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Torizon Platform Services Web Interface

Introduction

Torizon Platform Services is a convenient and secure service that enables remote updates for either a single unit or a fleet of devices.

Go to the Torizon Platform Services app website and log in. Register yourself for a new account for free if you don't have one.

• Get Started with the Torizon Platform

This article shows some features and technical aspects of the Torizon Platform Services web interface. If you want to have technical information about the remote updates software running on the device, see Torizon OTA technical overview.

Quickstart Guide

Toradex provides a step-by-step lesson dedicated to the Torizon Platform Services.

Go to the Quickstart Guide to explore it.

Prerequisites

• A Toradex Computer-on-Module (CoM) with Torizon already installed.
• Optional: A host machine with TorizonCore Builder installed if you plan to create a customized TorizonCore image.

Software Packages Management

Torizon Platform Services provides a convenient way to remotely update single or multiple devices in a secure way. With the service, you can update the following packages:

• The unmodified, a.k.a. vanilla TorizonCore OS.
• Your application, packaged in a single or a group of containers.
• A custom version of TorizonCore made by yourself.

Containers Packages: Application Updates

The update of containers is available in the basic plan of the Torizon Platform Services. In other words, when you update the containers you are updating your application.

To create a package for containers update on the Torizon Platform Services, you can either:

• Use our Visual Studio Code Extension for Torizon or the Visual Studio Extension For Torizon to upload a package.
• Manually create a Docker Compose file (.yml).

Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. Learn more about it and how to generate one in:

• Visual Studio Code Extension for Torizon if you are developing with VS Code. Note that, while VS Code allows you to export a Docker Compose file, it also allows you to transparently upload it to the Torizon Platform Services, which is easier.
• Using Multiple Containers with TorizonCore for a conceptual overview, or if you are using the command-line.

Vanilla TorizonCore Packages: OS Updates

Toradex maintains its BSPs with updated software for bootloader and Linux kernel. The developers can follow the TorizonCore Issue Tracker and the BSP Layers and Reference Images for Yocto Project Issue Tracker pages to get updated information about known issues, scheduled bug fixes, and feature improvements for every TorizonCore and BSP release. Remember that TorizonCore is built on top of the Toradex BSP.

With the Torizon Platform Services, you can update the TorizonCore version of the boards remotely with the latest periodical releases. To do that, when adding a new package, select the option "Custom Package" and then select the desired release type (LTS, quarterly, monthly or nightly) for the same base image that is currently installed.

Custom TorizonCore Packages: Custom Image Updates

This is a feature available on prime-tiers of the Torizon Platform Services. If you want to learn more about the Torizon Platform Services pricing and plans, please contact us. Request access to evaluate the Torizon Platform Services premium features

In some cases, when you need to customize the base TorizonCore image, the Torizon Platform Services can receive your custom image and send its updates to your fleet of devices. Some examples where image customization is required include, but are not limited to:

• Adding new Hardware by customizing the system's device tree
• Changing the System's Splash Screen
• Capturing Changes in the Configuration of a Board
• Pre-provisioning Docker Containers Onto a TorizonCore Image

In this situation, a developer will use TorizonCore Builder Tool to generate a custom image.

Also, in some corner cases, the image re-building and customization are inevitable. TorizonCore is open-source, and Toradex provides instructions to build TorizonCore with Yocto.

After generating a custom image, the developer will need to sign and upload it to the Torizon Platform Services to be available as a package. Learn how to do that, in the Signing and Pushing TorizonCore Images to the Torizon Platform Services article.

Devices Management

The Torizon Platform Services provides two convenient ways to provision new devices to the service.

• Single Device: if you want to provision a single device, you should use the single command provided in the web interface.
• Multiple devices: if you need to provision multiple devices without adding another step to your production process, you can provide provisioning data to the image that will be installed. After installation, the devices will provision themselves automatically.

Provisioning a single device

You just need to run a single command on the device command-line either from the serial port or SSH.

This command provides the authentication token. On the device, it registers, downloads, and installs credentials. By executing this command on the device, the system will securely authenticate with the Toradex OTA backend.

Provisioning multiple devices

This is the recommended way to provision devices during production. You can learn all about it in our production programming and provisioning at scale article.

With the device provisioned, the administrator can update the containers, operating system, and associate it to fleets.

info

If you are in a restricted network, you will need to configure it so the Torizon infrastructure addresses are reachable by the devices. The network domain and port for accessing the Torizon platform by a device for provisioning are the following:

• To provision a device: app.torizon.io on port 443.
• Provisioned device after June 2022: dgw.torizon.io on port 443.
• Provisioned device before June 2022: ota-ce.torizon.io on port 443. Be aware that these devices will be migrated to the dwg.torizon.io domain in the future.

If you have an existing device and want to check which gateway it is connecting to, look at /var/sota/import/gateway.url.

Polling Time

By default, TorizonCore is configured to poll the OTA server once every 5 minutes. That may sound like a lot of time for evaluation, but it is a reasonable default configuration for production. You can set a custom polling time.

To read more about the software that runs on the target device, see the Technical Overview of Torizon OTA article.

Updating Multiple Devices by Creating a Fleet

The Torizon Platform Services provides a flexible way to create a logical Fleet. The creation of Fleets facilitates the secure updating process of Multiple Devices.

On the Fleet menu, you can check the devices in each fleet and check its status. You can also add and remove devices from fleets.

Currently, it is only possible to add devices of the same type to a fleet. As an example, you cannot have a fleet composed of Apalis iMX8 and Verdin iMX8M Mini devices. You would need to create one fleet for each of them. If you need to have an heterogeneous fleet, please contact us and state this article.