Use the EVerest Development Container (devrd managed)

The EVerest development container (devcontainer) provides a consistent development environment for EVerest development and sil testing. With the devcontainer itself also service containers are provided to run required services like databases, message brokers, etc.

Hint

This guide describes the usage of the devcontainer managed by the devrd cli tool. For the variant using the VSCode Dev Containers extension this is not required since everything is managed by VSCode automatically.

Find further documentation on development containers here:

• Tutorial: Setup the EVerest Development Container

• Internals of the EVerest Development Container

Provided Service Containers

Services are organized into logical profiles for easier management:

Profiles	Services	Container Name	URL	Purpose
mqtt/ocpp/sil/all	MQTT Server	<prefix>_devcontainer-mqtt-server-1	localhost:1883	Basic MQTT broker
ocpp/all	OCPP DB	<prefix>_devcontainer-ocpp-db-1	Internal	OCPP database
ocpp/all	SteVe (HTTP)	<prefix>_devcontainer-steve-1	<http://localhost:8180>	OCPP backend management
sil/all	Node-RED UI	<prefix>_devcontainer-nodered-1	<http://localhost:1880/ui>	SIL simulation interface
sil/all	MQTT Explorer	<prefix>_devcontainer-mqtt-explorer-1	<http://localhost:4000>	MQTT topic browser
ocpp/sil/all	Dev Container	<prefix>_devcontainer-devcontainer-1	Command line	The development container
ocpp/sil/all	Docker Proxy	<prefix>_devcontainer-docker-proxy-1	Internal	Secure Docker API access

Note

the all profile is a synthetic profile that includes all services. Use ./applications/devrd/devrd start all or ./devrd start (default) to start all services.

Where <prefix> is the docker compose project name prefix.

Starting/Stopping Services/Profiles

To start/stop service containers use the devrd cli tool, with ./applications/devrd/devrd start and ./devrd stop commands.

Usage examples:

# Start profiles
./applications/devrd/devrd start                  # Start all services (generates .env if missing)
./applications/devrd/devrd start all              # Start all services (same as above)
./applications/devrd/devrd start sil              # Start SIL simulation tools
./applications/devrd/devrd start ocpp             # Start OCPP backend
./applications/devrd/devrd start mqtt             # Start only MQTT server

# Stop services
./applications/devrd/devrd stop                   # Stop all services
./applications/devrd/devrd stop all               # Stop all services (same as above)
./applications/devrd/devrd stop sil               # Stop SIL profile only
./applications/devrd/devrd stop ev-ws             # Stop all containers matching pattern 'ev-ws'

Devcontainer Access

There are two ways to access the devcontainer:

1. Open an interactive shell in the devcontainer

   To run commands inside the devcontainer, open an interactive shell with the devrd cli:

   ./applications/devrd/devrd prompt
   

   This will open an interactive shell inside the devcontainer. The contents of the everest-core repository are mapped to the /workspace directory inside the container.

   You can now run all development commands inside this shell.

2. Run a single command in the devcontainer

   To run a single command inside the devcontainer, use the devrd exec command:

   ./applications/devrd/devrd exec <command> [args...]
   

   This will run the specified command with optional arguments inside the devcontainer and return the output to the host terminal.

   Example:

   ./applications/devrd/devrd exec ls /workspace
   

   This will list the contents of the /workspace directory inside the devcontainer.

Clean Up Devcontainer and Service Containers

To clean up the devcontainer and all service containers, use the ./applications/devrd/devrd stop and ./devrd purge command:

./applications/devrd/devrd stop           # Stop all service containers
./applications/devrd/devrd purge          # Remove all service containers, images and volumes

Manage Flows for Node-RED Container

There are two commands one should know when working with Node-RED flows:

1. List available flows

   To list all available flows in the Node-RED container use the command:

   ./applications/devrd/devrd flows
   

2. Switch to specific flow file

   To switch to a specific flow file in the Node-RED container use the command:

   ./applications/devrd/devrd flow path/to/flow/file.json
   

   Where path/to/flow/file.json is the path to the flow file.

Modify Workspace Directory Mapping

While the default mapping of the everest-core repository is to the /workspace directory inside the devcontainer, this can be modified by using the ./applications/devrd/devrd env command:

./applications/devrd/devrd env -w /path/to/workspace

This will mount the everest-core repository to the specified /path/to/workspace directory inside the devcontainer.

Where /path/to/workspace is the desired path inside the container.

Example SIL Execution

Simple SIL

Prerequisites:

• Containers are up and running

• everest-core has been build (cmake --build ...) + installed (cmake --install ...)

Inside the devcontainer:

Change to the build directory and run the config in question, e.g.:

# get a prompt inside the container:
./applications/devrd/devrd prompt
# run EVerest:
./run-scripts/run-sil.sh

Warning

If aiming to test OCPP, i.e. connect to the SteVe backend, further preparation is required, see the next example, below.

Outside the devcontainer:

Run a NodeRED flow that matches your EVerest config:

# switch to basic SIL flow:
./applications/devrd/devrd flow config/nodered/config-sil-flow.json

In your Webbrowser:

See the table above to

• open the Node-RED UI to start/stop charging.

• open the MQTT Explorer topic browser to analyse MQTT traffic between modules.

SIL with OCPP

Prerequisites:

Similar to the simple setup above + choose a similar NodeRED flow.

In the OCPP config file: Find the key "CentralSystemURI". Change 127.0.0.1:8180 to steve:8180. This allows EVerest’s OCPP module to connect to the SteVe instance running in its own separate container ("steve" is the name of the service defined in the docker-compose.yaml).

Hint

Identify EVerest’s OCPP config file: For the given example of run-sil-ocpp.sh, the underlying config config-sil-ocpp.yaml sets ChargePointConfigPath as lib/everest/ocpp/config/v16/config-docker.json.

Important

When running a OCPP SIL in this containerized setup, the SteVe CMSM will be available on 127.0.0.1::8180 on your host, but not from within the container that runs EVerest! This is simply how docker/docker-compose work. Therefore, the OCPP module will not successfully connect to the CSMS if configured to this address.

In your Webbrowser:

• Login to the SteVe web UI (see table above) (default credentials are admin / 1234).

• Add the charger:

  • choose DATA MANAGEMENT/CHARGE POINTS and Add New

  • Set ChargeBox ID to match the "ChargePointId" from EVerest’s OCPP config file

  • Add the charge point.

Inside the devcontainer:

Using the terminal, change to the build directory.

Run an OCPP-enabled config, e.g.:

# get a prompt inside the container:
./applications/devrd/devrd prompt
# run an OCPP enabled config:
./run-scripts/run-sil-ocpp.sh

Now you can use your webbrowser again to control the charger (NodeRED UI), analyze MQTT traffic and control the charger via the SteVe CSMS.

Troubleshooting

See the separate troubleshooting section for help on devcontainer-specific issues.

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Authors: Florian Mihut, Andreas Heinrich