How to get thin-edge.io working on a Raspberry Pi device running Alpine Linux

TEDGE_ALPINE_LINUX_DEVICE.md

Running thin-edge.io on Alpine Linux on a Raspberry Pi

1. Flash the latest Raspberry Pi alpine linux image to the SD CARD. See Alpine's Documentation for details

2. Remount the sd hard on your computer (as you'll be adding some additional files to it before the SD card is inserted into your Raspberry Pi)

3. Download the headless.apkovl.tar.gz file from the alpine-linux-headless-bootstrap repo and add it to the to the root folder of the mounted sd card (e.g. the FAT partition).

   Note: You don't need to extract the headless.apkovl.tar.gz file, just place it there (there is a magic service which will execute it on boot)

4. Add some additional files like authorized_keys to the base folder of the FAT partition of the SD Card to enable ssh access to the device after boot

   For example, the authorized_keys keys file with your public SSH key (but this would give me access to your device, so please change it!)

   ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAIDxm81BGp+bQfMM0jgoMmUD7nXpBCclEq+NqVxUf5D65

   You can also add other files such as Wifi credentials. All of the instructions on how to do this are detailed in the alpine-linux-headless-bootstrap repo

5. Put the SD Card into your Raspberry Pi Device, and boot it up

6. Connect via SSH

   ssh root@<device_ip_address>

   e.g.

   ssh [email protected]

7. Run the setup-alpine script (provided by Alpine)

   setup-alpine

   You will be prompted for a lot of entries, but try to configure the repositories if you can.

8. Reboot after the setup has completed

9. SSH into the device again (after the machine has rebooted)

   Note: You will need to remove the server from your host's $HOME/.ssh/known_hosts as the SSH server will have changed in the meantime!

10. Edit the apk repository to enable the community repository (it is usually commented out at the top)

    vi /etc/apk/repositories

    Example:

    http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/v3.21/community

11. Install some base dependencies that thin-edge.io installer will need

    apk add curl bash sudo

12. Install thin-edge.io

    wget -O - thin-edge.io/install.sh | sh -s

13. Optional: Install podman and other dependencies like cgroups

    apk add cgroup-tools podman podman-compose fuse-overlayfs
    rc-update add podman
    sed -i 's/#mount_program/mount_program/' /etc/containers/storage.conf
    sed -i 's/.*rc_cgroup_mode=.*/rc_cgroup_mode="unified"/g' /etc/rc.conf

    Then reboot the device

    reboot

14. Check that podman is operational

    podman run --rm -it alpine:3.21 sh

    This should bring you to a terminal within the container without any errors.

15. Install some other useful thin-edge.io plugins

    apk add tedge-command-plugin tedge-container-plugin-ng

Troubleshooting

sm-plugin not being found

If sudo isn't installed at the time that thin-edge.io is installed, then you will need to add the sudoers rules.

echo "tedge    ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/tedge, /etc/tedge/sm-plugins/[a-zA-Z0-9]*, /bin/sync, /sbin/init" > /etc/sudoers.d/tedge
echo "tedge    ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/tedge-write /etc/*" >> /etc/sudoers.d/tedge
echo "tedge    ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/tedgectl" > /etc/sudoers.d/100-tedge-tedgectl

Just a very small addition, I also added the /usr/bin/tedgectl into the first line here. It solved the failed restart device problem.

It's now like this:

Just a very small addition, I also added the /usr/bin/tedgectl into the first line here. It solved the failed restart device problem. It's now like this:

No need, I've updated the tedge-service packages to add the required sudoers rule for tedgectl to allow the tedge user to call it (but again only if sudo is installed at the time of installation).