Set Up the Internet of Things Edge Platform on Raspberry PI

This article is a memorandum on setting up the Edge Platform for SAP IoT services for SAP BTP for the Cloud Foundry Environment on a Raspberry PI.

When setting up the Internet of Things Edge Platform on your Raspberry PI, you need to be aware that you cannot start the gateway unless you have at least 2GB of memory, which means you need a Raspberry PI4 model with a larger memory. This means that you need a Raspberry PI4 model with a larger memory to run the platform, and I was not able to run the platform on a Raspberry PI 3 or Zero due to memory issues.
This time I am using the following version of the OS.

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ uname -a Linux raspberrypi 5.10.17-v7l+ #1403 SMP Mon Feb 22 11:33:35 GMT 2021 armv7l GNU/Linux

Note 1: I’m using a Raspberry PI 4 with 4GB memory model, I think it will work with 2GB model but I haven’t tested it.
Note 2: It may be possible to get this to work on Raspberry PIs with less than 2GB of memory by using various parameters and memory-related packages that are added later.

Check the URL field of your web browser. It should look like the following.

break this down

https://xxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxxx-xxxx-xxxxxx.xxxx.cp.iot.sap/yyyyyy-yyyyyy-yyyyyy-yyyyyy-yyyyyyyyyy/iot/cockpit/#/tenant/zzzzzzzzzz

The parts that are colored above should be <HOSTNAME>,<INSTANCENAME>,<TENANTNAME>.

<HOSTNAME> ＝ xxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxxx-xxxx-xxxxxx.xxxx.cp.iot.sap
<INSTANCENAME> ＝ yyyyy-yyyyyy-yyyyyy-yyyyyy-yyyyyyyyy
<TENANTNAME> ＝ zzzzzzzzzz

(The above will be used in next explanations.)

It’s a bit complicated here.

<cnf:address>https:/<HOSTNAME>/<INSTANCENAME>/iot/core/api/v1/tenant/<TENANTNAME></cnf:address>

The last line is line 56.
Finally, line 56.

Now, edit the <cnf:gateway> tag to specify the Alternate ID of the gateway. This value will be displayed in the list of gateways on the cockpit。

The Edge is part of the gateway. And since the Edge is likely to be used more than once by its nature, it should be easy to identify which Edge device it is in the cockpit.

This completes the editing.

This time , I assume that the Edge gateway will be installed in a secure network dedicated to the Edge device, and that communication between the sensor device and the Edge gateway will be done without certificate authentication.

Edit the /gateway/config/services/sap.NettyConfiguration.cfg file under the directory where you extracted the gateway.

pi@raspberrypi:~/IOTCHCP/gateway/config/services $ vi sap.NettyConfiguration.cfg # Enables a Netty server enabled = true # Host name or IP address to identify a specific network interface on which to listen host = localhost # TCP/IP port on which the server listens for connections port = 8699 # Expose service on https enableSSL = false

Change ‘enableSSL’ to ‘false’ since it is set to true by default.
Also, edit sap.RestAdapterConfiguration.cfg.

pi@raspberrypi:~/IOTCHCP/gateway/config/services $ vi sap.RestAdapterConfiguration.cfg # Enable/Disable the device authorization checks useDeviceAuth = false

The ‘useDeviceAuth’ here is also set to ‘true’ by default, so set it to false.

This setting is for communication without encryption, so be careful when using it in practice.

Finally, download and deploy the Onboarding Certificate.
You can download the Onboarding Certificate from the Cockpit page.

Be sure to rename the file to “gateway-registration-certificate.json” after downloading it. The gateway will read a file with this name.
This file should be placed in the config/certificates directory under the gateway directory.
If the ‘certificates’ directory does not exist, create it as shown below, and then place the Onboarding Certificate in it.

pi@raspberrypi:~/IOTCHCP/gateway/config $ mkdir certificates pi@raspberrypi:~/IOTCHCP/gateway/config/certificates $ cd certificates pi@raspberrypi:~/IOTCHCP/gateway/config/certificates $ mv $HOME/gateway-registration-certificate.json ./

You are now ready to go.

