Setup Mender Server

The Mender server is run on a host machine OS which is formed of small container services. Pull the Mender utility Docker image and launch the container on the host machine.

Note

The Mender server currently runs exclusively on x86_64 architecture, and its build process has been tested and validated on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.

These are the required environment variables, refer here for more details.

• MENDER_SERVER_DIR

• MACHINE

• BRANCH

docker pull registry.gitlab.com/linaro/cassini/meta-cassini/mender-utility-image:${BRANCH}
docker run --rm \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  -v ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}:${MENDER_SERVER_DIR} \
  -it registry.gitlab.com/linaro/cassini/meta-cassini/mender-utility-image:${BRANCH}

This opens a shell environment and these are the required environment variables, refer here for more details.

• MENDER_SERVER_DIR

• MACHINE

• MENDER_SERVER_IP

• MENDER_SERVER_HTTPS_PORT

• MENDER_SERVER_HTTP_PORT

• Configure the Mender Server :

export MENDER_SERVER_NAME="ms-${MACHINE}"
cd ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}
cp -r /home/mender-server/. ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}/
source ./mender_env_server.sh
source ./docker-compose-override.sh

• Start the Mender server :

docker compose --project-name "${MENDER_SERVER_NAME}" up -d --quiet-pull
docker compose --project-name "${MENDER_SERVER_NAME}" ps

• User Setup :

  Create a test user for the Mender server UI/API

  docker compose --project-name "${MENDER_SERVER_NAME}" exec useradm \
    useradm create-user --username "${MENDER_SERVER_USERNAME}" \
  --password "${MENDER_SERVER_PASSWORD}"
  

  Authenticate using mender-cli

  mender-cli login \
    --server "${MENDER_SERVER_URL_HTTPS_PORT}" \
    --skip-verify \
    --username "${MENDER_SERVER_USERNAME}" \
    --password "${MENDER_SERVER_PASSWORD}"
  

These are the requirements to perform a mender system update

• Artifact Upload :

  Upload an unsigned version

  cp ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}/artifacts/${MACHINE}.mender ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}/artifacts/${MACHINE}-unsigned.mender
  mender-artifact modify -n unsigned-image ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}/artifacts/${MACHINE}-unsigned.mender
  mender-cli artifacts upload -k --server ${MENDER_SERVER_URL_HTTPS_PORT} ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}/artifacts/${MACHINE}-unsigned.mender
  

  Sign a Mender artifact and upload to the Mender server

  mender-artifact modify -n release-2 -k ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}/keys/private.key ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}/artifacts/${MACHINE}.mender
  mender-cli artifacts upload -k --server ${MENDER_SERVER_URL_HTTPS_PORT} ${MENDER_SERVER_DIR}/artifacts/${MACHINE}.mender
  

  Check artifacts

  mender-cli artifacts list -k --server ${MENDER_SERVER_URL_HTTPS_PORT}