Add `Deploy` task for `8.3`

[benmusson]

Problem

With the removal of module hot-loading and the module loading servlet, the current developer experience for module's targeting 8.3 is poor.
The feedback time between making changes/compiling, manually uploading, and manually restarting the gateway is very long.

Suggestion

The new 8.3 REST API allows for loading modules and restarting the Gateway.

I suggest that the gradle-module-plugin be updated with a new 8.3 specific Deploy task to:

1. Upload a module.
2. Restart the Gateway.

This would bring things back to feature parity with the 8.1 developer experience.

[tabre]

One of my teammates just moved one of our modules to 8.3, and I was wondering why it was failing to post to the gateway and I stumbled upon this issue.

With the removal of module hot-loading and the module loading servlet...

Was this announced or documented somewhere by IA?

[kevinherron]

The removal of module hot loading was discussed endlessly in the forums and at ICC, and it's mentioned in the upgrade guide: https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/docs/8.3/getting-started/installing-and-upgrading/ignition-8-upgrade-guide/81to83-upgrade-guide#hot-swapping-modules

The removal of the servlet is a natural consequence.

Updating the plugins to use the new HTTP API to upload/install modules is reasonable to consider. The tricky part was that the dev servlet was totally unauthenticated. The API is not, so the build plugins will need to be updated to pull an API key from the environment or some other configuration source.

[tabre]

The removal of module hot loading was discussed endlessly in the forums and at ICC, and it's mentioned in the upgrade guide: https://docs.inductiveautomation.com/docs/8.3/getting-started/installing-and-upgrading/ignition-8-upgrade-guide/81to83-upgrade-guide#hot-swapping-modules

The removal of the servlet is a natural consequence.

Updating the plugins to use the new HTTP API to upload/install modules is reasonable to consider. The tricky part was that the dev servlet was totally unauthenticated. The API is not, so the build plugins will need to be updated to pull an API key from the environment or some other configuration source.

I see I'm out of the loop. Thanks for the information Kevin. I really appreciate it.

[kevinherron]

You could probably get something working yourself with some Gradle build scripting.

See http://localhost:8088/openapi#tag/modules/paths/~1data~1api~1v1~1modules~1upload/post and http://localhost:8088/openapi#tag/modules/paths/~1data~1api~1v1~1modules~1install/post on your gateway for the module upload and install.

[mpderbec]

FWIW, the servlet cut down development time by about 20%. Waiting for the Gateway to load every time you make a change, especially when you're in a difficult trial-and-error situation (which is often the case given the nature of module development), is particularly painful.

The tricky part was that the dev servlet was totally unauthenticated.

Couldn't it be disabled by default, and enabled via ignition.conf? I do all my module development on my dev machine with a local gateway -- I don't need it to be secure.