Skip to content
Hexa-AIHAI-Docs

Add-ons

Add-ons are the embedded applications the box can run alongside the firmware: Node-RED, Grafana, Ignition, PostgreSQL and pgAdmin. Each one runs in its own container, isolated from the rest of the system, and is driven entirely from the interface’s Add-ons page — no command line needed.

No add-on is started by default: you only install what you need, which leaves the box’s resources to the others.

The HAI-OS Add-ons page: the Podman storage path, then the Node-RED, Grafana, Ignition Edge and PostgreSQL cards, each with its version, its status and its Start, Stop, Logs and Open buttons. The Node-RED card also carries its Safe Mode switch

1. The catalogue

Section titled “1. The catalogue”
Add-on What it is for Access Versions to choose from
Node-RED Automation and protocol gateway (Modbus, BACnet, MQTT…). The heart of most installations. /node-red/ on the interface 4.0.9, 4.1.13, 5.0.4
Grafana Dashboards and charts built from the collected data. port 3000 fixed version
Ignition Inductive Automation SCADA platform, Edge edition. port 8088 8.1.47, 8.1.54, 8.3.8
PostgreSQL Relational database, for historisation. port 5432 fixed version
pgAdmin Web administration interface for PostgreSQL. port 5050 fixed version

The applications are supplied as they are, packaged with the controller. Hexa-AI does not support their application content (flows, dashboards, queries).

2. Installing and starting

Section titled “2. Installing and starting”

Each card offers four buttons:

  • Start — installs the add-on if it is not installed yet, then starts it. On the first launch, the image is downloaded from the Internet: allow a few minutes to ten or so depending on your bandwidth (an Ignition image weighs several GB). A message tells you so; leave the page open.
  • Stop — stops the container. The data is kept.
  • Logs — shows the application’s logs, useful for understanding a start-up that fails.
  • Open — opens the application’s web interface in a new tab.

The status shown under the name refreshes by itself: ⏳ Starting, 🟢 Online, 🔴 Stopped.

3. Each card’s ⋮ menu

Section titled “3. Each card’s ⋮ menu”

Credentials

Section titled “Credentials”

Shows the application’s user name and password. Those passwords are unique to your box: they are generated when it first powers up, appear in no manual and are shared with no other device. This is the only place to consult them — the password is masked by default, one button reveals it and another copies it.

Node-RED has no account of its own: it is protected by your session on the box’s interface.

Backup / Restore

Section titled “Backup / Restore”

Backup produces a .tar.gz archive of all the application’s data (Node-RED flows, Grafana dashboards, Ignition project, PostgreSQL database…), downloaded to your computer. Worth doing before any significant intervention.

Restore puts a previously downloaded archive back in place.

Version

Section titled “Version”

For Node-RED and Ignition, you can choose the application’s version. The new image is downloaded at the next start (Internet required), and if the add-on is already online it restarts immediately.

Your data is kept across a version change — but an older version may refuse to read back data written by a newer one. Take a backup before going back.

Uninstall

Section titled “Uninstall”

Stops the add-on and deletes the downloaded images to recover disk space. It is the right reflex after a version change: otherwise the old image stays on the disk.

An “Also delete saved data” switch is offered:

  • off (the default): flows, dashboards and settings are kept, and picked up again on reinstallation;
  • on: they are destroyed, with no recovery outside a backup.

Reinstalling means downloading the image again, so having an Internet connection.

4. Node-RED’s Safe mode

Section titled “4. Node-RED’s Safe mode”

The Node-RED card carries a Safe Mode switch. Turned on, Node-RED starts with its flows loaded but not running: the editor opens normally and you can fix the offending flow without it running.

It is the way out when a flow loops or saturates the box. Once the fix is made, turn the switch off and restart the add-on with Stop then Start.

5. Where the data is stored

Section titled “5. Where the data is stored”

At the top of the page, a line says where Podman — the container engine — stores the add-ons’ images and data.

If a micro SD card is present and formatted as ext4, everything is stored there, which spares the box’s internal memory. A card formatted as exFAT or FAT32 cannot host the containers: the box then falls back to its internal disk and says so explicitly, in orange, under the path.

Keep an eye on the space available: every image version already downloaded takes up room until an Uninstall frees it.

6. Limits to know about

Section titled “6. Limits to know about”
  • Node-RED cannot open a port below 1024 — Modbus/TCP listening on port 502, in particular, will not work. Ports 1880 (the editor) and 47808 (BACnet) are unaffected. The restriction is deliberate: it stops a flow from obtaining the box’s administrator rights.
  • Node-RED’s resources are capped (768 MB of memory, 2 cores out of 4). A runaway flow is stopped by that ceiling instead of bringing the whole box down.
  • The box only has 4 GB of memory: running Ignition, Grafana, PostgreSQL and pgAdmin at the same time is not realistic. Start what you actually use.