ACE IoT Sentinel Container

A containerized VOLTTRON edge platform with the Grasshopper BACnet network monitoring agent.

Overview

The ACE IoT Sentinel Container packages:

• VOLTTRON 9.0.4 - Open-source agent platform for smart buildings
• Grasshopper Agent - BACnet/IP network discovery and monitoring
• ACE Config Agent - Centralized configuration and JWT management
• Web UI - Interactive visualization of discovered BACnet devices

Features

✅ Full BACnet/IP Discovery - Scans network and identifies all devices ✅ Web-Based Visualization - Interactive network topology viewer ✅ ACE IoT Manager Integration - Automatic JWT rotation and data upload ✅ Environment-Based Config - Easy deployment with env vars ✅ Production Ready - Security hardened, health checks, data persistence

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Docker or Podman
• Access to a BACnet/IP network
• Network configuration allowing BACnet broadcasts (UDP port 47808)
• Recommended: Linux host for production deployments

Basic Deployment

1. Create your configuration file:

cp .env.example .env

2. Edit .env and configure at minimum:

# Set your BACnet network address
BACNET_ADDRESS=192.168.1.100/24:47808

# Confirm web UI port
WEBAPP_PORT=5000

3. Start the container:

docker-compose up -d

4. Access the Grasshopper web UI:

http://localhost:5000

Documentation

📚 Configuration

• Configuration Reference - Complete guide to all environment variables
• Network Configuration - Host, MACVLAN, and IPVLAN networking modes

📚 Deployment Scenarios

• Host Network Mode - Simple deployment (default)
• MACVLAN Network - Production deployment with isolated IP
• IPVLAN L2 Network - Alternative to MACVLAN
• Multi-Container - Deploy multiple sentinels

📚 Integration

• ACE IoT Manager Integration - Connect to ACE Manager platform

📚 Guides

• Deployment Guide - Step-by-step production deployment
• Troubleshooting - Common issues and solutions

Container Images

Official images are available on GitHub Container Registry:

# Pull latest version
docker pull ghcr.io/ace-iot-solutions/aceiot-sentinel:latest

# Run with host networking
docker run -d \
  --name aceiot-sentinel \
  --network host \
  -e BACNET_ADDRESS=192.168.1.100/24:47808 \
  -v sentinel-data:/home/volttron/.aceiot-sentinel-volttron \
  ghcr.io/ace-iot-solutions/aceiot-sentinel:latest

Platform Support:

• linux/amd64
• linux/arm64

Required Configuration

The only required configuration is BACNET_ADDRESS. This must be set to an IP address on your BACnet network.

Format: IP/CIDR:PORT

Examples:

# Standard BACnet/IP on network 192.168.1.0/24
BACNET_ADDRESS=192.168.1.100/24:47808

# Different subnet
BACNET_ADDRESS=10.0.50.25/16:47808

# Custom port
BACNET_ADDRESS=192.168.1.100/24:47809

See CONFIGURATION.md for all available options.

Support

For issues, questions, or contributions:

• GitHub: ACE-IoT-Solutions/aceiot-sentinel-container
• Email: support@aceiotsolutions.com

License

See LICENSE file for details.

Credits

Built by ACE IoT Solutions

• Grasshopper Agent: Justice Lee, Jackson Giles, Andrew Rodgers
• Based on VOLTTRON platform (PNNL)
• BACpypes3 library