EAPI commons

EAPI is the name of API/SDK, used in EVA ICS v4 architecture by services and external software to communicate with the node core and each other.

EAPI is based on BUS/RT IPC bus and uses its default RPC layer for procedure calls. The default encoding payload for all RPC calls (except a few exclusions) is MessagePack.

Note

In EAPI Pub/Sub item OIDs are always used as paths: kind/group/id (“:” between kind and group/id is replaced with “/”).

Calling EAPI methods

Service EAPI methods can be called either with bus clients or with included CLI bus client (EVA_DIR/sbin/bus). Methods of individual services (including internal ones) can be called as well with eva-shell, using “svc call” command.

Note

In the bus RPC, “no payload” and “null payload” have different meaning. In EVA ICS, “none” payload means that a method accepts no payload. If the method is called with “null” payload, it may return invalid parameters error.

If RPC method requires parameters but all of them are optional, an empty struct (dict) MUST be specified as the parameters.

Type specifications

The following type specifications are used in EVA ICS documentation:

  • uN unsigned integer (e.g. u8 for 8-bit unsigned, u32 for 32-bit unsigned etc.)

  • iN signed integer (e.g. i8 for 8-bit signed, i32 for 32-bit signed etc.)

  • fN float-pointing number (f32 for 32-bit float, f64 for 64-bit float)

  • String string value

  • bool boolean (true/false)

  • Vec vector (list/array)

  • struct structure with particular fields (dictionary/object)

  • Map key/value map with variable fields (dictionary/object)

  • Time an internal time type, can be a number (parsed as a timestamp in seconds) or a string

When a parameter or a result field is a time value, it is usually specified as f64-timestamp or f64-duration (some low-level methods may require durations as micro- or nano-seconds).

Error codes

  • ERR_CODE_NOT_FOUND: -32001

  • ERR_CODE_ACCESS_DENIED: -32002

  • ERR_CODE_SYSTEM_ERROR: -32003

  • ERR_CODE_OTHER: -32004

  • ERR_CODE_NOT_READY: -32005

  • ERR_CODE_UNSUPPORTED: -32006

  • ERR_CODE_CORE_ERROR: -32007

  • ERR_CODE_TIMEOUT: -32008

  • ERR_CODE_INVALID_DATA: -32009

  • ERR_CODE_FUNC_FAILED: -32010

  • ERR_CODE_ABORTED: -32011

  • ERR_CODE_ALREADY_EXISTS: -32012

  • ERR_CODE_BUSY: -32013

  • ERR_CODE_METHOD_NOT_IMPLEMENTED: -32014

  • ERR_CODE_TOKEN_RESTRICTED: -32015

  • ERR_CODE_IO: -32016

  • ERR_CODE_REGISTRY: -32017

  • ERR_CODE_EVAHI_AUTH_REQUIRED: -32018

  • ERR_CODE_ACCESS_DENIED_MORE_DATA_REQUIRED: -32022

  • ERR_CODE_PARSE: -32700

  • ERR_CODE_INVALID_REQUEST: -32600

  • ERR_CODE_METHOD_NOT_FOUND: -32601

  • ERR_CODE_INVALID_PARAMS: -32602

  • ERR_CODE_INTERNAL_RPC: -32603

  • ERR_CODE_BUS_CLIENT_NOT_REGISTERED: -32113

  • ERR_CODE_BUS_DATA: -32114

  • ERR_CODE_BUS_IO: -32115

  • ERR_CODE_BUS_OTHER: -32116

  • ERR_CODE_BUS_NOT_SUPPORTED: -32117

  • ERR_CODE_BUS_BUSY: -32118

  • ERR_CODE_BUS_NOT_DELIVERED: -32119

  • ERR_CODE_BUS_TIMEOUT: -32120

EAPI Basics

All services must respond to “test” method (returns no payload) and to “info” (returns the service meta data). The services, which fail to respond to “test”, are automatically considered as failed and are restarted.

A service must react to “stop” command. When called, it has shutdown_time to stop, otherwise it is forcibly killed.

