Updated November 2021
Product designers can use Pantavisor and Pantacor Hub to create, deploy and manage many different types of containerized apps on your IoT devices. Pantavisor is the framework for containerized embedded Linux development. It connects embedded devices, and containerizes and modularizes both the embedded firmware and user-land. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to install Pantavisor onto a Raspberry Pi, claim your device and then make it accessible from the Pantacor Hub dashboard. Lastly, we describe how to prepare and deploy a Redis database onto the device and then connect to it with a laptop.
Before you begin this tutorial, sign up to Pantacor Hub. It’s open source and free to use.
Prepare your Raspberry Pi 3 device for Redis
Step 1: Flash your SD card with the RPi3 initial stable image.
Download latest stable RPi3 image:
unzip the device image with:
$ unxz rpi3_initial_stable.img.xzFlash the image into the SD card using Raspberry Pi Imager
Step 2: Boot your RPi3
Insert your SD card in your Pi and then attach the power supply.
Step 3: Sign up to Pantacor Hub
Step 4: Download and install the CLI “pvr”
Note: PVR is a command line interface (CLI) that you can use to interact with your device and Pantacor Hub. With PVR you can share your firmware and projects like a git tree. Move the PVR binary to your bin folder after download.
If you prefer to work locally on your device, and not connect to Pantacor Hub, then you can use our self-contained Pantavisor utilities, Pantabox.
Install and download PVR:
To install from GitLab source:
$ go get gitlab.com/pantacor/pvr
$ go build -o ~/bin/pvr gitlab.com/pantacor/pvrNote: You need “GOLANG” to be installed in your system for building pvr from gitlab source.
Step 5: Detect and claim your device in Pantacor Hub
Connect a LAN cable between your RPI3 & computer/Router.
Open your terminal & run
$ pvr device scan
Claim your device
$ pvr claim -c merely-regular-gorilla https://api.pantahub.com:443/devices/5f1b9c44e193a5000afa9901
Log into Pantacor Hub and check that the newly claimed device appears in the dashboard.
Step 6: Clone the device and use it on your laptop with the Clone URL of your device that is displayed with the device in the Pantacor Hub dashboard.
$ pvr clone https://pvr.pantahub.com/sirinibin/presently_learning_pelican/0 presently_learning_pelican
Now your device is ready to deploy your Redis app
Deploy the Redis container to the device:
Step 1: Add “redis” to the device and deploy
Add “redis” container app
$ pvr app add redis --from=arm32v7/redis:latest
Deploy the changes
$ pvr add .
$ pvr commit
$ pvr post
Step 2: Access Redis through the shell and test it:
redis-cli -h 10.42.0.231
You are Done!
Final Thoughts
In this tutorial, we described how to deploy a containerized version of Redis into your Pantavisor-enabled device. Pantavisor doesn’t run Docker containers natively, but it does use Docker images as a great source of root file systems for containers that are run by the Pantavisor with LXC.
Take a deeper dive into managing Pantavisor Linux with Pantabox.
We’re really excited for you to try Pantabox and Pantavisor Linux and we’d love to hear your thoughts. Try one of the guides or join us in the Pantavisor community forum.