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Open Horizon

Preparing an edge device

The following instructions guide you through the process of installing the required software on your edge device and registering it with Open Horizon (Open Horizon).

Supported architectures and operating systems

Open Horizon supports architectures and operating systems with the following hardware architectures:

  • x86_64
    • Linux x86_64 devices or virtual machines that run Ubuntu 24.x (noble), Ubuntu 22.x (jammy), Ubuntu 20.x (focal), Ubuntu 18.x (bionic), Debian 12 (bookworm), Debian 11 (bullseye), Debian 10 (buster), Debian 9 (stretch)
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.1 - 8.5 (via Docker), 8.6 - 8.8 and 9.0 - 9.4 (via Podman 4.x). See Notes.
    • Fedora Workstation 36 - 40
    • CentOS 8.1 - 8.5 (via Docker)
    • SuSE 15 SP2
  • ppc64le
    • Linux ppc64le devices or virtual machines that run Ubuntu 24.x (noble), Ubuntu 22.x (jammy), Ubuntu 20.x (focal) or Ubuntu 18.x (bionic)
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 7.6 - 9.4
  • ARM (32-bit)
    • Linux on ARM (32-bit), for example Raspberry Pi, running Raspberry Pi OS bookworm, bullseye or buster
  • ARM (64-bit)
    • Linux on ARM (64-bit), for example NVIDIA Jetson Nano, TX1, or TX2, running Ubuntu 18.x (bionic)
    • macOS on ARM (64-bit) Apple Silicon M1 / M2
  • Mac (both Intel® and M1 / M2 )
    • macOS
  • s390x
    • Linux on s390x devices or virtual machines that run Ubuntu 24.x (noble), Ubuntu 22.x (jammy), Ubuntu 20.x (focal), Ubuntu 18.x (bionic)
    • Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.1 - 8.5 (via Docker), 8.6 - 8.8 and 9.0 - 9.4 (via Podman 4.x). See Notes.

Notes:

  • Installation of edge devices with SuSE is only supported by the Advanced manual agent installation and registration method.
  • CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.5 or earlier on Open Horizon 4.2 only support Docker as a container engine.
  • While Open Horizon 4.2 supports running Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.x with Docker, it is officially unsupported by Red Hat Enterprise Linux®.
  • Open Horizon 4.2 supports Podman 4.x on Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.6 - 8.8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 9.0 - 9.4, and Fedora 36 - 40 Workstation.

Sizing

The agent requires:

  • 100 MB random access memory (RAM), including docker. RAM increases this amount by approximately 100 K per agreement, plus any additional memory that is required by workloads that run on the device.
  • 400 MB disk (including docker). Disk increases this amount based on the size of the container images that are used by workloads and the size of the model objects (times 2) that are deployed to the device.

Installing the agent

The following instructions guide you through the process of installing the required software on your edge device and registering it with Open Horizon.

Procedures

To install and configure your edge device, click the link that represents your edge device type:

Linux x86_64 devices or virtual machines

Hardware requirements

  • 64-bit Intel® or AMD device or virtual machine
  • An internet connection for your device (wired or WiFi)
  • (optional) Sensor hardware: Many Horizon edge services require specialized sensor hardware

Procedure

Prepare your device by installing a Debian, Red Hat Enterprise Linux®, or Ubuntu Linux. The instructions in this content are based on a device that uses Ubuntu 18.x.

Install the most recent version of Docker or Podman on your device. For more information, see Install Docker or Podman.io .

Now that your edge device is prepared, continue on to Installing the agent.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.x / 9.x devices or virtual machines

Hardware requirements

  • 64-bit Intel® device, AMD device, ppc64le device, or virtual machine
  • An internet connection for your device (wired or WiFi)
  • (optional) Sensor hardware: Many Horizon edge services require specialized sensor hardware

Procedure

Prepare your device by installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.x or 9.x

  1. Install packages:

    If you are running Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 9.0 or above, install the required Podman 4.x and Netavark packages.

    dnf install podman netavark

    If you are running Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.6 or above, install the Podman 4.x packages by installing the container-tools:rhel8 module.

    dnf module install container-tools:rhel8

  2. Switch the network stack from Container Network Interface (CNI) to Netavark. The Horizon agent requires the network backend to be configured to use Netavark instead of CNI so that the agent can set up networking scenarios such as dependent services between containers. Follow the steps in the Red Hat documentation switching the network stack chapter.

If you are running Red Hat Enterprise Linux® 8.5 (or earlier), remove Podman and other pre-included packages, then install Docker as described here.

