HMI kiosk manager

Contents

HMI kiosk is a touch-panel display, which is either connected to embedded UI-computer or has an embedded computer built-in.

HMI Kiosk Manager service allows to orchestrate HMI kiosks and provides the following functions:

Provides a dedicated bus, isolated from the primary EVA ICS node bus, which restricts kiosk communications between each other and permits connections from specified IP addresses/networks only
Allows to monitor states of connected kiosks
Remotely controls kiosk navigation, zoom level and other UI functions
Authenticates kiosks, including one-time-user authentication, so no sensitive information is stored on kiosk remotes
Provides kiosk system management functions: turn the kiosk display on/off, reload the kiosk software, reboot the physical kiosk machine

To have the above functionality, the remote must run either EvaPanel kiosk web browser or an alternative software with compatible bus API.

Note

Kiosk machines MUST have their host names matching the kiosk names, defined in the service.

If a third-party kiosk browser is used, it must connect to the kiosk bus using the client name “eva.panel.KIOSKNAME”.

Creating/managing kiosks

To use eva-shell with the kiosk management service, the service must be either deployed with ID “eva.kioskman.default” or “–kiosk-svc” argument must be provided for all commands executed.

Creating a kiosk connection

After the service is deployed, a kiosk connection can be created with eva-shell:

eva kiosk create test
eva kiosk edit test

Let us review the Kiosk configuration:

auth:
  login: username
  password: secret
auto_login: true
ip: 172.16.54.129/32
name: test

The configuration allows the kiosk with host name “test” to connect the bus from IP 172.16.54.129. After connecting and loading HMI web application, the kiosk is automatically logged-in with the specified login and password.

Using one-time accounts for authentication

The service sends authentication credentials to kiosk browsers, which may be insecure in case if a remote kiosk system is compromised. To avoid this, one-time accounts can be used. Modify the config as the following:

auth:
  login: username
  acls:
  - operator
  - op_xtras
auto_login: true
ip: 172.16.54.129/32
name: test

With the above configuration, the service creates an one-time user account (using the user authentication service, specified in “auth_svc” kiosk manager configuration field) and uses its credentials to log-in the kiosk into the web-HMI application.

The created one-time account has ACLs “operator” and “op_xtras”.

The created one-time account gets the login “OT.username.RANDOM” (where RANDOM is a random sequence of letters and numbers), which can be parsed and used later by HMI web application for its internal purposes.

Listing kiosk states

To list defined kiosks and their states, use the command:

eva kiosk list

To get more information about the particular kiosk: current opened page, CPU architecture, browser version etc., use the command:

eva kiosk info <kiosk_name>

Kiosks may have the following states:

preparing a kiosk is loading HMI web application
loaded the application is loaded and ready to be authenticated
active the application is authenticated and running

Destroying kiosk connection

The command:

eva kiosk destroy <kiosk_name>

destroys the kiosk configuration and immediately disconnects the kiosk from the bus if connected. In case if kiosks are bulk-undeployed, their bus connections are dropped as well.

More functions

To get list of all available functions, execute:

eva kiosk -h

Kiosks and IaC-deployment

The standard IaC and deployment schema does not support kiosk objects. To deploy kiosk configurations remotely, use Bus calls of “kiosk.deploy” and “kiosk.undeploy” kiosk management service methods.

Setup

Use the template EVA_DIR/share/svc-tpl/svc-tpl-kioskman.yml:

# EVA ICS HMI kiosk manager service
command: svc/eva-kioskman
workers: 1
bus:
  path: var/bus.ipc
config:
  # authentication service (for one-time users)
  auth_svc: eva.aaa.localauth
  # kiosk bus
  broker:
    path: 0.0.0.0:7791
    buf_size: 8192 # bus buffer size
    buf_ttl: 10 # microseconds
    timeout: 5 # override the default timeout
user: nobody

Create the service using eva-shell:

eva svc create eva.kioskman.default /opt/eva4/share/svc-tpl/svc-tpl-kioskman.yml

or using the bus CLI client:

cd /opt/eva4
cat DEPLOY.yml | ./bin/yml2mp | \
    ./sbin/bus ./var/bus.ipc rpc call eva.core svc.deploy -

(see eva.core::svc.deploy for more info)

EAPI methods

See EAPI commons for the common information about the bus, types, errors and RPC calls.

kiosk.alert

Description	Display an alert
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
text	String	Text to display	yes
level	String	Level (info/warning)	no

kiosk.deploy

Description	Deploy kiosk(s) configurations
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
kiosks	Struct	Configuration list	no

kiosk.destroy

Description	Destroy a kiosk
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
i	String	Kiosk name	yes

kiosk.dev_close

Description	Close development console
Parameters	none
Returns	nothing

kiosk.dev_open

Description	Open development console
Parameters	none
Returns	nothing

kiosk.display

Description	Display control
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
on	bool	Display on/off	no
brightness	f32	Display brightness	no

kiosk.eval

Description	Execute JavaScript code inside the web-app
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
code	String	JavaScript code to execute	yes

kiosk.get_config

Description	Get kiosk configuration
Parameters	required
Returns	Kiosk configuration

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
i	String	Kiosk name	yes

Return payload example:

{
    "auth": {
        "login": "username",
        "password": "secret"
    },
    "auto_login": true,
    "ip": "172.16.54.129/32",
    "name": "k1"
}

kiosk.info

Description	Get the current session info
Parameters	none
Returns	Session info (struct)

Return payload example:

{
    "agent": "EvaPanel",
    "arch": "x86_64",
    "current_url": "http://eva/ui/",
    "debug": true,
    "engine": "wasm",
    "home_url": "http://eva/ui/",
    "state": "active",
    "version": "0.1.1"
}

kiosk.list

Description	List kiosks
Parameters	none
Returns	The list of all kiosks, their configurations and states

Return payload example:

[
    {
        "agent": "EvaPanel",
        "auth": {
            "login": "username1",
            "password": "secret"
        },
        "auto_login": true,
        "current_url": "http://eva/ui/",
        "ip": "172.16.54.129/32",
        "name": "k1",
        "state": "active",
        "version": "0.1.1"
    },
    {
        "agent": null,
        "auth": {
            "login": "username2",
            "acls": ["operator"]
        },
        "auto_login": false,
        "current_url": null,
        "ip": "127.0.0.1/32",
        "name": "mws1",
        "state": null,
        "version": null
    }
]

kiosk.login

Description	Perform log-in
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
login	String	user login	yes
password	String	user password	yes

kiosk.logout

Description	Perform log-out
Parameters	none
Returns	nothing

kiosk.navigate

Description	Open an URL
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
url	String	URL (opens home if not set)	no

kiosk.reboot

Description	Reboot the kiosk machine
Parameters	none
Returns	nothing

kiosk.reload

Description	Reload the kiosk process
Parameters	none
Returns	nothing

kiosk.test

Description	Test the bus
Parameters	none
Returns	nothing

kiosk.undeploy

Description	Undeploy kiosk(s) configurations
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
kiosks	Vec<Struct/String>	Configuration list	no

kiosk.zoom

Description	Web zoom level
Parameters	required
Returns	nothing

Parameters
Name	Type	Description	Required
level	f64	Zoom level	yes