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drichter1-Visitor
1-Visitor
November 26, 2019
Solved

EMS: Tunneling SSH with Docker/Linux

  • November 26, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 2412 views

Hi,

 

I think, me and EMS won't be friends 😞

 

First my scenario:

I have a edge-device where I only can deploy docker-container (via a web-gui) and I can connect to the device via ssh. I build a dockerfile based on ubuntu which includes the EMS (with config.json etc.). If I run my container the edge-device is connected to thingworx (running in aws).

 

Now I want use EMS-tunneling to connect to the edge device via ssh.

 

Problem:

In the guide (http://support.ptc.com/help/thingworx_hc/thingworx_edge/index.html#page/thingworx_edge_sdks_ems%2Fws_ems%2Fv5.4.0_c_ems_wsems_configuration_tunnel.html%23) it saids you have to install UltraVNC Server on the mashine where EMS is running, but only a windows version is available. So I installed ThinVNC with Xfce-Desktop manually on the ubuntu docker instance. So on some steps of the installation you have todo some inputs - very bad for a docker deployment. After installing a try to start ThinVNC but I get a error message "vncserver: The USER environment variable is not set.".

 

I thing ThinVNC is not solving my problem with a VNC installation in docker (desktopless linux). Is someone else use EMS-tunneling on a linux-system and can help?

Best answer by drichter

All the PTC tutorials use an VNC-Server and VNC without GUI makes no sense.

 

But yesterday I was able to fix all problems. First problem i had was caused by missing permissions. The user assigned to the app key has no visibility-permissions for the EdgeDeviceThing. The second problem was the isolation of the two containers. The EMS could not connect to the VNC because there are in seperate networks.

3 replies

D
drichter1-VisitorAuthor
1-Visitor
December 2, 2019

So my current status of the project:

 

Two docker container run on the edge device. One runs the EMS and the other runs the VNC with XFCE.

I use a Remote Access Widget and made the most things like this tutorial https://community.ptc.com/t5/IoT-Tech-Tips/Tunneling-with-ThingWorx-and-an-Edge-Device/td-p/533263

I get the "Remote Tunnel opened"-message when I click on the Remote Access Widget. When I try to connect to the opened connection, I get an error message (ssh: "Server unexpectedyl closed network connection" / VNC: "Connection has been gracefully closed").

C
Constantine18-Opal
18-Opal
December 2, 2019

Hello @drichter,

 

Do you need GUI? In Docker?? Why don't you just use one of the SSH-server containers based on Ubuntu, like this one?

 

/ Constantine

D
drichter1-VisitorAuthorAnswer
1-Visitor
December 3, 2019

All the PTC tutorials use an VNC-Server and VNC without GUI makes no sense.

 

But yesterday I was able to fix all problems. First problem i had was caused by missing permissions. The user assigned to the app key has no visibility-permissions for the EdgeDeviceThing. The second problem was the isolation of the two containers. The EMS could not connect to the VNC because there are in seperate networks.

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