For our product which is built on Ignition we distribute the Ignition project and its artifacts (tags, etc). We are exploring ways to script the installation of the gateway and deployment of these artifacts. Looking for resources, guides, etc we could use to achieve this.
Thanks!
The installers can be run with a variety of command line arguments that should get you started: Command Line Installations - Ignition User Manual 8.1 - Ignition Documentation
Thanks Kevin.
We are currently getting the UNIX install file from Archived Ignition Releases | Inductive Automation and doing the installation. The resource you referred has good info that should help us script this part of installation.But as you know there are lot more that follows after a gateway installation. I will list the main ones that we are doing so you get a sense of what we are trying to achieve.
Steps following installing the gateway that we would like to script:
After launching the Designer, we import a tags json (via Tag Browser) and import image via Tools:Image Management.
Can these be scripted as well? Since we are providing these tools to DevOps folks with little/no Ignition knowledge, we are seeking to make this deployment run with minimum manual intervention.
Thanks in advance.
No, all of that should be accomplished by just restoring a gateway backup, which can be done via the gateway command line utility.
https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/display/DOC81/Gateway+Command-line+Utility+-+gwcmd
Thanks Kevin, I will explore the gateway backup utility.
The product we are building bundles Ignition as its MES capability. And all our work is mostly in a Ignition project which we were originally hoping we would distribute along with some scripts to deploy and configure it. Based on what I am learning here sounds like we have to look into distributing the gateway backup instead, since it seems to bundle the project as well the various configuration I listed earlier.
Some question I wonder about if we start distributing gateway backup:
I am wondering about product support. So, how would we distribute maintenance fixes made to the project to customer deployments? Or upgrade customer deployments to a new versions of the project? In those case, we probably want to import the new project instead of restoring the entire gateway backup?
After launching the Designer, we import a tags json (via Tag Browser) and import image via Tools:Image Management. Would that also be covered by the gateway backup?
For some of the actions I listed are there API we could consider using that would let us affect things in a more granular way?
Thanks in advance!
Hmm, it depends. If you are only making changes to project resources then it could be just a project to import. If you make changes to tags, UDTs, DB connections, auth profiles, etc... (any resource that isn't part of a project), then a simple project import won't work. This also assumes your users will not be making any changes that might get overwritten by the import.
Yes these would be included in the backup.
If you're willing to write and distribute a custom module some of these things may be accessible.
@Kevin.Herron I’d like to second the request here from Vinay_N to have a way that we can provide parameters and properties to the ignition gateway during commissioning to automate the configuration.
I’ve looked at the init.properties functionality which has a couple of limited functionalities here for setting up the gateway network but does not enable setting up database connections, opc connection, user profiles etc.
The key reasons I’d like this feature are three-fold.
I have done some of this using curl payloads during the commissioning phase but to do that for the entire gateway config would be tedious.
In 8.2 every piece of config that currently lives in the internal DB will be exploded out to the file system, much like projects are now, using human- and program-friendly file formats wherever possible. I’d imagine this will allow for the ultimate flexibility in commissioning and post-commissioning configuration of a gateway…
@Kevin.Herron That sounds exactly like what I’m looking for, can’t wait to give it a whirl when it becomes available as a preview!
I’d love to have a preview of what that means for my modules…
Ha, this is all theory today. I’d like a preview too.
@Kevin.Herron I'm very interested in that ... I looking to create "on-fly" a skeleton of the gateway in the docker container: at the moment is not possible to create a database connection tag provider etc... during the creation of the container. so maybe version 8.2 can be?
@Kevin.Herron, any updates on this? Thanks in advance.
What part of this were you interested in?
I am looking for methods to automate a gateway/project configuration at scale if available? For that, some scripting is needed for the configuration.
I know Gateway restore helps with this but it is not dynamic. I need to be able to enter parameters that will configure the gateway/project as desired rather than doing everything manually.
What I referenced as version 8.2 in this post has become 8.3 (skipped 8.2).
When Ignition 8.3 is released some time in Q1 there will be a REST API that offers full programmatic access to gateway configuration.