Metadata format

  • author: service author

  • description: service description

  • version: service version

  • methods: optional structure with info about provided methods

Method info structure

The structure is a map and has the following format:

method=info

where info is a map with the mandatory fields:

description: method description params: map of method parameters

Each parameter in “params” is a map, which has the following format:

  • required: true/false

Example

Example meta data format (info+methods):

{
    "author": "Bohemia Automation",
    "description": "Virtual bus controller",
    "version": "4.0.0"
    "methods": {
        "get": {
            "description": "get oid register",
            "params": {
                "i": {
                    "required": true
                }
            }
        },
        "list": {
            "description": "list oid registers",
            "params": {}
        },
        "set": {
            "description": "set oid register",
            "params": {
                "i": {
                    "required": true
                },
                "status": {
                    "required": false
                },
                "value": {
                    "required": false
                }
            }
        }
    },
}

Communications

The core

The core (eva.core) hosts bus broker (.broker), the registry (eva.registry) and the main node launcher (eva.launcher.main). All these services are embedded in a single OS process.

The core supports API methods to get / set / list items and API keys. Services have to rather cache API keys for several seconds than to query them on each call.

When the core and all services are started (or failed to start), the message “status: ready” is being send to the topic SVC/ST

When the core is shutting down, the services receive “status: terminating”

ACL services

There is one default ACL service included in EVA ICS distribution “eva.aaa.acl”. Custom ACL services can be developed for particular needs.

When ACL is created/modified/deleted, the service sends message to

AAA/ACL/ACL_ID (empty payload for the deleted key). This allows e.g. HMI and replication services to drop login tokens and cached ACLs.

Core events

When eva.core processes an event and considers the state is changed, it sends a message to the bus topic:

ST/<LOC|REM|RAR>/<OID>

where

  • LOC - local state

  • REM - remote replicated state

  • RAR - remote replicated archive state

with the following payload fields:

  • status: I16 - item status (-1 = generic error for units/sensors, other - custom)

  • value (optional): any serializable

  • t: f64 - state modification timestamp

  • ieid: [u64, u64] - incremental event ID (replication marker)

The OID of the item is not present in the payload and should be obtained from the event topic.

Raw events

any service (e.g. a controller) can send raw event to “RAW/OID” with the following payload:

  • status: I16 - item status (-1 = generic error for units/sensors, other - custom)

  • value (optional): any serializable value, including null (no value). If the field is absent, the item value is not modified.

A special field “force” can be used to forcibly set (when force=true) state of disabled items. The field should be used only by admin interfaces or system software.

Starting from the build 2023112801 the core also accepts raw bulk events sent to “RAW” topic:

[
  {
    "oid": "sensor:t1",
    "status": 1,
    "value": 25.55
  },
  {
    "oid": "sensor:t2",
    "status": 1,
    "value": 35.99
  }
]

Note

Producers should always minimize the number of bus events, especially blank ones.

Replication events

A replication service must submit and periodically refresh full list of items to the bus topic:

RPL/INVENTORY/<SRC>

Source names must be different for all replication services.

When a replication service receives state event, it sends it to:

TOPIC: RPL/ST/<OID>

MSGPACK payload:

  • t: set time // (float timestamp)

  • ieid: XXXX // ieid

  • status: i32 // status

  • value: XXXX // value

  • node: xxxxx // source node

If no item exist, the core creates a new one. If the item exists, the core either updates its state (if the received state is newer) or sends replication archive announcement.

The replication service must periodically mask a source online/offline, by sending the frame to:

RPL/NODE/<SRC>

{
    "status": "online" // "offline", "removed"
}

When the node is marked online, an additional field info (with subfields build: u64 and version: string) can be present:

{
    "status": "online",
    "info": {
        "build": 2022041001,
        "version" "4.0.0"
    }
}

Actions

While the action is processed, its status is reported to “action/OID”, the action history is kept by the core.

Actions to remote services

  • The core does not keep history for local actions, however it keeps uuid-node records, which can be used to obtain results from the remotes

  • Actions to remotes can have “wait” parameter, which obliges the replication service to call the remote action with it.

  • Until v3 EOL, action.result parameters to replication services contain both uuid (u) and item oid(i), which is required to call either remote v3 UC or remote v3 LM PLC.

action.toggle

The toggle method is always transformed to a regular action at the node where it is called.

Logs

All services can log to “LOG/IN/level” topic, which is processed by the core and other optional services. All messages are in plain text

levels (lowercase): trace, debug, info, warn, error

if the core bus logger is enabled, the core sends aggregated log events to LOG/EV/level bus topics.

Accounting

Accounting is similar to logs but is more related to user actions. If a service interacts with a user directly, e.g. provides extra calls, it should send accounting events when a resource is modified or a sensitive one is accessed.

Accounting events can be send by calling report method directly (in this case the caller must know local service ID), or, as a preferred way, to a special bus topic AAA/REPORT.

If a topic is used, the payload MUST be a structure with fields equal to report method.

