Azure IoT Edge supported platforms

  • Article

Applies to: yes icon IoT Edge 1.1

Important

IoT Edge 1.1 end of support date was December 13, 2022. Check the Microsoft Product Lifecycle for information about how this product, service, technology, or API is supported. For more information about updating to the latest version of IoT Edge, see Update IoT Edge.

This article explains what operating system platforms, IoT Edge runtimes, container engines, and components are supported by IoT Edge whether generally available or in preview.

Get support

If you experience problems while using the Azure IoT Edge service, there are several ways to seek support. Try one of the following channels for support:

Reporting bugs - Most development that goes into the Azure IoT Edge product happens in the IoT Edge open-source project. Bugs can be reported on the issues page of the project. Bugs related to Azure IoT Edge for Linux on Windows can be reported on the iotedge-eflow issues page. Fixes rapidly make their way from the projects in to product updates.

Microsoft Customer Support team - Users who have a support plan can engage the Microsoft Customer Support team by creating a support ticket directly from the Azure portal.

Feature requests - The Azure IoT Edge product tracks feature requests via the product's User Voice page.

Container engines

Azure IoT Edge modules are implemented as containers, so IoT Edge needs a container engine to launch them. Microsoft provides a container engine, moby-engine, to fulfill this requirement. This container engine is based on the Moby open-source project. Docker CE and Docker EE are other popular container engines. They're also based on the Moby open-source project and are compatible with Azure IoT Edge. Microsoft provides best effort support for systems using those container engines; however, Microsoft can't ship fixes for issues in them. For this reason, Microsoft recommends using moby-engine on production systems.


The Moby engine as container runtime

Operating systems

Azure IoT Edge runs on most operating systems that can run containers; however, not all of these systems are equally supported. Operating systems are grouped into tiers that represent the level of support users can expect.

  • Tier 1 systems are supported. For tier 1 systems, Microsoft:
    • has this operating system in automated tests
    • provides installation packages for them
  • Tier 2 systems are compatible with Azure IoT Edge and can be used relatively easily. For tier 2 systems:
    • Microsoft has done informal testing on the platforms or knows of a partner successfully running Azure IoT Edge on the platform
    • Installation packages for other platforms may work on these platforms

The family of the host OS must always match the family of the guest OS used inside a module's container.

In other words, you can only use Linux containers on Linux and Windows containers on Windows. When using Windows containers, only process isolated containers are supported, not Hyper-V isolated containers.

IoT Edge for Linux on Windows uses IoT Edge in a Linux virtual machine running on a Windows host. In this way, you can run Linux modules on a Windows device.

Tier 1

The systems listed in the following tables are supported by Microsoft, either generally available or in public preview, and are tested with each new release.

Azure IoT Edge supports modules built as either Linux or Windows containers. Linux containers can be deployed to Linux devices or deployed to Windows devices using IoT Edge for Linux on Windows. Windows containers can only be deployed to Windows devices.

Linux containers

Modules built as Linux containers can be deployed to either Linux or Windows devices. For Linux devices, the IoT Edge runtime is installed directly on the host device. For Windows devices, a Linux virtual machine prebuilt with the IoT Edge runtime runs on the host device.

IoT Edge for Linux on Windows is the recommended way to run IoT Edge on Windows devices.

Operating System AMD64 ARM32v7 ARM64
Debian 11 (Bullseye) Debian + ARM32v7
Ubuntu Server 20.04 Ubuntu Server 20.04 + AMD64 Ubuntu Server 20.04 + ARM64
Ubuntu Server 18.04 Ubuntu Server 18.04 + AMD64 Ubuntu Server 18.04 + ARM64
Windows 10/11 Pro Windows 10/11 Pro + AMD64
Windows 10/11 Enterprise Windows 10/11 Enterprise + AMD64
Windows 10/11 IoT Enterprise Windows 10/11 IoT Enterprise + AMD64
Windows Server 2019/2022 Windows Server 2019/2022 + AMD64

All Windows operating systems must be minimum build 17763 with all current cumulative updates installed.

Note

Ubuntu Server 16.04 support ended with the release of IoT Edge version 1.1.

Windows containers

Important

IoT Edge 1.1 LTS is the last release channel that will support Windows containers. Starting with version 1.2, Windows containers will not be supported. Consider using or moving to IoT Edge for Linux on Windows to run IoT Edge on Windows devices.

Modules built as Windows containers can be deployed only to Windows devices.

Operating System AMD64 ARM32v7 ARM64
Windows 10 IoT Enterprise check1
Windows Server 2019 check1
Windows Server IoT 2019 check1

All Windows operating systems must be version 1809 (build 17763). The specific build of Windows is required for IoT Edge on Windows because the version of the Windows containers must exactly match the version of the host Windows device. Windows containers currently only use build 17763.

