Github actions

We introduce our custom GitHub actions and provide the corresponding repository links. At the end we provide a complete GitHub workflow example.

Authentication action¶

All the qbee.io API calls require an authorization token. To obtain that token we created the qbee-io/authenticate-action. Simply add

name: qbee.io authentication
uses: qbee-io/authenticate-action@main
id: qbee-auth
with:
    login: ${{ secrets.USERNAME_KEY }}
    password: ${{ secrets.PASSWORD_KEY }}

to your workflow file.

Input variables¶

• login: the username you use to log into the qbee.io platform
• password: the corresponding password

This information is sensitive and we recommend storing it in GitHub secrets such that it is encrypted.

Output variables¶

• token: the authentication token needed for other API calls

to access the output you need to give the authentication step an id. Above we used

id: qbee-auth

${{ steps.qbee-auth.outputs.token }}

File upload action¶

To upload files to the qbee.io file manager from a GitHub action workflow we created qbee-io/file-upload-action. Simply include the following snipped

name: qbee.io file upload
uses: qbee-io/file-upload-action@main
with:
    token: ${{ steps.qbee-auth.outputs.token }}
    filename: 'file_to_upload_without_path'
    qbee_directory: 'path_in_qbee_file_manager'
    local_directory: 'path_to_file_in_github_repository'

to your yaml file.

Input variables¶

• token: authentication token obtained from the previous step (make sure to equip the authentication step with an id that you can reference to)
• filename: filename to upload without path
• qbee_directory: path to directory in the qbee file manager where the file should be uploaded
• local_directory: path to the local (GitHub) directory in which the file is located - default: ./

Setting up a complete GitHub action workflow¶

Here, we show how to set up an entire workflow from scratch where we set up a GitHub runner (using GitHub actions) to copy the desired files to the qbee.io file manager via API calls. With a new upload to the file manager a file distribution can be triggered on your remote device.

Once a repository is set up, before creating a runner, setup GitHub secrets as shown in the following screenshot to store your qbee.io credentials.

There we specify our qbee.io username USERNAME_KEY and password PASSWORD_KEY, as we do not want them to be exposed.

Once that is done, we create a GitHub actions which runs our setup script on the runners provided by GitHub (or you can set up your own runners). GitHub actions can be created as follows (we use "set up a workflow yourself")

We use the following demo script where we simply create a tar file out of the repository and upload it afterwards to the file manager.

name: qbee.io upload
on:
  push:
    branches: [ main ]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      TARNAME: repo.tar

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: create tarball
      run: |
        mkdir ./tar
        tar --exclude='./.git' --exclude='./.github' --exclude='./tar' -czvf ./tar/$TARNAME .


    - name: qbee.io authentication
      uses: qbee-io/authenticate-action@main
      id: qbee-auth
      with:
        login: ${{ secrets.USERNAME_KEY }}
        password: ${{ secrets.PASSWORD_KEY }}

    - name: qbee.io file upload
      uses: qbee-io/file-upload-action@main
      with:
        token: ${{ steps.qbee-auth.outputs.token }}
        filename: ${{ env.TARNAME }}
        qbee_directory: 'github_actions_upload'
        local_directory: 'tar'

The tar file can for example be extracted on the devices with an appropriate command to run.

Note that your credentials aren't revealed as we use GitHub secrets to encrypt them.