Execute Edge gateway

After doing this, you can finally start the gateway.
Run gateway.sh.

pi@raspberrypi:~/IOTCHCP/gateway $ ./gateway.sh (snip) 234 18:12:43,986 [Start Level: Equinox Container: 073cb859-f660-4e54-bafe-1bb28ccef272] INFO  (KeepAliveStarter:64) – *** BUNDLE 2 EVENT for com.sap.iotservices.gateway.command-cache-service_4.69.0[239] – ID=239 234 18:12:44,279 [DiscoveryManager] INFO  (DiscoveryManager:62) – Initialization successfully finished, start loading API endpoint 234 18:12:44,280 [DiscoveryManager] INFO  (DiscoveryManager:71) – API endpoint loaded, start network configuration 234 18:12:44,280 [DiscoveryManager] INFO  (DiscoveryManager:75) – Network configuration performed, retrieving the network nodes 234 18:12:44,280 [DiscoveryManager] INFO  (DiscoveryManager:78) – Nodes successfully retrieved, start node configuration 234 18:12:44,280 [DiscoveryManager] INFO  (DiscoveryManager:642) – +————– Gateway Initialization Complete ———————+

As the name suggests, the “edge” is the end of the network.
Unlike enterprise systems, most of the systems at this end do not have an administrator nearby at all times. I used to be an embedded systems engineer. I used to be an embedded system engineer, which is now called an edge system. What was required for systems in this environment was that when a problem occurred, a less computer-savvy person on site could handle it.

However, there are limits to what someone who is not familiar with computers can do. In particular, it would be difficult for them to operate Linux. However, you should be able to press the power button and reboot.

So, let’s set up the edge gateway to start automatically when the Raspberry PI is turned on.
There are several ways to make the Raspberry PI start automatically, but this time we will use systemd.

First, create a file like the one below. I will call it ‘iotedgegateway.service’ and create the following file.

[Unit] Description=SAP IoT Edge Gateway(REST) After=syslog.target[Service] Type=simple WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/IOTCHCP/gateway ExecStart=/home/pi/IOTCHCP/gateway/gateway.sh TimeoutStopSec=5 StandardOutput=null[Install] WantedBy = multi-user.target

according to the environment.

Copy this file to /etc/systemd/system. This needs to be done with sudo.
Then reload the service list and start it manually first. ( sudo systemctl start iotedgegateway)

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo mv iotedgegateway.service /etc/systemd/system pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl daemon-reload pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl start iotedgegateway pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl status iotedgegateway ● iotedgegateway.service – SAP IoT Edge Gateway(REST) Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/iotedgegateway.service; enabled; Active: active (running) since Thu 2021-05-13 16:55:57 JST; 10s ago Main PID: 989 (gateway.sh) Tasks: 25 (limit: 3860) CGroup: /system.slice/iotedgegateway.service ├─989 /bin/bash /home/pi/IOTCHCP/gateway/gateway.sh └─990 java -Dorg.apache.activemq.UseDedicatedTaskRunner=fals 2021-05-13 16:55:57 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Started SAP IoT Edge Gateway(R pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl stop iotedgegateway

You can use sudo systemctl status iotedgegateway to check if it has started successfully.

Once it is confirmed that it is working, stop it. This can be done by “sudo systemctl stop iotedgegateway”.

Now the service has been created, but it is not set to start automatically. To set it to auto-start

pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo systemctl enable iotedgegateway

Reboot the Raspberry PI and run sudo systemctl status iotedgegateway to check if it is active.

 

I have set up REST’s Edge gateway on my Raspberry PI and got it working.

Here are some points to consider when choosing a gateway.

The REST and MQTT gateways are also available on the Cloud side. The same MQTT and REST gateways are also available on the Edge side.

The difference is that all gateways on the Cloud require authentication with a client certificate. All gateways on the Cloud require authentication with a client certificate, while gateways on the Edge side allow you to choose the authentication method, and you can even choose no authentication.

This is because Edge gateways are supposed to be accessed by devices that exist on the same network with a certain level of security. Cloud gateways, on the other hand, are accessed over the Internet and require some mechanism to ensure security, which is why they require access with client certificates.

Edge gateways are useful when the sensors and devices to be connected have communication capabilities, but are not functionally capable of communicating using certificates. It is the Edge gateway that actually connects to the IoT service, and it is the Edge gateway that authenticates the device with the Onboarding Certificate.

In some cases, a private wireless LAN network is sufficient, and whether to use client certificate authentication there as well depends on the requirements and specifications of the devices.

In the next article, I will try to send data from “IchigoJam” a simple small computer that I happened to touch, to SAP IoT services for SAP BTP for the Cloud Foundry Environment via REST gateway on this RaspberryPI.