Edge computing simplified… for thinner edge devices
Release 0.13 of the open-source thin-edge.io project delivers improved Linux distribution support, improved service management support, a flexible MQTT API, updated demo container, reduced install packages and more.
Software engineers navigating the industrial software landscape face the constant challenge of balancing efficiency, safety, and flexibility. thin-edge.io offers an open-source, cloud-agnostic IoT connectivity and device management framework for resource-constrained edge devices.
Unlike the traditional dilemma of building bespoke connectivity modules or permanently tying devices to a single provider, thin-edge.io leverages open-source principles, reducing development time and enhancing productivity. Its hardware, cloud, and language agnosticism provide a versatile solution for industrial connectivity, ensuring seamless integration across diverse devices. Built on Rust for reliability, it supports edge apps in any language through leveraging Mosquitto MQTT, and has native certificate management and easy configuration for AWS, Azure, Cumulocity and more IoT platforms.
Exactly at midnight on 3rd of Nov. 2023 thin-edge.io 0.13.0 was released. It is fully packed with new amazing features. Let me highlight some of them for you!
Improved Linux Distribution support
As you might know, thin-edge.io is focusing on Linux operating IoT gateways. Supporting almost any Linux distribution is key. Therefore a new installation script has been developed that will detect your distribution and install the required artifacts seamlessly.
The new installation script allows you to install thin-edge.io with an one-liner:
curl -fsl http://thin-edge.io/install.sh |sh -s
Check out the full documentation to find our more.
With this release thin-edge.io supports the following Linux distributions:
- Ubuntu/Debian,
- Rocky Linux,
- Alpine
- Poky (yocto)
- any other Linux distribution
Installation packages are published in public cloudsmith artifact repository in the following formats:
- deb (Debian/Ubuntu)
- apk (Alpine Linux)
- rpm (RHEL/Fedora/Rocky Linux/Alma Linux)
- tarball (for any other Linux distribution without one of the above package managers)
Improved service manager support
This point highly correlates to the point above. With new supported services managers thin-edge.io opens up to distributions that are not using systemd. Also the new installation script helps to detect & use available service manager in your distro.
The support of the following service managers has been provided by the community:
- sysvinit
- openrc
- runit
- s6-overlay
- supervisord
Again, check out the documentation for more details
New MQTT API
Since the last releases a new topic structure for the MQTT Broker has been started. With this release, this has been nearly completed. It implements everything from the “old” API plus much more.
Please note: The "old" API tedge/# is now depreciated. Please use the new
topic structure te/# or start the migration to it.
What’s in for you?
The new MQTT API enables much more flexibility in combination with consistency. Here are the new features & highlights:
- Flexible Device/Service registration
- Full flexibility to where publishing telemetry data → Device / Child Device / Service
- Custom type support for metrics
- Support for digital twin meta data using custom fragments
- and much more
Check out the full documentation for more details
Local Cumulocity IoT API proxy
For an easy and straightforward switch to the REST API of Cumulocity IoT a new proxy has been implemented. With this you don’t have to care about getting a JWT and authenticate your plugin against C8Y anymore. The proxy will handle that for you out-of-the-box.
The local proxy can be reached at http://{ip}:8001/c8y/{c8y-endpoint}. No Authorization header must be provided.
All C8Y APIs with all REST methods are supported.
Read the full documentation.
Updated demo container
Do you know the thin-edge.io demo container? If you are new to thin-edge.io and just want to explore you shouldn’t miss it! It’s a full fledged docker container environment simulating a set of devices (and child devices) supporting almost all Cumulocity IoT Device Management features. With 0.13.0 it has been updated supporting all new features of thin-edge.io
Reduced install package
As the name “thin” implies, thin-edge.io is made for constrained Linux operated devices. To make it even more “thin” the installation package size has been dramatically reduced from ~40 MB before to now ~8 MB only which is a ~80% reduction of installation size.
Watch the Release demo 0.13!
Feedback & Contribution
The thin-edge.io team is looking forward for your feedback!
Is there anything missing? Please approach them using their official discord channel or create an issue at our GitHub repository.
