PHAL

** Editors Note ** Lots of cleanup coming here, just placeholder information for now.

PHAL is our Platform/Hardware Abstraction Layer, it completely replaces the concept of hardcoded "enclosure" from mycroft-core

Any number of plugins providing functionality can be loaded and validated at runtime, plugins can be system integrations to handle things like reboot and shutdown, or hardware drivers such as mycroft mark2 plugin

PHAL plugins can perform actions such as hardware detection before loading, eg, the mark2 plugin will not load if it does not detect the sj201 hat. This makes plugins safe to install and bundle by default in our base images

Plugins

Platform/Hardware specific integrations are loaded by PHAL, these plugins can handle all sorts of system activities

Plugin Description
ovos-PHAL-plugin-alsa volume control
ovos-PHAL-plugin-system reboot / shutdown / factory reset
ovos-PHAL-plugin-mk1 mycroft mark1 integration
ovos-PHAL-plugin-mk2 mycroft mark2 integration
ovos-PHAL-plugin-respeaker-2mic respeaker 2mic hat integration
ovos-PHAL-plugin-respeaker-4mic respeaker 4mic hat integration
ovos-PHAL-plugin-wifi-setup wifi setup (central plugin)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-gui-network-client wifi setup (GUI interface)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-balena-wifi wifi setup (hotspot)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-network-manager wifi setup (network manager)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-brightness-control-rpi brightness control
ovos-PHAL-plugin-ipgeo automatic geolocation (IP address)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-gpsd automatic geolocation (GPS)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-dashboard dashboard control (ovos-shell)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-notification-widgets system notifications (ovos-shell)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-color-scheme-manager GUI color schemes (ovos-shell)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-configuration-provider UI to edit mycroft.conf (ovos-shell)
ovos-PHAL-plugin-analog-media-devices video/audio capture devices (OCP)

flow

Admin PHAL

AdminPHAL performs the exact same function as PHAL, but plugins it loads will have root privileges.

This service is intended for handling any OS-level interactions requiring escalation of privileges. Be very careful when installing Admin plugins and scrutinize them closely

NOTE: Because this service runs as root, plugins it loads are responsible for not writing configuration changes which would result in breaking config file permissions.

Admin Plugins

AdminPlugins are just like regular PHAL plugins that run with root privileges

Admin plugins will only load if their configuration contains "enabled": true. All admin plugins need to be explicitly enabled

You can find plugin packaging documentation here