Definitions

Provided below are a list of key concept around eGeoffrey's internals:

• A module is defined as the code of a functional unit.
  • e.g. the component that periodically checks if your rules are triggering (alerter) is a module. The component which queries the weather service for the current temperature is another module, etc.
  • each module belongs to a scope, defined as a group of modules. The following scopes are identified:
    • controller: modules part of the eGeoffrey core (e.g. interact with the database, collect data from sensors, run alerting rules, etc.)
    • interaction: modules responsible for interacting with the user (e.g. through Slack, a microphone, etc.)
    • notification: modules responsible for notifying the user about something (e.g. through email, slack, text messages, etc.)
    • service: modules responsible for interfacing with a specific device or protocol to retrieve data or control actuators (e.g. a weather service, a webcam, a MySensors device, Zigbee protocol, etc.)
    • gui: modules responsible for running the eGeoffrey GUI
    • system: reserved for system components (e.g. the watchdog modules)
  • modules' naming convention is <scope_name>/<module_name> so e.g. valid names are controller/alerter, service/image, etc.
  • A module may live or not in an independent container
  • each individual module connects independently to the message bus and can communicate with the other only through it (even if living just aside)
• A package is defined as one or more modules built together into a Docker image
  • each package has a manifest file describing what's inside
  • it usually maps to a Github repository
  • packages' naming convention is egeoffrey-<package_name> where package_name can be:
    • a built-in eGeoffrey component (e.g. egeoffrey-database)
    • a package mapping to single module (e.g. egeoffrey-service-image)
    • a collection of multiple modules (e.g. egeoffrey-collection-raspberrypi)
• A gateway is the eGeoffrey component through which all the modules connect to and exchange information by leveraging the publish&subscribe approach.

In a nutshell, eGeoffrey is made of different components (modules) which communicates through a message bus (the gateway) and distributed as Docker images (packages).