SolarNodeOS is a Debian-based operating system tailored specifically for SolarNode devices. SolarNetwork Foundation hosts a Debian package repository at https://debian.repo.solarnetwork.org.nz/ and a testing/bleeding-edge repository at https://debian.repo.stage.solarnetwork.org.nz/ that contains many packages designed to make using SolarNode easier.

You can get pre-built SolarNodeOS images for various devices (like Raspberry Pi) that come with the core set of SolarNodeOS packages already installed, and have the package repository already configured so you can easily install additional SolarNodeOS packages as needed.

Packages can be installed in the SolarNode UI by visiting the System > Packages page:

You can also use the standard Debian CLI tools (for example apt) to manage these packages:

# install the BACnet data source
sudo apt install solarnode-app-bacnet

The following package groups are available in SolarNodeOS:

The following packages make up the SolarNode application and provide user-visible features like data sources, filters, and other services. Not all packages are required for a basic SolarNode. In general these packages install SolarNode plugins into the /var/lib/solarnode/app/main directory.

🔥 Looking for a plugin that is not currently supported in an application package? Reach out to see if we can help with that! It could just be that an existing SolarNode plugin has not has a package created for it yet.

Provides BACnet data source and control plugins. BACnet is a popular protocol in building automation and control systems.

Provides a camera image control plugin using the ffmpeg library.

Provide some core control-related support plugins.

Provides the core SolarNode application, which consists of a set of SolarNode plugins that most every SolarNode device needs.

Provides various standard datum filter plugins, which provide ways to manipulate datum generated by SolarNode data sources before posting them to SolarNetwork.

Provides pvlib datum filter plugins, for example to calcualte POA irradiance from GHI irradiance.

Provides local persistence using the Derby Database. This package can be replaced by the the solarnode-app-db-h2 package to use the H2 Database instead.

Provides local persistence using the H2 Database. This package can be replaced by the solarnode-app-db-derby package to use the Derby Database instead. It can also be replaced by the solarnode-app-db-h2-nonvolatile package.

Provides an H2 database for SolarNode that lives directly on non-volatile storage, instead of the default method of storing the database in RAM. This can be useful on devices with smaller amounts of RAM, at the expense of more wear to the persistent storage medium.

This package can be replaced by the solarnode-app-db-derby package to use the Derby Database instead, or the solarnode-app-db-h2 package for RAM-based storage.

Provides a data source plugin for Deson SDM power meters.

Provides a data source plugin for EnaSolar inverters.

Provides a data source plugin for Loxone Miniserver integration, along with a custom integration management UI.

Provides a data source plugin for wired and wireless M-Bus devices.

Provides database persistence for metrics.

Provides a datum filter for collecting metrics from datum data source plugins.

Provides data source and control plugins for Modbus devices.

Provides a data source for OS statistics (like uptime, CPU use, RAM use, network use).

Provides a data source for New Zealand electricity grid market prices.

Provides the Protobuf library, the SolarNetwork Protobuf API, SolarNetwork JDT Compiler Service, and SolarNode Protobuf I/O plugins.

Provides a WiFi network connection management UI.

Provides data source plugins for various SMA inverters and devices.

Provides integration with SolarFlux, for real-time SolarNode data observation.

Provides support for collecting atmospheric data from the Solcast API.

Provides a STOMP-based setup server in SolarNode.

Provides support for SolarNode to store resources in S3, such as images captured from a camera.

Provides support for uploading files to a SolarNode Resource Storage Service, such as provided by the S3 Storage Service package.

Provides various SunSpec Modbus data sources, to collect data from SunSpec-compliant inverters, meters, and more.

Provides a time-of-use tariff data source.

Provides a Weatherflow Tempest data source to collect weather station data.

The following packages add supporting input/output protocol support to the SolarNode application. These are often automatically installed when other application packages are installed. In general these packages install SolarNode plugins into the /var/lib/solarnode/app/main directory.

Provides the SolarNode BACnet API to SolarNode.

📎 An implementation package of this API is also required; see solarnode-app-io-bacnet-bacnet4j.

Provides a BACnet4J implementation of the SolarNode BACnet API.

Provides general HTTP client support through the HTTP Support plugin.

Provides the SolarNode M-Bus API to SolarNode.

Provides a jMBus implementation of the SolarNode M-Bus API using the jRXTX library for serial communication.

Provides the SolarNode Modbus API to SolarNode.

📎 An implementation package of this API is also required; see solarnode-app-io-modbus-nifty-jsc.

Provides a Jamod implementation of the SolarNode Modbus API using the PureJavaComm library for serial communication.

⚠️ The solarnode-app-io-modbus-nifty-jsc package is the recommended Modbus implementation to use for new SolarNode deployments.

