Launch HN: Deviceplane (YC W20) – Update and Manage Devices Running Linux

Post by JdeBP » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 9:12 AM UTC

shandor wrote: post #50

joshwget wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our agent will support nearly any Linux distro, even though our installation script only supports systemd at the moment. We've really wanted to add OpenRC support to our installation script for a while but haven't gotten to it yet. If you know your init system well, you could always write your own service file. Here's the unit file for systemd as a reference: https://github.com/deviceplane/deviceplane/blob/master/ins…

> nearly any Linux distro The service file for systemd looks pretty simple, so that's probably not a problem to port to some other init system. But what's in the "nearly" above, do you have some other concrete requirements for the distro? Any technical reason very small busybox-based systems would be unable to support your agent? Deviceplane sounds like a very good idea for a niche that really needs something like it…

    % printf '1,$s/^KillMode/#&/\nw\n' | ex ./deviceplane.service
    %
    % /package/admin/nosh/command/system-control convert-systemd-units --no-systemd-quirks ./deviceplane.service 
    convert-systemd-units: WARNING: ./deviceplane.service: Unused setting: [service] delegate = yes
    convert-systemd-units: WARNING: ./deviceplane.service: Unused setting: [service] tasksmax = infinity
    convert-systemd-units: WARNING: ./deviceplane.service: Unused setting: [service] timeoutstartsec = 0
    convert-systemd-units: WARNING: ./deviceplane.service: Unused setting: [unit] documentation = https://deviceplane.com/docs/
    % 
    % /package/admin/nosh/command/system-control print-service-scripts ./deviceplane                            
    start:#!/bin/nosh
    start:#Start file generated from ./deviceplane.service
    start:true
    stop:#!/bin/nosh
    stop:#Stop file generated from ./deviceplane.service
    stop:true
    run:#!/bin/nosh
    run:#Run file generated from ./deviceplane.service
    run:#Deviceplane agent
    run:hardlimit -o infinity -c infinity -p infinity
    run:softlimit -o hard -c hard -p hard
    run:/usr/local/bin/deviceplane-agent --controller=https://example.com:443/api --project=example --registration-token=example
    restart:#!/bin/sh
    restart:#Restart file generated from ./deviceplane.service
    restart:sleep 5s
    restart:exec true # ignore script arguments
    %

Post by kingosticks » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 11:28 AM UTC

joshwget wrote: post #14

ivanstegic wrote: post #4

What about Balena? How are you different or the same?

Great question! We're in the same space as Balena and tackling some of the same problems, but with a different approach. Here are some of the big ways we defer from Balena (though these points really just scratch the surface). Balena ties you into their ecosystem a bit too much. They require you to use BalenaOS which means they only support a fixed number of devices. In contrast, Deviceplane can be used with any Linu…

Post by guptaneil » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

mzedel wrote: post #55

guptaneil wrote: post #32

Congrats on the launch! This is perfectly timed since I’m currently evaluating device management solutions for Hiome’s IoT device fleet ( https://hiome.com ) Currently, we use Mender (mender.io) but are considering switching. Pros for Mender: * great pricing for consumer products at around $0.50/device/mo * lets us keep using Raspbian on our Raspberry Pi fleet The cons however are that we are stuck with Raspberry Pi…

Hello Neil, Thank you for using Mender! Since I’m directly involved with the development of the GUI I’m sorry to hear that you found an issue with it. However I'm all ears and would like to get this fixed asap, so please let me know using hub.mender.io, the support@hosted.mender.io address you already know or find my address in my profile.

Post by guptaneil » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

cyrusroshan wrote: post #42

joshwget wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! > However, as far as I can tell, you only support application updates, not OS-level updates. For now this is true. People using Deviceplane today upgrade their underlying OS via the mechanism provided by their distro. On Debian-based systems this means running something like `apt-get dist-upgrade`. Deviceplane provides the tools to rollout this upgrade across your devices, but we're not hands-on past that. We…

To add on to what Josh said, re: OS updates, we have functionality for bulk scripting ( https://deviceplane.com/docs/operating/command-scripting/ ) to help you roll out host-level updates to your devices. We're also interested in hearing your thoughts on pricing, shoot us founders@deviceplane.com, and let's talk about it!

Post by eystein » Wed, Jan 29, 2020, 6:30 PM UTC

robotmay wrote: post #33

My biggest pain point with Balena in my previous job was that it used Docker; it's unfortunate that most of the solutions in this space (including Deviceplane) seem to do so. It's not really ideal in a number of installations to be pulling down 1GB Docker images simultaneously from 20 devices when you push an update. I'd be really interested in seeing a system based around Git and something like buildpacks instead. I…