# Pantavisor by Chat GPT Pantavisor is a firmware and software solution for embedded Linux devices that provides a number of features to improve the security, reliability, and manageability of these devices. At its core, Pantavisor is a lightweight, custom Linux distribution that is designed to run on embedded devices. It provides a number of features that are typically not found on standard Linux distributions, such as: - Secure boot: Pantavisor uses a secure boot process to ensure that only authorized firmware and software can run on the device. This helps prevent malicious software from running on the device. - Over-the-air updates: Pantavisor provides a built-in mechanism for over-the-air (OTA) updates, which allows you to easily update the firmware and software on the device without having to physically access it. - Remote management: Pantavisor provides a web-based management interface that allows you to remotely monitor and control the device. You can view device information, configure settings, and even reboot the device remotely. - Secure communication: Pantavisor provides secure communication channels that allow devices to communicate with each other and with the cloud securely. - Sandboxing: Pantavisor uses sandboxing technology to isolate different parts of the system, which helps to prevent malware from spreading and to contain any potential damage. All these features help to improve the security, reliability, and manageability of embedded Linux devices, making them more suitable for use in mission-critical applications such as industrial automation, medical devices, automotive, and IoT. Pantavisor also provides a development platform for building and deploying apps to the devices which makes it easier for developers to create and manage their own applications. This platform allows developers to use familiar tools and technologies, such as Linux containers, to build and test their apps, making it easier to get started with embedded Linux development. Overall, Pantavisor is a powerful solution for embedded Linux devices that provides a number of features to improve security, reliability, and manageability, making it suitable for use in a wide range of applications. ## How to deploy applications Pantavisor provides a development platform that allows you to build and deploy your own applications to embedded Linux devices. The platform provides a number of tools and technologies that you can use to create, test and deploy your applications in a secure and efficient manner. Here are some general steps you can follow to deploy an application in Pantavisor: - Create your application: You can use any programming language and development tools that are supported by the Linux platform to create your application. You can also use existing libraries and frameworks to help speed up the development process. - Package your application: Once your application is complete, you will need to package it into a format that can be deployed to the device. Pantavisor supports several types of package formats such as AppImage, Flatpak and Snaps. You can use the appropriate tool to package your application. - Test your application: Before deploying your application to the device, you should test it to ensure that it works correctly. You can use the Pantavisor development platform to test your application on a virtual device or in a container. - Sign your application: To ensure the security of your device, Pantavisor requires that all applications are signed before they can be deployed. You can use the Pantavisor development platform to sign your application. - Deploy your application: Once your application is packaged, signed and tested, you can deploy it to the device. You can use the Pantavisor web interface to remotely deploy your application over-the-air (OTA) updates to one or more devices. - Monitor and manage your application: You can use the Pantavisor web interface to monitor the status of your application and to perform tasks such as starting, stopping, and updating the application. It's worth noting that the exact steps will depend on the specific version of pantavisor and the package format that you are using. Pantavisor documentation and website provides more detailed instructions and examples to help you with the process of building and deploying your applications.
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11/17/2023
Crypt disks

Pantavisor offers a way to define the physical storage medium by setting up disks. This will allow pantavisor containers to access to does disks directly. There are currently 4 disks types supported: Non-encrypted directory Device Mapper crypt using without hardware acceleration (dm-crypt-versatile) Device Mapper crypt using i.Mx CAAM (dm-crypt-caam) Device Mapper crypt using i.Mx DCP (dm-crypt-dcp) Each disk that is defined in the state JSON can then be privately used by the containers. They can also be internally used by Pantavisor, as in the case of metadata.

2/27/2023
How to manage drivers with pantavisor

Let's do a quick refresh on Pantavisor Linux architecture, the idea behind Pantavisor Linux is to build the full OS using containers as the building blocks. This will allow the creation of a reproducible state for the device system. In that way the system will look something like this: In this image we can see the network management is done by a container, then there is the pvr-sdk which is a container used in development to manage the device in the local network environment, ssh into the device, and another couple of development tasks that can be run on the device. Then we have in an upper layer the main app that is running the device functionality. How pantavisor manages drivers Pantavisor offers a mechanim for BSPs to define which (abstract) drivers they support. For that the bsp can specify a list of such abstract drivers and - if needed - map each of those to a list of kernel modules that can be loaded by pantavisor as needed. Driver loading can parameterized and those parameters can be dynamically sources from user-meta. Containers on the other hand can express what drivers they need by referencing one of such driver names and pantavisor will mediate loading the drivers as needed. By offering this alias mechanism, product and platform builders can add level of abstraction that allows multiple BSP to suffice the requirements of containers by loading the appropriate modules.

2/24/2023
Real-Time Embedded Linux Observability with Pantavisor and InfluxDB

Presently organizations are unable to monitor millions of embedded Linux devices in real-time. With so many different architectures and device types, aggregating telemetry and metrics and viewing that data in a centralized analysis tool is problematic. Onboarding embedded Linux devices into a telemetry service so that metrics can be easily observed is a significant challenge. But now you can automatically and quickly onboard large IoT fleets with Pantavisor-powered devices, and InfluxDB’s Telegraf plugin, and stream metrics to a centralized monitoring dashboard with minimal effort. This post describes how to onboard and configure devices for the Telegraf plugin service to monitor Pantavisor-powered embedded Linux fleets. Device onboarding is streamlined and fast with a single sign-on process where Pantacor Hub automatically acquires InfluxDB credentials. Telegraf and Pantacor Hub overview Telegraf is an open-source server agent that collects telemetry and other metrics from your stacks, sensors, and systems. Pantacor Hub is our open source SaaS for remote device firmware and software lifecycle management and cloud service integration. We containerized the telegraf plugin and made it available as a service from Pantacor Hub. Telegraf sends metrics to any InfluxDB server, including on-premise, cloud, or hosted. In this guide, we'll use the cloud service for InfluxDB found at https://cloud2.influxdata.com/.

8/25/2022
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