Provides a Jamod implementation of the SolarNode Modbus API using the RxTx library for serial communication.

⚠️ The solarnode-app-io-modbus-nifty-jsc package is the recommended Modbus implementation to use for new SolarNode deployments.

Provides a Nifty Modbus implementation of the SolarNode Modbus API using the jSerialComm library for serial communication.

Provides a Nifty Modbus implementation of the SolarNode Modbus API using the PureJavaComm library for serial communication.

⚠️ The solarnode-app-io-modbus-nifty-jsc package is the recommended Modbus implementation to use for new SolarNode deployments.

Provides a TCP Modbus server based on Nifty Modbus. The server is populated by datum properties collected by any SolarNode datum data source plugin.

Provides the SolarNetwork MQTT API to SolarNode.

📎 An implementation package of this API is also required; see solarnode-app-io-mqtt-netty.

Provides a Netty implementation of the SolarNetwork MQTT API.

Provides the SolarNode Serial API to SolarNode.

📎 An implementation package of this API is also required; see solarnode-app-io-serial-jsc.

This provides a jSerialComm implementation of the SolarNode Serial API.

This provides a PureJavaComm implementation of the SolarNode Serial API.

⚠️ The solarnode-app-io-serial-jsc package is the recommended Serial implementation to use for new SolarNode deployments.

This provides a RxTx implementation of the SolarNode Serial API.

⚠️ The solarnode-app-io-serial-jsc package is the recommended Serial implementation to use for new SolarNode deployments.

The following packages make up the base platform (OSGi runtime environment) that the SolarNode application runs within.

This package contains the base SolarNode runtime platform. It contains the solarnode service that starts/stops the runtime. This package is typically installed along with with the solarnode-app-core package to provide a full SolarNode application.

The platform is organised into the following directories:

The integrated shell functions provide several utilities:

Adds a subset of the AWS SDK to the SolarNode platform.

Adds the Eclipse Gemini implementation of OSGi Blueprint to the SolarNode platform.

Adds the Bouncy Castle cryptograpahic library to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Apache Commons Lang3 to the SolarNode platform.

Adds an OSGi telnet console shell to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Derby Database to the SolarNode platform.

⚠️ This package has been replaced by the solarnode-base-h2 package.

Adds H2 Database to the SolarNode platform.

Adds the Apache HttpClient to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Jackson JSON to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Jamod modbus to the SolarNode platform. Uses PureJavaComm for RTU serial modbus.

Adds Jamod modbus to the SolarNode platform. Uses RXTX for RTU serial modbus.

Adds jMBus M-Bus support to the SolarNode platform. Uses the jRXTX library for serial port support.

Adds Java 11 specific runtime configuration to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Java 17 specific runtime configuration to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Java Architecture for XML Binding support to the SolarNode platform.

Adds jSerialComm serial port support to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Apache log4j2 to the SolarNode platform.

Adds support for the EventAdmin Appender for publishing logs to the the platform EventAdmin service, so log messages can then be processed by SolarNode plugins, such as publishing them as a datum stream to SolarFlux.

Adds Netty to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Nifty Modbus to the SolarNode platform. Uses jSerialComm for RTU serial modbus.

Adds Nifty Modbus to the SolarNode platform. Uses PureJavaComm for RTU serial modbus.

Adds PureJavaComm serial port support to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Reactive Streams to the SolarNode platform.

Adds OAuth support through ScribeJava to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Simple Logging Facade for Java to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Spring Framework to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Spring Security to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Apache Tiles to the SolarNode platform.

Adds Apache Xalan XSLT support to the SolarNode platform.

The following packages provide system support to the SolarNode application:

This is a Debian package of the libmodbus library. A libmodbus-dev package is also available that provides the development header files.

This is a Debian package of the OpenDNP3 library. It includes the libopendnp3java Java native shared library. The opendnp3-dev package is also available that provides the OpenDNP3 development header files.

This package also provides a way to open a port in the firewall, so the OpenDNP3 application can be reached from outside the node if needed. Just run dpkg-reconfigure opendnp3 to configure.

Provides an up-time date log for auditing purposes.

Provides I2C support.

Provides a basic filewall configuration using the iptables package filter available in Debian 9 or earlier systems. For Debian 10 or later systems see the sn-nftables package. The firewall rules are maintained in /etc/iptables/iptables.rules, which are loaded at system boot time via sn-iptables.service. Port 22 is open to allow for SSH access. Ports 80 and 8080 are open to allow for the SolarNode Setup web application.

A basic SSH brute-force mitigation script is integrated into the firewall configuration. A periodic job is scheduled to run via /etc/cron.d/drop-brute, which invokes the /usr/share/solarnode/bin/drop-brute.sh script.

This is a Debian package of the mbpoll utility, which provides the mbpoll command for communicating with Modbus devices.