Note

Windows 10 IoT Core support ended with the release of IoT Edge version 1.1.

Tier 2

The systems listed in the following table are considered compatible with Azure IoT Edge, but aren't actively tested or maintained by Microsoft.

Operating System AMD64 ARM32v7 ARM64
CentOS-7 CentOS + AMD64 CentOS + ARM32v7 CentOS + ARM64
Debian 10 1 Debian 10 + AMD64 Debian 10 + ARM32v7 Debian 10 + ARM64
Debian 11 Debian 11 + AMD64 Debian 11 + ARM64
Mentor Embedded Linux Flex OS Mentor Embedded Linux Flex OS + AMD64 Mentor Embedded Linux Flex OS + ARM32v7 Mentor Embedded Linux Flex OS + ARM64
Mentor Embedded Linux Omni OS Mentor Embedded Linux Omni OS + AMD64 Mentor Embedded Linux Omni OS + ARM64
RHEL 7 RHEL 7 + AMD64 RHEL 7 + ARM32v7 RHEL 7 + ARM64
Ubuntu 18.04 2 Ubuntu 18.04 + ARM32v7
Ubuntu 20.04 2 Ubuntu 20.04 + ARM32v7
Wind River 8 Wind River 8 + AMD64
Yocto Yocto + AMD64 Yocto + ARM32v7 Yocto + ARM64
Raspberry Pi OS Buster Raspberry Pi OS Buster + ARM32v7 Raspberry Pi OS Buster + ARM64

1 With the release of 1.3, there are new system calls that cause crashes in Debian 10. To see the workaround, view the Known issue: Debian 10 (Buster) on ARMv7 section of the 1.3 release notes for details.

2 Installation packages are made available on the Azure IoT Edge releases. See the installation steps in Offline or specific version installation.

Releases

The following table lists the currently supported releases. IoT Edge release assets and release notes are available on the azure-iotedge releases page.

Release notes and assets Type Release Date End of Support Date
1.4 Long-term support (LTS) August 2022 November 12, 2024
1.1 Long-term support (LTS) February 2021 December 13, 2022

For more information on IoT Edge version history see, Version history.

IoT Edge 1.1 is the first long-term support (LTS) release channel. This version introduced no new features, but will receive security updates and fixes to regressions. IoT Edge 1.1 LTS uses .NET Core 3.1, and will be supported until December 13, 2022 to match the .NET Core and .NET 5 release lifecycle.

Important

  • Every Microsoft product has a lifecycle. The lifecycle begins when a product is released and ends when it's no longer supported. Knowing key dates in this lifecycle helps you make informed decisions about when to upgrade or make other changes to your software. IoT Edge is governed by Microsoft's Modern Lifecycle Policy.
  • With the release of a long-term support channel, we recommend that all current customers running 1.0.x upgrade their devices to 1.1.x to receive ongoing support.

IoT Edge uses the Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Client SDK. For more information, see the Azure IoT C# SDK GitHub repo or the Azure SDK for .NET reference content. The following list shows the version of the client SDK that each release is tested against:

IoT Edge version Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Client SDK version
1.4 1.36.6
1.3 1.36.6
1.2.0 1.33.4-NestedEdge
1.1 (LTS) 1.28.0
1.0.10 1.28.0
1.0.9 1.21.1
1.0.8 1.20.3
1.0.7 1.20.1
1.0.6 1.17.1
1.0.5 1.17.1

Virtual Machines

Azure IoT Edge can be run in virtual machines. Using a virtual machine as an IoT Edge device is common when customers want to augment existing infrastructure with edge intelligence. The family of the host VM OS must match the family of the guest OS used inside a module's container. This requirement is the same as when Azure IoT Edge is run directly on a device. Azure IoT Edge is agnostic of the underlying virtualization technology and works in VMs powered by platforms like Hyper-V and vSphere.


Azure IoT Edge in a VM

Minimum system requirements

Azure IoT Edge runs great on devices as small as a Raspberry Pi3 to server grade hardware. Choosing the right hardware for your scenario depends on the workloads that you want to run. Making the final device decision can be complicated; however, you can easily start prototyping a solution on traditional laptops or desktops.

Experience while prototyping will help guide your final device selection. Questions you should consider include:

  • How many modules are in your workload?
  • How many layers do your modules' containers share?
  • In what language are your modules written?
  • How much data will your modules be processing?
  • Do your modules need any specialized hardware for accelerating their workloads?
  • What are the desired performance characteristics of your solution?
  • What is your hardware budget?