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USB Assistant Tool

If your edge node does not appear as connected in Panel, it may be caused by two different reasons:

  1. The deviceId provided to Panel is incorrect.
  2. Your edge node cannot connect to the internet because of some network issue (wrong configuration, DNS problems, no gateway available, etc).

In those cases, the USB Assistant Tool is a very useful way to check the problem easily. In Barbara edge nodes you can use a simple USB pen drive to access this information.

Prepare your USB Pendrive​

In order to use the USB Assistant tool, your USB pen drive must be formatted in FAT32.

warning

Your USB pen drive MUST be formatted in FAT32 format.

You can check your USB pen drive file format by following the next steps:

  1. Insert the USB pen drive into your laptop.
  2. Go to File Manager, search for the unit of the USB pen drive and make right-click over it.
  3. Select “properties” in the menu and check “File system” in General Tab.

Format your USB drive

Format your USB drive

In case your USB pen drive has another file format you will need to format it by selecting the “FAT32” file system:

  1. In File Manager, make right-click again over the icon of your USB pen drive to make the menu appear. Then, press “Format”.
  2. In the format menu, select “FAT32” file format.

Format your USB drive

Format your USB drive

Insert your USB Pendrive in your Node Edge​

note

The USB Debugging Tool will be available after the first boot-up process, which may take up to 10 minutes to finish the first time you power on your edge node.

Once your edge node has finished the bootup process the USB Debugging Tool is ready. In that case, just insert your USB pen drive into your node and wait 20 seconds. Then, just extract it. All the debugging information is ready to be analyzed.

Check BarbaraID, OS Version, Network status and Docker Support of your edge node​

Once you insert again your USB Pendrive into your laptop, you will see a new folder “barbara” in the root folder of your pen drive.

Folder barbara

Folder barbara

The “barbarainfo.txt” file​

Inside that folder, a file called “barbarainfo.txt” will be available:

barbarainfo.txt

barbarainfo.txt

Open this file with a text editor, you will see the following information:

    Timestamp:
        1693464784

    Barbara ID:
        bt4pro-XXXXXXXXXXXX

    Barbara OS version:
        4.3.0

    Barbara OS UTC:
        1685403411

    Network info:
        Iface name: lo IP: 127.0.0.1/8
        Iface name: lo IP: ::1/128
        Iface name: eth0 IP: 172.16.50.163/24
        Iface name: eth0 IP: fe80::1c0c:6c8e:a046:836e/64
        Iface name: wlan0 IP: 172.16.50.140/24
        Iface name: wlan0 IP: fe80::ee6a:e513:a50d:17cd/64
        Iface name: docker0 IP: 172.17.0.1/16
        Iface name: br-843ff508831a IP: 172.18.0.1/16
        Iface name: br-843ff508831a IP: fe80::42:aff:fedf:e8b2/64
        Iface name: veth401282b IP: fe80::8486:74ff:fe0a:130/64
        Iface name: veth6887872 IP: fe80::ccaa:22ff:fef4:d096/64

    Connectivity status:
        NmStateConnectedGlobal

    Docker support:
        true

Timestamp​

This field contains the device time when the “barbarainfo.txt” file was saved to USB pen drive. This information is recorded in Unix timestamp format.

    Timestamp:
        1693464784
Did you know...

Unix time is a date and time representation widely used in computing. It measures time by the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC on 1 January 1970, the beginning of the Unix epoch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time

If you need to convert to a human-readable format, you can use an online tool like:

https://timestamp.online/

Barbara ID​

This field is the edge node identifier in Barbara system, also called “Device Id”.

    Barbara ID:
        bt4pro-XXXXXXXXXXXX

You can check it in the “General Info” view in Barbara Panel.

General info

General info

This identifier is unique for every edge node and it’s mandatory for registering a device in Panel.

In case your device does not appear as “online” after registration in Barbara Panel, check that the device_Id that appears in Panel is the same as the one in this file.

If they are different, delete the edge node in Barbara and register it again with this “Barbara Id” information.

Barbara OS Version​

Information of the OS Version installed in the edge node.

    Barbara OS version:
        4.3.0

You can check the OS Version in PANEL in the “Device details” view, by just pressing the button “Update OS Version”, as you can see below:

Update OS

Update OS

Barbara OS UTC​

Identifier of the Barbara OS Version installed in the edge node.

    Barbara OS UTC:
        1685403411

Network Info​

List of all connected network interfaces and their IP address.

