Developing esthesis Device Agent

The esthesis Device Agent is a software component that runs on the device and connects it to the esthesis CORE. The agent is created in Go and can be compiled for any platform supported by Go.

Run and compile

:::tip When running the agent for the first time for a specific hardware Id, make sure that the tag you specify via --tags exists in esthesis CORE, and it is assigned to the registered MQTT server in infrastructure page. :::

Compile locally

To compile the agent locally go inside go directory and execute:

go build -o esthesis-agent cmd/main.go

The above will create an esthesis-agent executable for your platform. This is useful to check that the agent compiles and runs on your machine, but not very useful for development.

Run locally

To run the agent locally switch to go directory and execute:

HID=abc001 && \
REGISTRATION_URL=http://localhost:59070/api/v1/register && \
go run cmd/main.go \
    --hardwareId=$HID \
    --registrationUrl=$REGISTRATION_URL \
    --propertiesFile=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/esthesis.properties \
    --securePropertiesFile=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/secure/esthesis.properties \
    --tempDir=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/temp \
    --versionFile=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/version \
    --provisioningScript=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/firmware.sh \
    --autoUpdate=false --secureProvisioning=true \
    --versionReport=true \
    --tags=dev \
    --logLevel=debug

Run locally, automatically recompiling on changes

If you want your agent to automatically recompile and restart on changes, you can use air. To run the agent locally switch to go directory and execute:

HID=abc125 && \
REGISTRATION_URL=http://localhost:59070/api/v1/register && \
air --build.cmd "go build -o /tmp/esthesis-core-device cmd/main.go" --build.bin "/tmp/esthesis-core-device" -- \
	--hardwareId=$HID \
	--registrationUrl=$REGISTRATION_URL \
	--propertiesFile=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/esthesis.properties \
	--securePropertiesFile=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/secure/esthesis.properties \
	--tempDir=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/temp \
	--versionFile=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/version \
	--provisioningScript=$HOME/.esthesis/device/$HID/firmware.sh \
	--autoUpdate=true --secureProvisioning=true \
	--versionReport=true \
	--tags=dev \
	--logLevel=debug

Testing multiple agents

Using containers

To execute one (or more) device agents in Docker containers running on your local machine, connecting to your development esthesis CORE instance, you need to prepare the following:

A container running kubefwd to forward the Mosquitto service:
docker run -d --privileged \ --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway \ --name kubefwd \ -v "$(echo $HOME)/.kube/config":/root/.kube/config \ txn2/kubefwd services -d esthesis -n esthesis -f metadata.name=mosquitto
A container running the device agent, obtaining its network via the container you created above:
REGISTRY_URL=<your-registry> && \ RND_PREFIX=esthesis-test-device-$(uuidgen | cut -f1 -d"-" | awk '{print tolower($0)}') && \ for ((i=1; i<=3; i++)); do HID=$RND_PREFIX-$i && \ docker run -d --name $HID \ -e HARDWARE_ID=$HID \ -e REGISTRATION_URL=http://host.docker.internal:59070/api/v1/register \ -e PROPERTIES_FILE=/app/.esthesis/esthesis.properties \ -e SECURE_PROPERTIES_FILE=/app/.esthesis/secure/esthesis.properties \ -e TEMP_DIR=/app/.esthesis/temp \ -e VERSION_FILE=/app/version \ -e PROVISIONING_SCRIPT=/app/firmware-update.sh \ -e LOG_LEVEL=debug \ -e AUTO_UPDATE=false \ -e SECURE_PROVISIONING=true \ -e TAGS=dev \ --net container:kubefwd \ $REGISTRY_URL/esthesisiot/esthesis-core-device:latest done

Using Kubernetes

REGISTRY_URL=<your-registry> && \
RND_PREFIX=esthesis-test-device-$(uuidgen | cut -f1 -d"-" | awk '{print tolower($0)}') && \
for ((i=1; i<=3; i++)); do
	HID=$RND_PREFIX-$i && \
	kubectl run $HID \
		--image $REGISTRY_URL/esthesisiot/esthesis-core-device:latest \
		--image-pull-policy=Always \
		--env="HARDWARE_ID=$HID" \
		--env="REGISTRATION_URL=http://<your-host-machine>:59070/api/v1/register" \
		--env="PROPERTIES_FILE=/app/.esthesis/esthesis.properties" \
		--env="SECURE_PROPERTIES_FILE=/app/.esthesis/secure/esthesis.properties" \
		--env="TEMP_DIR=/app/.esthesis/temp" \
		--env="VERSION_FILE=/app/.esthesis/version" \
		--env="PROVISIONING_SCRIPT=/app/.esthesis/firmware.sh" \
		--env="LOG_LEVEL=debug" \
		--env="AUTO_UPDATE=false" \
		--env="SECURE_PROVISIONING=true" \
		--env="TAGS=dev" \
done

Last modified: 06 May 2025