Industrial Raspberry Pi based product
Industrial Raspberry Pi is probably the most common solution these days to build an industry product without wasting time on fitting and customizing embedded board and Linux based operating system. Raspberry Pi is a ready-to-use Single Board Computer which already suitable for thousands of computing missions that can be built very fast thanks to the huge community and software packages support.
Can we trust on Raspberry Pi as an industrial product?
There are already millions of Raspberry Pis running out there, for thousands of different missions and purposes, and still, the Raspberry Pi considered as stable SBC which doesn’t have any weak points over time. To be honest, going with other Single Board Computer that sold with the tag of “industrial grade” but don’t have such a big community who used it and millions of boards that are already running in production, may be much riskier.
Can we use Raspbian OS for Industrial products?
Raspbian is the most common operating system for Raspberry Pi and by definition, has been built for desktop user experience and not for industrial uses. There are a few quick solutions which may solve this issue and provide us the operating system we need for industrial use cases. – Keep Raspbian and make customizations
Raspbian has been built specifically for the Raspberry Pi family and considered stable. To make Raspbian suitable for Industrial projects, there are a few patches we should do.Security:
1. Delete the default Pi user, create a new restricted user with though password.
2. Disable the SSH server and any other running server that is not needed.
3. Set Firewall rules using Iptables to make sure no open ports are available.
Behavior:
1. Disable and remove services that are running on boot an to make boot time faster.
2. Develop a simple monitor that will make sure that everything works as planned.
3. Delete Gui if not needed, to save resources.
Stability:
1. Disable upcoming automatic updates and upgrades of Raspbian.
– Use Yocto based OS
There are a few ready to use Yocto based images that built specifically for Raspberry Pi and are very lightweight. check this guide for more information.
– Go with the other distro
Clean Debian or Ubuntu can another great option for industrial applications and can be installed easily.
Where can I buy a ready to use industrial Raspberry Pi?
There are a few known companies like Compulab, KunBus, and SferaLabs with the known Strato Pi who sell Raspberry Pi with an industrial case which provides more relevant outputs for specific purposes, but most of the time, you can buy a Raspberry Pi and a simple hard case that will just make your Raspberry tougher.
JFrog Connect support Raspberry Pi and provides a full remote management platform which will help you keep your products updated and stable using remote maintenance tools that have been built for industrial projects.
