Application Hosting - Getting started

External Media

External media is a core component of the Application Hosting feature, serving as the primary storage location for application images and related data. This design ensures flexibility, scalability, and isolation between the operating system and hosted applications.

Image Storage

All application images are stored on external media. This approach decouples application content from the system root filesystem, reducing risk and simplifying updates.

Application Data

Applications can save their runtime files, logs, and persistent data on external media. This guarantees that application state and user data remain intact across system upgrades or application restarts. To enable an application to save persistent data, a media share has to be configured for the application.

Enabling Application Hosting

By default, Application Hosting is disabled in the operating system. This entails that no feature functionality is exposed until the license package is installed. To enable this feature, a dedicated license package must be installed, followed by a reboot. To obtain a installation package, contact Westermo Network Technologies AB.

Enabling Application Hosting via CLI

Enabling Application Hosting via the CLI is done through the package context in WeOS.

example:/#> package
example:/package/#> install proto tftp 198.19.10.1 app-hosting-license-signed.wmopkg

It is possible to install the license file from the package context using the following file transfer protocols: FTP, TFTP, SCP, SFTP, HTTP, or HTTPS.

Refer to the Packages Support page for more information regarding installation of packages.

Enabling Application Hosting via WebGUI

Enabling Application Hosting via the WebGUI is done by navigating to the Maintenance tab and then selecting the Package page. Selecting Install Package will allow you the select the license file on your computer and upload it to the device.

Import of Application Images

To configure and run an application in WeOS, an application image needs to be imported to a configured directory on external media. This can be done by placing the image directly in the external media directory before inserting it to the device, or by importing it using built-in methods in WeOS. If you want to import an image in WeOS via CLI it is possible to navigate to file/app-hosting context and use the supported file transfer commands. See App-Hosting HowTo - Import Images for an example of how this can be done.

Alternatively, this can done via the WebGUI in WeOS. Navigate to the Maintenance tab and enter the App Hosting page. Once entered press the Install Image button and follow the instructions which will allow you to upload an image from your computer.

Labeling Application Images

In order for an application to be able to use an imported image, the image needs to be labelled. Images are labelled in the CLI through the app-hosting admin exec context, more information can be found through Application Hosting - Management. To label an image in the WebGUI, you can navigate to App Hosting in the Maintenance tab.