Auth

Services authenticate users via RPC calls with the following methods:

  • auth.user(login, password, timeout)

  • auth.key(key, timeout)

Note

Authentication RPC calls may contain additional payload fields which can be ignored if not required but MUST be acceptable.

If succeed, the methods must return a corresponding ACL, which can be combined from multiple ACLs if more than one is assigned to the user/key.

If an auth service manages users and user password/assigned ACL is modified, the service sends message to the bus topic:

AAA/USER/LOGIN (empty payload for the deleted account)

API keys modification events are sent to AAA/KEY/KEY_ID

Key managers must also respond to “key.get” method, providing id/key fields for replication and other services.

Authentication services may implement additional methods:

  • user.set_password(i, password, check_policy)

  • user.get_profile_field(i, field)

{
 "value": "fieldvalue",
 "readonly": false
}

  • user.set_profile_field(i, field, value)

where i stands for user login.

Service topics

Services may use own topics e.g. to communicate with related services on the same bus. The topics MUST start with

SVE/<SVC_ID>

Security model and call ACLs

As all calls via the local bus come from trusted services only, they have zero-authentication strategy.

If a trusted service (e.g. HMI) allows untrusted clients to call bus methods directly, such RPC calls have following format:

  • method: “x”

  • params: payload

where the payload is:

  • method: NNN // an actual service method/function to be called

  • params: XXXX // parameters for the actual method/function

  • acl: ACL of the untrusted client

The call may have additional fields, e.g. the default HMI service includes “aci” (API call info) field as well.

Initial payload

when the service is started, it gets initial settings in MessagePack format to STDIN:

version: 4 # number
system_name: System name # string
id: service id (you) # string
command: service executable path and optional arguments # string
prepare_command: prepare command, must be handled by service # string, optional
data_path: path to the service directory (runtime/svc_data/NAME) # string
timeout:
    startup: startup timeout # number, optional
    shutdown: shutdown timeout # number, optional
    default: the default timeout # number, optional
core:
    build: core build # number
    version: core version # string
    eapi_version: EAPI version # number
    path: path to EVA ICS installation directory # string
    log_level: logging level # number
    active: is the node already active # boolean
bus:
    type: "native" (always) # string
    path: path to the bus socket (required) # string
    timeout: bus timeout # number, optional
    buf_ttl: buffer ttl (seconds) # number, optional
    buf_size: buffer size (optional, not required for JS) # number, optional
    queue_size: queue size (optional, not required for Python) # number, optional
    ping_interval: ping interval, number, DEPRECATED
config:
    SERVICE CONFIG # any, optional
workers: number of worker threads # number, optional
user: username to drop privileges to # string, optional
react_to_fail: react-to-fail support # boolean, optional
fail_mode: react-to-fail mode state (if the previous instance exited with error) # boolean, optional
fips: FIPS-140 mode # boolean, optional
call_tracing: call tracing enabled # boolean, optional

When the service is successfully started, it must report “status: ready” payload to everyone, otherwise it will be not marked as “online”.

When the service is stopping, it should report “status: terminating” payload to everyone.

Controller service requirements

Events

Controllers are not pulled by the core, they must send events from its internal registers to RAW/OID bus topic.

Unit actions

A controller can react to “action” rpc call command. the payload contains:

  • uuid: uuid (array of u8;16)

  • i: OID (String)

  • timeout: timeout (microseconds, u64)

  • priority: u8 // lower is higher

  • params/value: value payload, if required

  • config: optional config

The controller should react to “terminate” command, the payload contains uuid: UUID

The controller should react to “kill” command, the payload contains i: OID

The controller reports action states to ACT/OID topic, where the payload contains:

  • uuid: UUID

  • status: ACTION STATUS (1 byte)

  • b0000_0000 - created

  • b0000_0001 - accepted (no announce required)

  • b0000_0010 - pending (queued)

  • b0000_1000 - running

  • b0000_1111 - completed

  • b1000_0000 - failed

  • b1000_0001 - canceled

  • b1000_0010 - terminated

  • out: output (optional)

  • err: error output (optional)

Macros actions

A macro is any kind of scenario or function, stored and processed by the controller or external hardware PLC.

A controller can react to “run” rpc call command. the payload contains:

  • uuid: uuid (array of u8;16)

  • i: lmacro OID (String)

  • timeout: timeout (microseconds, u64), optional

  • params/args: [Any] - macro arguments, optional

  • params/kwargs: Map<String, Any> - macro keyword arguments, optional

  • config: optional config

The controller reports action states to ACT/OID topic, where the payload has the same format as for unit actions.