you need to buy more of them.)
Once installed you will see a GUID in the asset list.
You can use the assetHelp command to check the configuration options for the fins2mqtt asset container:
-assetHelp <theAssetGuid>You can then use the assetConfigSave command to set the configuration for the asset container, using JSON format:
-assetConfigSave <theAssetGuid> {'myjsonelement': 42}
// To start the fins2mqtt asset container
-R <theAssetGuid>In addition, you can use the following commands for additional functionality:
//List all assets
-l
//Unistall asset
-U <theAssetGuid>
//check the config of the asset
-{"MqttClient":{"mqttPort":1883,"mqttAddress":"127.0.0.1","isAnonymous":false,"username":"","password":"","withTLS":false,"DebugTopicEnabled":true,"DebugTopic":"$SYS/Coreflux/S7Asset/DebugTopic"},"S7":{"S7IP":"192.168.100.200","RackPlc":0,"SlotPlc":1,"Retries":0,"RetryTimeInSeconds":8,"RefreshTime":210,"ConnectionResource":3},"tags":[{"name":"lamp","writable":0,"mqttTopic":"PLC/Q0.0","mqttQos":0,"mqttRetain":false,"valueType":0,"S7Address":"Q0.1","behavior":0}]}<theAssetGuid>
//Stop an asset
-S <theAssetGuid>
The fins2mqtt asset container is just one example of many available assets, such as modbus2mqtt, firebase2mqtt, s72mqtt, NoSQL, and more. Each asset container is designed to provide specific functionality or integration and can be installed and configured using the same set of command-line options.
Make sure to verify the state of the asset in the Assets topic after running any command, to ensure that it’s running correctly and providing the expected functionality.
Why should I get it?
Overall, Coreflux Central v1.2 is a significant upgrade over previous versions of our platform, thanks to its hubless solution and powerful MQTT command topics. With these new features, managing your data hub has never been easier. Whether running a small IoT project or a large-scale industrial application, Coreflux Central v1.2 is the perfect choice for managing your data hub and provides a powerful way to automate the workflows of your system or platform.
