build_existing_image

Base wrapper for existing Images

Description

This project subfolder contain's a basic wrapper for PLCnext app's. It holds two subfolders:

.
├── arm
└── x86

PLCnext consist out of two different processor architectures. The 1152, 2152 are using the ARM architecture, and all other PLC's from PLCnext family containing an x86 architecture. Therefore we had to build two slightly different app structures.

The file structure itself is nearly identical, but for e.g. we use podman and therefore we have to differentiate between podman-compose version.

So if you have to use an special version for each architecture or need to add architecture specific dependecies, you can archive this by adding to the respective folder.

Configure Project

In order to adapt your project there are few things that have to be adapted. Within the root directory you have to edit the gitlab-ci.yml file. There are some environmental variables to be changed.

Edit Environmental Variables to Pipeline Configuration

An PLCnext app needs the app_info.json as information for the plcnext runtime. It provides information about the appname, id etc. The following variables are heavily needed for an existing images.

1. APP_VERSION is the displayed version number in the web based managment app section (The appversion on the plcnextstore must be set seperat on the app configuration via plcnextstore).
2. MINFIRMWARE_VERSION sets the executable minimum firmware version.
3. APP_NAME is the displayed and overall used Name inside the app and on the running system.
4. LICENSE_TYPE it can be set to activate an licensing function.
5. MANUFACTOR you can set your name or your company name. It will be represenet on the web based managment.
6. LINUXDAEMON_PATH these path is preconfigured, if no additional script is needed, these settings can be retained(it's needed that the app can be executed). The script that will be executed is an empty placeholder.
7. Different version between x86 and arm architecture:
   1. IDENTIFIER_ARM and IDENTIFIER_X86 are the unique identifier provided by the plcnextstore. These must be different due to the different platforms.
   2. TARGET_ARM and TARGET_X86
8. Container specific variables:
   1. IMAGE_NAME it's the image name that will be downloaded.
   2. IMAGE_TAG is the tag that we need to download the right OCI image.

So all of these variables need to be changed to your needs and project.

Add Project Dependecies

The also a few other steps to get an running OCI Container. Currently the init.d system is used to manage start and stop scripts on plcnext controller. So there is an script (initscript_arm, initscript_x86) for each startup process. Inside these script all dependecies are accomplished and copied, neccessary things will be loaded and if everything runs succesfuel podman will start up the containers.

If you want extend your applications with additional information, normally all things that has to be in some form executed must be done there(like overwrite existing file/folder permissions etc. ).

If you want to extend base images you could mount files. These can be done by adding an new folder (e.g ./arm/volumes and ./x86/volumes) and add these as an mounting volume to the docker-compose.yml file.

Download build app

After the build runs through succesfuel. The artifacts can be downloaded. It can be downloaded just under the download button for pipeline over every commit. Every stage that start with container, contains an .app compressed within an .zip file.

Pipeline structure

the pipeline consists of only one stage. The stage is called container_existing_image it will download the predefined image, that has been set in configuration part and add neccessary dependecies and afterwards compress it into an .app file. Also all nessescary information will be added to the app structure files.