How to manage configuration files with Cumulocity

With thin-edge.io, you can manage config files on a device by using the Cumulocity configuration management feature as a part of Device Management.

If you are new to the Cumulocity Configuration Management feature, we recommend you to read the Cumulocity user guide along with this how-to guide.

The configuration management functionality is provided by the tedge-configuration-plugin package which is installed by default. If it is not installed then please install the components again following the install guide.

Getting started

Before starting anything, make sure your device is connected to Cumulocity.

Step 1 Open the file /etc/tedge/plugins/tedge-configuration-plugin.toml and add entries for the configuration files that you'd like to manage from Cumulocity cloud in the following format:

file: /etc/tedge/plugins/tedge-configuration-plugin.toml

files = [
  { path = '/etc/tedge/tedge.toml', type = 'tedge.toml'},
  { path = '/etc/tedge/mosquitto-conf/c8y-bridge.conf', type = 'c8y-bridge.conf' },
  { path = '/etc/tedge/mosquitto-conf/tedge-mosquitto.conf', type = 'tedge-mosquitto.conf' },
  { path = '/etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf', type = 'mosquitto.conf' },
  { path = '/etc/tedge/c8y/example.txt', type = 'example', user = 'tedge', group = 'tedge', mode = 0o444 }
]

• path is the full path to the configuration file.
• type is a unique alias for each file entry which will be used to represent that file in Cumulocity UI.
• user, group and mode are UNIX file permission settings to be used to create a configuration file. If not provided, the files will be created with root user. If the file exists already, its ownership will be retained.

For more details on this configuration file format, refer to the reference guide.

note

You can also configure the tedge-configuration-plugin.toml from the cloud later.

Step 2 Start the configuration plugin process and enable it on boot by systemctl (recommended).

sudo systemctl enable tedge-configuration-plugin
sudo systemctl start tedge-configuration-plugin

Alternatively, you can run the process directly.

sudo tedge-configuration-plugin

Step 3 Navigate to your Cumulocity Device Management and the desired device. Open its Configuration tab. You can find tedge-configuration-plugin and more are listed as supported configuration types, as declared in the plugin configuration file in step 1.

This is the configuration file of tedge-configuration-plugin, where you can add file entries that you want to manage with Cumulocity.

Update tedge-configuration-plugin from Cumulocity

To update any configuration file, create a local copy of that config file and then upload that file to the Cumulocity configuration repository with the appropriate configuration type.

The tedge-configuration-plugin.toml file can also be updated from the cloud in a similar manner to add/remove further configuration file entries. The updated TOML file has to be uploaded with the configuration type: tedge-configuration-plugin.

Then, go back to the Configuration tab of your desired device in Cumulocity.

Click on the config file entry from the DEVICE SUPPORTED CONFIGURATIONS files list. You can choose the file that you uploaded from the AVAILABLE SUPPORTED CONFIGURATIONS section, and then apply that file to your device by clicking on the Send configuration to device button.

After the operation created gets marked SUCCESSFUL, reload the page. Then you can find new supported configuration types as you defined.

To get to know more about the tedge-configuration-plugin, refer to Specifications of Device Configuration Management using Cumulocity.