Compatibility Balena cloud with Dell 3000 gateway

Product support
1

I am considering using Balena cloud in combination with the Dell 3000 gateway. Do you have any experience whether this combination works or if we should expect any issues?

5

Hi Bastiaan,
thanks for reaching out to us. Personally I do not have any experience with the hardsware you are planning to use but I will reach out to the devices team to find out more.
I have found the attached spec for Dell Edge Gateway 3000 Series devices - maybe you can narrow down the device type you are planning on using.
Regards Thomas

8

Hi Thomas,

Thank you for your quick reply! I can’t see any attachment. We are looking to use the Dell gateway 3001 with antenna added, Ubuntu core, using the 8GB internal storage and our own USB Bluetooth dongle

with kind regards

Bastiaan

10

Hi Bastian,
While I am looking for more information regarding your question, I copy here the link to the file Thomas was referring to https://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/shared-content/data-sheets/en/Documents/Dell_Edge_Gateway_3000_Series_spec_sheet.pdf

19

Hi. While we did not run on this specific hardware, you should be able to run balenaOS on that hardware. There may be some kinks that would need to be ironed out but that should not be a show stopper. For example, if that hw has Secure Boot enabled in BIOS, you would need to disable that in order to be able to boot balenaOS.
I recommend using the Generic x86_64 OS release from the balena dashboard since that image aims for having as much as possible of the kernel drivers enabled.

21

Thanks Floion,

We will be using this in a large deployment and want to manage all security aspect properly. Ideally we would leave secure boot enabled. Do you provide the Key of your bootloader so we can load it into the UEFI?

Something that is not entirely clear to me from the documentation: Do we have to install Balena OS if we want to use Balena cloud or is it also an option to use the supplied Ubuntu core distribution and load the Balena components on top of this?

25

Hi, unfortunately at this time you would need to disable secure boot. We can explore what would mean to enable secure boot but this is not in the works now.
As for your second question, you would need to install balenaOS in order to make use of balena Cloud. Warning, be aware that the installer will wipe out the drive of the Dell 3000 gateway.