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Use the Windows ML container Insider Preview with Azure IoT Edge Runtime

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  • 3 minutes to read

Due to host OS and container version matching requirements, in order to use Azure IoT Edge Runtime with Windows ML container Insider Preview, there are a few steps that need to be taken to prepare Azure IoT Edge runtime environment.

Important

The steps below assume some experience and familiarity with using Docker and Azure IoT Edge.

Environment Setup

On a Windows Insider Preview host machine with a matching version to the installed Windows ML container, do the following:

Build private Azure IoT Edge runtime module

Prepare base OS image

  • Launch CMD or powershell as admin,
  • Login to Azure Container Registry from docker.
  • Pull Windows ML container base image (change the tag to match your Insider host version) with the following commands.
    • docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/windows/ml/insider:10.0.18999.1
    • docker tag mcr.microsoft.com/windows/ml/insider:10.0.18999.1 windowsml:latest
  • Clone Azure IoT Edge into C:\iotedge.
    • cd /d c:\
    • git clone https://github.com/Azure/iotedge.git

Build Edge hub container

Execute the following commands to build your Edge hub container.

  • cd c:\iotedge\edge-hub\src\Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Edge.Hub.Service\

  • dotnet publish -r win-x64

  • cd bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.1\win-x64\

  • Create a Dockerfile with content like below following and save it at c:\iotedge\edge-hub\src\Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Edge.Hub.Service\bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.1\win-x64:

    FROM windowsml:latest
WORKDIR /app
COPY publish/ ./
# Expose MQTT, AMQP and HTTPS ports-
EXPOSE 8883/tcp
EXPOSE 5671/tcp
EXPOSE 443/tcp
CMD ["Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Edge.Hub.Service.exe"]

    Continue with the following commands.

    • docker build . -t your-own-registry.azurecr.io/hub:latest
    • docker push your-own-registry.azurecr.io/hub:latest

Build Agent container

Execute the following commands to build your Agent container.

  • cd c:\iotedge\edge-agent\src\Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Edge.Agent.Service\

  • dotnet publish -r win-x64

  • cd bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.1\win-x64

  • Create a Dockerfile with content like the following and save it at: c:\iotedge\edge-agent\src\Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Edge.Agent.Service\bin\Debug\netcoreapp2.1\win-x64

    FROM windowsml:latest
# Configure web servers to bind to port 80 when present
ENV ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://+:80
WORKDIR /app
COPY publish/ ./
CMD ["Microsoft.Azure.Devices.Edge.Agent.Service.exe"]

Continue with the following commands.

  • docker build . -t your-own-registry.azurecr.io/agent:latest
  • docker push your-own-registry.azurecr.io/agent:latest

Build other Azure IoT Edge modules

If there are other modules that will be deployed to the Edge device running Azure IoT Edge and Windows ML Insider Preview container on a Windows Insider host, you will need to rebuild those modules based on the same Windows Insider container image that is matched to the version of the Windows Insider host.

Configure IoT Edge in the Azure IoT Hub portal

  • Create an IoT Edge device on your Azure IoT Hub. Screenshot that show teh I o T Edge page with Add an I o T Edge device selected.

  • Name the device TestDevice and select Symmetric Key. Screenshot that shows the Create a device page with the Device I D text box highlighted, Symmetric key selected, and the save button selected.

  • Select Set Modules. Screenshot that shows the device page with Set Modules selected.

  • Specify your container registry details where the privately built modules was pushed to. Screenshot that shows the Set modules page with the container registry details highlighted.

  • Click on Configure advanced Edge Runtime Settings button on Set Modules page, then set Edge Hub and Edge Agent to where you published the private containers to. Screenshot that shows the Set modules page with the Configure advanced Edge Runtime settings button highlighted, and the Advanced Edge Settings window open.

  • Select the Save button.

  • Don’t forget to select next -> next - submit

From this point, you can optionally add some Deployment modules to your device.

Setting up Azure IoT Edge on Windows ML container host

Important

When setting up Azure IoT Edge, make sure that the version of the container OS matches the version of the container host that was used to build the Edge Hub and Edge Agent modules.

  • The device where IoT Edge is being installed on below should not have Docker running.
  • You can stop and disable Docker service if you are experimenting on the container build machine from above.

Download and modify installation powershell script

  • Save a copy of IoTEdgeSecurityDaemon.ps1 locally, with this command running from an elevated commant prompt.
curl -o c:\IotEdgeSecurityDaemon.ps1 -L  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/iotedge/1.0.8/scripts/windows/setup/IotEdgeSecurityDaemon.ps1
  • Modify IoTEdgeSecurityDaemon.ps1 to disable build version constraints
  • In the Initialize-IoTedge function, comment out the following line.
 #   if (-not (Setup-Environment -ContainerOs $ContainerOs -SkipArchCheck -SkipBatteryCheck)) {
 #       return
 #   }
  • In the Install-Packages function, comment out the following line:
#    if (-not (Setup-Environment -ContainerOs $ContainerOs -SkipArchCheck:$SkipArchCheck -SkipBatteryCheck:$SkipBatteryCheck)) {
#        return
#    }

Install IoT Edge

  • Run the following command from an elevated PowerShell instance:
. {Invoke-WebRequest -useb c:\IotEdgeSecurityDaemon.ps1} | Invoke-Expression;  Deploy-IoTEdge
  • If your device reboots, wait for it to restart. If necessary, launch an elevated PowerShell instance once again, and run the following command.

Note

Remember to replace the container registry, username, password, and connection string in the below example.

. {Invoke-WebRequest -useb c:\IotEdgeSecurityDaemon.ps1} | Invoke-Expression; Initialize-IoTEdge -AgentImage your-container-registry.azurecr.io/agent:latest  -Username yourRegistryUserName -Password $(ConvertTo-SecureString yourregistryPassword -AsPlainText -Force)  -Manual -DeviceConnectionString connectionstringOfTestDevice
  • Wait for a few minutes for the process to conclude, then run the following command.
PS C:\> iotedge list

You should be able to see the agent and hub running, as displayed below.

NAME             STATUS           DESCRIPTION      CONFIG
edgeHub          running          Up 9 seconds     winmlc.azurecr.io/hub:latest
edgeAgent        running          Up 22 seconds    winmlc.azurecr.io/agent:latest