This package supports the motion service by providing a sn-motion-cleaner periodic job that runs to clean out old media files captured by motion. The /etc/default/sn-motion file configures how many days of media should be retained. The /usr/share/solarnode/bin/clean-motion-oldmedia.sh script is then executed by the sn-motion-cleaner service to remove files older than the configured threshold.

Provides a basic filewall configuration using the nftables package filter available in Debian 10 or later systems. For Debian 9 or earlier systems see the sn-iptables package. The firewall rules are maintained in /etc/nftables.conf, which are loaded at system boot time via nftables.service. Port 22 is open to allow for SSH access. Ports 80 and 8080 are open to allow for the SolarNode Setup web application.

A basic SSH brute-force mitigation script is integrated into the firewall configuration. A periodic job is scheduled to run via /etc/cron.d/nftables-drop-brute, which invokes the /usr/share/solarnode/bin/nftables-drop-brute.sh script.

This package also provides the /usr/share/solarnode/bin/nft-firewall.sh script to help manage the firewall.

This package contains the /usr/share/solarnode/bin/solarstat.sh script, which can be used to collect OS statistics as SolarNetwork datum via the SolarNode OS Statistics Datum Source plugin.

Provides some Raspberry Pi-specific configuration.

First, the hardware watchdog is enabled in /boot/config.txt, and configured to restart the device after 14 seconds of no response from the operating system.

Second, it provides a sn-osstat statistic plugin for cpu-temp so that the CPU temperature can be collected.

Third, it configures some udev rules in /etc/modprobe.d and sysctl configuration in /etc/sysctl.d that have been adapted from Raspbian but don't require pulling in all the various package dependencies the Raspbian versions require.

Provides scripts used to enable Bluetooth support on Raspberry Pi devices. It has been adapted from the RPi-Distro/pi-bluetooth package, to remove the dependency on the raspberrypi-sys-mods package.

Provides configuration and support for MCP2515 based CAN HATs. The goal of this package is to configure the CAN HAT for use by SolarNode on a Raspberry Pi.

This package configuration and support for Quectel-based 3/4G shields. The goal of this package is to configure, start, and maintain a mobile network connection on the shield's modem.

Provides support for USB devices on Raspberry Pi devices.

Provides pvlib and supporting scripts.

Provides the sn-rfid-reader and sn-rfid-server tools, and a sn-rfid-server@ service to manage a sn-rfid-server daemon per connected RFID reader. These tools are used by the RFID Reader SolarNode plugin to integrate with RFID readers. Note that this package does not install the udev rules shown at that link: appropriate rules should be installed manually based on your specific needs.

This package manages a symbolic link in the JRE lib/ext directory to the RXTXcomm.jar file included with the librxtx-java package, so that the SolarNode application can use serial ports on the device.

Provides the socketcand server.

This package contains scripts to support OS-level backups in SolarNode. The SolarNode External Backup Provider plugin works with this package to integrate the backups into SolarNode.

This package

Provides the /usr/share/solarnode/bin/solarpkg.sh script, which provides support for SolarNode to download/install OS packages.

Provides support for the SolarSSH remote management service hosted by SolarNetwork Foundation. It provides the solarssh@ template service that can establish SSH connections to the SolarSSH proxy and the solarssh-cleaner service to shut down stale SSH connections. The /usr/share/solarnode/bin/solarssh.sh script is used by the System SSH Support SolarNode plugin to manage the SolarSSH sessions.

This package contains a lot of core system support for SolarNode.

• The sn-expandfs service provides a way to expand the root filesystem when started, to take advantage of the whole disk it is installed on, by looking for a /boot/sn-expandfs marker file. This service calls the /usr/share/solarnode/bin/expandfs.sh script.
• The sn-sshdgenkeys service makes sure SSH server keys are generated if they don't already exist, which usually the situation when a SolarNodeOS device boots up the first time.
• The /etc/systemd/network/eth.network configuration enables DHCP on the standard eth0 device.
• The /usr/share/solarnode/bin/netctl.sh script provides helper functions to manage the device network connection.

Provides the /etc/systemd/network/wlan.network configuration that enables DHCP on the wlan0 device. A sn-wifi-bootconf service looks for a /boot/wpa_supplicant.conf file when started, and moves that to /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant-wlan0.conf. The sn-wifi-conf@ service monitors for wpa_supplicant-X.conf file changes and restarts the sn-wifi service appropriately.

Provides the websocat utility that enables CLI websocket use, for example for testing OCPP connections.

Provides a Debian package of the yasdi shell for interacting with SMA inverters, including a libyasdi package that provides the shared YASDI communication library.

Provides the yasdi4j library.

The following packages provide developer and testing support to the SolarNode application:

Provides various "mock" components, to simulate integrations with devices.