    Network info:
        Iface name: lo IP: 127.0.0.1/8
        Iface name: lo IP: ::1/128
        Iface name: eth0 IP: 172.16.50.163/24
        Iface name: eth0 IP: fe80::1c0c:6c8e:a046:836e/64
        Iface name: wlan0 IP: 172.16.50.140/24
        Iface name: wlan0 IP: fe80::ee6a:e513:a50d:17cd/64
        Iface name: docker0 IP: 172.17.0.1/16
        Iface name: br-843ff508831a IP: 172.18.0.1/16
        Iface name: br-843ff508831a IP: fe80::42:aff:fedf:e8b2/64
        Iface name: veth401282b IP: fe80::8486:74ff:fe0a:130/64
        Iface name: veth6887872 IP: fe80::ccaa:22ff:fef4:d096/64

In this list you will find two lines for every interface connected containing:

  1. Iface Name: name of the detected interface in both lines.
  2. IPv4 of every interface in the first line.
  3. IPv6 of every interface in the second line.
note

In the new version this is not always like that. While docker0 has only one IPv4, the veth has just an IPv6.

Connectivity Status​

In this item, you will find your actual network status.

Connectivity status:​

In this item, you will find your actual network status.

    Connectivity status:
        NmStateConnectedGlobal
note

If the device is successfully connected the status must be “NmStateConnectedGlobal“.

In case your edge node does not go online, you can check this item to have more information about the problem. There are different statuses that will allow you to debug the problem and find the proper solution:

  1. NmStateUnknown: Networking state is unknown. This indicates a daemon error that makes it unable to reasonably assess the state.
  2. NmStateAsleep: Networking is not enabled, the system is being suspended or resumed from suspension.
  3. NmStateDisconnected: There is no active network connection.
  4. NmStateDisconnecting: Network connections are being cleaned up.
  5. NmStateConnecting: A network connection is being started
  6. NmStateConnectedLocal: There is only local IPv4 and/or IPv6 connectivity, but no default route to access the Internet.
  7. NmStateConnectedSite: There is only site-wide IPv4 and/or IPv6 connectivity. This means a default route is available, but the Internet connectivity check (see “Connectivity” property) did not succeed.
  8. NmStateConnectedGlobal: There is global IPv4 and/or IPv6 Internet connectivity This means the Internet connectivity check succeeded.

Docker Support​

This field indicates (true/false) if the current edge node is docker compatible or not.

    Docker support:
        true

File “[deviceId]-CurrentNetworkConfig.json”​

note

This file will only be available in case the edge node is offline.

This file is a JSON file that contains information about the current configuration applied to available interfaces.

[
    {
        "eth0": {
            "dns": "",
            "gateway": "",
            "ip": "",
            "metric": 10,
            "netmask": "",
            "type": "ethernet"
        }
    },
    {
        "wlan0": {
            "dns": "",
            "gateway": "",
            "ip": "",
            "metric": 1,
            "netmask": "",
            "psk": "",
            "ssid": "",
            "type": "wlan"
        }
    }
]

File “[deviceId]-NetworkTemplate.json”​

note

This file will only be available in case the edge node is offline.

This file is a template to add a configuration for available interfaces. This is a way to solve the network problems, the process will be explained in the next point.

[
  {
    "wlan0": {
      "dns": "",
      "gateway": "",
      "ip": "",
      "metric": 1,
      "netmask": "",
      "psk": "",
      "ssid": "",
      "type": "wlan"
    }
  },
  {
    "eth0": {
      "dns": "",
      "gateway": "",
      "ip": "",
      "metric": 10,
      "netmask": "",
      "type": "ethernet"
    }
  }
]

Adding a configuration to the edge node.​

note

Network configuration via USB Assistant Tool is a valuable way to fix network problems.

In those cases in which the node is not connected and we cannot configure it from PANEL, we can use the USB Assistant Tool to change the configuration of any detected interface.

  1. Open file “[deviceId]-networkTemplate.json” with an editor and modify the necessary parameters of the interface you want to configure. Leave empty those parameters that are not mandatory.
  2. In case you only need to configure the current device, save this modified file as “[deviceId]-network.json”. For example, if your deviceId is “bt4pro-XXXXXXXXXXXX”, you must save it as “bt4pro-XXXXXXXXXXXX-network.json”.
  3. In case you need to configure several devices using the same USB, save this modified file just as “network.json”. These “network.json” settings will apply to any device, as long as the file “[deviceId]-network.json” does not exist in the folder.
  4. Insert the USB in your edge node and wait around 30 seconds. If the provided configuration is correct the device will go online.
note

In those cases when even changing network configuration via USB Assistant Tool the edge node is not connected, check the “BarbaraInfo.txt” file. The field “Connectivity Status” will provide more information about the causes of the problem.