  1. Uninstall packages:

    yum remove buildah skopeo podman containers-common atomic-registries docker container-tools

  2. Remove remaining artifacts and files:

    rm -rf /etc/containers/* /var/lib/containers/* /etc/docker /etc/subuid* /etc/subgid*

  3. Delete any associated container storage:

    cd ~ && rm -rf /.local/share/containers/

  4. Install Docker by following the instructions for Docker CENTOS Installation .

  5. Configure Docker to start on boot by default and follow any other Docker post installation steps .

    sudo systemctl enable docker.service
sudo systemctl enable containerd.service

Now that your edge device is prepared, continue on to Installing the agent.

Linux ppc64le devices or virtual machines

Hardware requirements

  • ppc64le device or virtual machine
  • An internet connection for your device (wired or WiFi)
  • (optional) Sensor hardware: Many Horizon edge services require specialized sensor hardware

Procedure

Prepare your device by installing Red Hat Enterprise Linux®.

Install the most recent version of Docker on your device.

Now that your edge device is prepared, continue on to Installing the agent.

Linux on ARM (32-bit)

Hardware requirements

  • Raspberry Pi 3A+, 3B, 3B+, or 4 (preferred)
  • Raspberry Pi A+, B+, 2B, Zero-W, or Zero-WH
  • MicroSD flash card (32 GB preferred)
  • An appropriate power supply for your device (2 Amp or greater preferred)
  • An internet connection for your device (wired or WiFi) Note: Some devices require extra hardware for supporting WiFi
  • (optional) Sensor hardware: Many Horizon edge services require specialized sensor hardware

Procedure

  1. Prepare your Raspberry Pi device.

    1. Flash the Raspberry Pi OS Linux image onto your MicroSD card.

      For more information about how to flash MicroSD images from many operating systems, see Raspberry Pi Foundation . These instructions use Raspberry Pi OS for WiFi and SSH configurations.

      Warning: Flashing an image onto your MicroSD card permanently erases any data that is already on your card.

    2. (optional) If you plan to use WiFi to connect to your device, edit your newly flashed image to provide the appropriate WPA2 WiFi credentials.

      If you plan to use a wired network connection, you do not need to complete this step.

      On your MicroSD card, create a file that is named wpa_supplicant.conf within the root level folder that contains your WiFi credentials. These credentials include your network SSID name and passphrase. Use the following format for your file:

      country=US
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev update_config=1
network={
ssid="<your-network-ssid>"
psk="<your-network-passphrase>"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK>
}

    3. (optional) If you want or need to run a Raspberry Pi device with no monitor or keyboard, you need to enable SSH connection access to your device. SSH access is unavailable by default.

      To enable the SSH connection, create an empty file on your MicroSD card that is named ssh. Include this file in the root level folder for your card. The inclusion of this file provides you with the ability to connect to your device with the default credentials.

    4. Unmount your MicroSD card. Ensure that you safely eject the card from the device that you are using to edit the card so that all of your changes are written.

    5. Insert the MicroSD card into your Raspberry Pi device. Attach any optional sensor hardware and connect the device to your power supply.

    6. Start your device.

    7. Change the default password for your device. In Raspberry Pi OS flash images, the default account uses the login name pi and the default password raspberry.

      Log in to this account. Use the standard Linux passwd command to change the default password:

      passwd
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully

    8. Install the most recent version of Docker on your device. For more information, see Install Docker .

Now that your edge device is prepared, continue on to Installing the agent.

Linux on ARM (64-bit)

Hardware requirements

  • NVIDIA Jetson Nano, or TX2 (recommended)
  • NVIDIA Jetson TX1
  • HDMI Business Monitor, USB hub, USB keyboard, USB mouse
  • Storage: at least 10 GB (SSD recommended)
  • An internet connection for your device (wired or WiFi)
  • (optional) Sensor hardware: Many Horizon edge services require specialized sensor hardware.

Procedure

  1. Prepare your NVIDIA Jetson device.
    1. Install the most recent NVIDIA JetPack on your device. For more information, see:

      You need to install this software and any prerequisite software before you install the Horizon software.

    2. Change the default password. In the JetPack installation procedure, the default account uses the login name nvidia and the default password nvidia.

      Log in to this account. Use the standard Linux passwd command to change the default password:

      passwd
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
passwd: password updated successfully
    3. Install the most recent version of Docker on your device. For more information, see Install Docker .

Now that your edge device is prepared, continue on to Installing the agent.

macOS

Hardware requirements

  • 2010 or later 64-bit Intel® Mac device
  • 2020 or later 64-bit arm64 Apple M1 / M2 Mac device
  • MMU virtualization is required
  • macOS X version 10.11 (“El Capitan”) or later
  • An internet connection for your machine (wired or WiFi)
  • (optional) Sensor hardware: Many Horizon edge services require specialized sensor hardware

Procedure

  1. Prepare your device.

    1. Purchase a Docker Desktop license, if necessary, and install the most recent version of Docker on your device. For more information, see the Docker installation for Mac documentation.

    2. Use Homebrew to install socat

What’s next