Get your Barbara Id and establish a network connection

Once your edge node has Barbara OS installed and the bootup process has finished, it is time to get your edge node identification or Barbara Id and configure your network settings to establish a network connection.

Please, remember that boot-up is a long process that may take up to 10 minutes depending on your device. Bootup must be finished before taking these steps.

There are two different ways of taking these steps. Let’s explain both of them in the next points.

Get your edge node’s Barbara ld

Don’t worry about the previous contents of your USB flash drive if it’s not empty. This process will not delete any content.

The USB flash drive must be formatted in the FAT file system. In any other case, the edge node will not be able to write files on it.

At this moment you will find a new folder “barbara” in the root folder of your USB flash drive. Inside this folder, you will find a “barbaraInfo.txt” file.

Open the file “barbaraInfo.txt” using a text editor, you will see the following information:

Timestamp:
    1668447480

Barbara ID:
    bt3pro-XXXXXXXXXXXX

Barbara OS version:
    4.1.0

Barbara OS UTC:
    1663987840

Network info:
    Iface name: lo IP: 127.0.0.1/8
    Iface name: lo IP: ::1/128
    Iface name: eth0 IP: 172.16.50.78/24
    Iface name: eth0 IP: fe80::a2c4:a02b:e863:8df/64
    Iface name: wlan0 IP: 172.16.50.152/24
    Iface name: wlan0 IP: fe80::653c:945d:556e:c782/64
    Iface name: br-f65c41cbb749 IP: 172.19.0.1/16
    Iface name: br-f65c41cbb749 IP: fe80::42:77ff:fea2:7305/64
    Iface name: docker0 IP: 172.17.0.1/16
    Iface name: br-7fcbe17829ab IP: 172.18.0.1/16

Connectivity status:
    NmStateConnectedGlobal

Docker support:
    true

Copy the value of the field “Barbara ID” and save it. You will need this value later, to identify your device when registering in Barbara PANEL.

BarbaraID is a unique alphanumeric value, used in Barbara PANEL to identify every edge node. In other words, it is the “identification” of your device.

Check also the value of the field “Connectivity status” in the same file:

Connectivity status:
    NmStateConnectedGlobal

This field indicates the status of connectivity of your device and at this point, it may have two different values:

Establish a network connection

The easiest way of establishing a network connection is via an Ethernet cable. If your LAN’s gateway has DHCP enabled it will connect automatically. In case this option is not available or you want to use a different interface (WIFI or Mobile), continue reading.

There are two ways to configure your network settings and establish a connection.

Using USB Assistant Tool.

Please notice that, for security reasons, this mechanism to configure the connectivity of your Edge Node is only available before the Node is provisioned in Barbara Platform. Once the device is activated in the platform, Panel shall be your only interface to change any configuration parameter of the Node.

In case your device is not connected, in your USB flash drive’s “barbara” folder will be another file called “[Barbara Id]-networkTemplate.json”.

For example, if your Barbara Id is “bt3pro-XXXXXXXXXXXX”, the file name will be “bt3pro-XXXXXXXXXXXX-networkTemplate.json”.

Open this file using a text editor, you will see a JSON file with the interfaces detected in your device:

[
  {
    "wlan0": {
      "dns": "",
      "gateway": "",
      "ip": "",
      "metric": 1,
      "netmask": "",
      "psk": "",
      "ssid": "",
      "type": "wlan"
    }
  },
  {
    "eth0": {
      "dns": "",
      "gateway": "",
      "ip": "",
      "metric": 2,
      "netmask": "",
      "type": "ethernet"
    }
  }
]

Then, edit the file and set the correct configuration for the network. For example, if we want to configure a WIFI network:

[
  {
    "wlan0": {
      "dns": "",
      "gateway": "",
      "ip": "",
      "metric": 1,
      "netmask": "",
      "psk": "WIFIPASSWORD",
      "ssid": "WIFISSID",
      "type": "wlan"
    }
  },
  {
    "eth0": {
      "dns": "",
      "gateway": "",
      "ip": "",
      "metric": 2,
      "netmask": "",
      "type": "ethernet"
    }
  }
]

We can also specify values for the rest of the parameters, but only SSID and psk are mandatory if DHCP is enabled (a most common situation)

Then save this file with the name “[Barbara Id]-network.json” in the same folder, extract the USB from your laptop and connect it again to your edge node. The configuration is finished and around 30-40 seconds later it will be connected.

Using the edge node’s WIFI Hotspot

This option is only available for WIFI-enabled devices.

In case your node supports a WIFI network and is not connected, once the bootup process is finished it will open a WIFI Hotspot.

The SSID of the WIFI Hotspot will be the Barbara ID of your edge node. Search this WIFI with your laptop and connect to it.

DEVICE’S WIFI HOTSPOT ACCESS

SSID: Barbara ID
Password: Contact support to get this password.

Once connected, open your browser and enter the IP address: https://10.43.0.1/

Then you will see an edge node configuration site where you can adjust parameters and send it to the device.

Once you have configured your network, press the “SEND” button.

At this point, you can disconnect from the WIFI Hotspot. Your edge node will be online.

Next steps

In the following article, we can proceed to register and activate your node in Barbara PANEL.