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Welcome to the Eclipse Kura™ Documentation

Eclipse Kura™ turns an edge device into a managed IoT gateway. It collects data from field devices, processes it at the edge and delivers it to the cloud, while the gateway itself stays configurable, secure and manageable from its web console, through its REST APIs or from an IoT platform over MQTT.

Kura is a Java 21 application built on OSGi. Every feature is a configurable OSGi Declarative Services component that exposes a service API, so you can extend the gateway with your own add-ons, drivers and containerized applications.

  • Install

    Install Kura from the Eclipse Kura APT repository on Debian-based arm64 and amd64 systems, or start the Docker image.

    Install Kura

  • Configure the gateway

    Set up network interfaces, firewall, cloud connections, certificates and users from the web console.

    Gateway Administration Console

  • Connect field devices

    Read and write industrial and IoT devices through Drivers and Assets: OPC UA, S7, Modbus, GPIO, Bluetooth LE, CAN.

    Drivers, Assets and Channels

  • Process data with Wires

    Build data pipelines by wiring components together: acquire, filter, store, run AI inference and publish.

    Kura Wires

  • Connect to the cloud

    Publish telemetry and accept remote management through Eclipse Kapua, Eclipse Hono, Sparkplug B or any MQTT broker.

    Cloud Connections

  • Build your add-on

    Generate a project with the Kura Addon Archetype, then build, package and deploy it to your gateway.

    Hello World Application

Architecture

Eclipse Kura architecture: kura-core and add-ons on top of OSGi, Java 21 and Linux Eclipse Kura architecture: kura-core and add-ons on top of OSGi, Java 21 and Linux

Select the diagram to open it at full size. Read it from the bottom up. Kura runs on Linux, on a Java 21 runtime, inside the Eclipse Equinox OSGi framework. The Kura API (org.eclipse.kura.api) defines the service contracts that kura-core and the add-ons implement. Solid boxes ship with the kura-core package, dashed boxes are add-ons installed by the kura meta-package, dotted boxes are optional add-ons.

Layer What it provides Learn more
Device Abstraction Serial ports, USB and HID devices in the core; GPIO (libgpiod), GPS (gpsd), Bluetooth LE (BlueZ) and CAN (SocketCAN) from their add-ons Serial Ports, GPIO, Bluetooth LE, CAN bus
Basic Gateway Services Configuration and snapshots, system information and inventory, H2 and SQLite databases, clock synchronization, watchdog, position Configuration Service, Snapshots, Inventory
Security Crypto service, file and PKCS#11 keystores, certificates and CRLs, identities and permissions, JWT tokens, tamper detection Crypto Service, Keystores, Authentication and Authorization
Network Configuration Ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular and VLAN interfaces through NetworkManager and ModemManager, firewall and NAT, network threat manager Network Configuration, Firewall
Containers Docker and Podman container orchestration, image signature verification, authenticated registries Container Orchestration
Connectivity & Delivery Multiple cloud connections (Eclipse Kapua, Eclipse IoT, Raw MQTT, Sparkplug B), store-and-forward data service, embedded Artemis MQTT broker Cloud Connection API, Sparkplug
Assets & Drivers Driver API and helpers in the core; OPC UA, S7, Modbus, GPIO, Bluetooth LE and CAN drivers and protocols as add-ons Drivers and Assets, Field Protocols
Applications Your Java add-ons, containerized applications, Kura Wires data flows, AI inference with Nvidia Triton Kura Wires, Triton Inference Engine

Kura core and add-ons

Since version 6.0.0 Kura is made of a mandatory core and a set of add-ons, each developed in its own repository and shipped as its own Debian package. Installing the kura meta-package gives you kura-core plus the add-ons that make up the complete gateway; the optional add-ons can be installed when you need them.

Package What it adds Installed by kura
kura-core Kura API, configuration, security, cloud connections, REST APIs, containers, databases Yes, mandatory
kura-management-ui Web console Yes
kura-networking Network interfaces, firewall and network threat manager Yes
kura-wires Kura Wires and Assets Yes
kura-artemis Embedded Apache ActiveMQ Artemis MQTT broker Yes
kura-bluetooth Bluetooth LE, iBeacon™ and Eddystone™, BLE drivers Yes
kura-position Position service based on gpsd Yes
kura-command Remote command execution Yes
kura-deployment Remote installation of deployment packages Optional
kura-gpio GPIO service and driver based on libgpiod Optional
kura-opcua, kura-s7 OPC UA and S7comm drivers Optional
kura-modbus, kura-can Modbus and CAN bus protocols Optional
kura-camel Apache Camel™ integration Optional
kura-triton Nvidia™ Triton Server inference engine Optional
kura-log-filesystem Filesystem log provider Optional
kura-apps Example applications and prototypes Optional

Install only what you need

kura-core can also be installed on its own, together with the add-ons your gateway needs. The Install Kura page lists the system dependencies of each package.

One API, two ways in

The same resource is reached over HTTPS and over MQTT The same resource is reached over HTTPS and over MQTT

Most REST resources are also registered as MQTT request handlers. A script calling /services/configuration/v2 over HTTPS and a cloud platform sending a request to CONF-V2 over MQTT run the same code, so the same operations are available to REST clients and to cloud platforms. The same applies to keystores (KEYS-V2), identities (IDN-V2), security (SEC-V2), system information (SYS-V1), inventory (INVENTORY-V1) and cloud connections (CLD-V1).

REST Service · MQTT Namespace · Remote Management with Eclipse Kapua

Data flows with Kura Wires

Kura Wires lets you design data pipelines from the web console by placing components on a graph and wiring them together. A typical flow polls an Asset, stores the records in the gateway database, filters or aggregates them with SQL or JavaScript, and publishes the result to the cloud.

Kura Wires graph in the web console

More resources

Coming from Kura 5?
  • Kura 6 requires Java 21.
  • The framework is split into kura-core and add-ons: networking, web console, Wires and Assets, Bluetooth, position and command moved out of the core into the packages listed above.
  • Remote installation of deployment packages (DEPLOY-V2) is provided by the optional kura-deployment add-on.
  • Apache Camel™, the S7comm and OPC UA drivers, Modbus, CAN, the filesystem log provider and the Nvidia™ Triton integration are developed in their own repositories.
  • Deprecated APIs have been removed from org.eclipse.kura.api: check the Javadoc before porting an add-on.
  • Add-ons are built with Maven and bnd: start from the Kura Addon Archetype.