reduct-bridge

ReductBridge bridges live robotics and IIoT data with long-term storage in ReductStore. You can configure the bridge using a simple TOML file to define inputs, pipelines, and remotes. Inputs produce data, pipelines route and modify it, and remotes store it.

Inputs

An input is a data source. It reads data from a system and produces records for the bridge.

Supported input types include:

• Metrics - collect host CPU, memory, and disk metrics as JSON records.
• MQTT - subscribe to MQTT v3/v5 topics over mqtt:// or mqtts:// and store raw payloads with optional payload/property label mapping.
• Shell - run shell commands on a fixed interval and store output lines as records.
• ROS1 - subscribe to ROS1 topics, store ROS messages, and extract labels from message fields.
• ROS2 - subscribe to ROS2 topics, store serialized CDR payloads, and extract labels from decoded message fields.

Formats

ReductBridge supports different payload formats. Support means ReductBridge can parse payloads, extract labels, and, when schema information is available, store that schema in ReductStore.

• JSON: find values by field path (example: examples/mqtt_config.toml).
• Protobuf: find values by field path (with schema) or by field ID/type (example: examples/mqtt_protobuf_config.toml).
• ROS formats: decode ROS message payloads for labels and store the payloads as records (example: examples/ros_config.toml).

Remotes

A remote is a data destination. It receives records from pipelines and writes them to external storage.

Supported remote types include:

• ReductStore - write pipeline records and attachments to ReductStore with configurable batching.

Pipelines

Pipelines connect one or more inputs to one remote.

# Pipeline definition path:
# [pipelines.<pipeline_name>]
[pipelines.telemetry]

# Required: remote name from [[remotes.*]].
remote = "local"

# Required: one or more input names from [inputs.*.*].
inputs = ["ros_local"]

# Optional label rules (default = []):
# 1) Static labels:
#    { static = { source = "robot" }, to = "*" }
#    - adds labels to matching target entries
# 2) Copy labels from one entry to another:
#    { from = "time", labels = ["timestamp"], to = "echo" }
#    - remembers labels seen on matching source entries
#    - applies them to matching target entries
labels = [
  { static = { source = "ros1" }, to = "*" }
]

Installation

ReductBridge is published in build types named after Cargo feature bundles: ros1, ros2, and iot. Choose the build type for the input family you need.

Build Types

Published packages and Docker images are split into these build types so each artifact only includes the dependencies needed for its input family.

Build type	Description	Included inputs	Published artifact names
ros1	ROS1 robotics bundle.	ROS1, Shell, Metrics	Snap: reduct-bridge-ros1; Docker build type: ros1; binary: bridge-ros1.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
ros2	ROS2 robotics bundle.	ROS2, Shell, Metrics	Snap: reduct-bridge-ros2; Docker build types: ros2-jazzy, ros2-humble; binaries: bridge-ros2-jazzy.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz, bridge-ros2-humble.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
iot	MQTT/IIoT bundle.	MQTT, Shell, Metrics	Snap: reduct-bridge-iot; Docker build type: iot; binary: bridge-iot.x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz

Note: ROS2 binary and Docker artifacts are published per ROS distribution: ros2-jazzy and ros2-humble. The ROS2 snap is published as reduct-bridge-ros2 and currently uses the Jazzy build.

Input names in configuration use their input table names, for example [inputs.ros.*], [inputs.ros2.*], [inputs.mqtt.*], [inputs.shell.*], and [inputs.metrics.*].

Docker

Docker images are published as reduct/bridge:<tag>, where <tag> combines a release channel or version with the build type. For ROS2 Docker images, use the ROS distribution-specific build type: ros2-jazzy or ros2-humble.

docker pull reduct/bridge:main-<build-type>      # development builds from main
docker pull reduct/bridge:latest-<build-type>    # stable builds
docker pull reduct/bridge:v<version>-<build-type> # release builds

For example:

docker pull reduct/bridge:main-iot
docker pull reduct/bridge:main-ros2-jazzy
docker pull reduct/bridge:main-ros2-humble

Run the container with a mounted config file:

docker run --rm \
  -v "$PWD/config.toml:/etc/reduct-bridge/config.toml:ro" \
  reduct/bridge:main-iot /etc/reduct-bridge/config.toml

Snap (Ubuntu 22.04+)

sudo snap install reduct-bridge-<build-type> --channel=edge   # or --channel=stable once released

To run the service with an explicit config file path, set the config-path snap option:

sudo cp path/to/config.toml /var/snap/reduct-bridge/reduct-bridge.toml
sudo chmod 640 /var/snap/reduct-bridge/reduct-bridge.toml

sudo snap set reduct-bridge-<build-type> config-path=/var/snap/reduct-bridge/commont/reduct-bridge.toml
sudo snap get reduct-bridge-<build-type> config-path
sudo snap restart reduct-bridge-<build-type>.service

Release CI builds snap package variants and publishes them to the standard channels.

Cargo / source build

cargo install reduct-bridge

cargo install reduct-bridge builds the default feature set, which includes only the shell input. For MQTT-specific build and runtime guidance, see MQTT input documentation. The MQTT input is grouped under the iot Cargo feature alongside future IoT protocols. For metrics-specific build and runtime guidance, see Metrics input documentation. For ROS2-specific build and runtime guidance, see ROS2 input documentation.

To build additional inputs explicitly from source:

cargo build --no-default-features --features ros1
cargo build --no-default-features --features ros2
cargo build --no-default-features --features iot

Usage

reduct-bridge /path/to/config.toml

Documentation

For detailed documentation, please refer to the ReductBridge Documentation.