signalk-updater

Thin-shell SignalK plugin that opens the SignalK Updater Console from the admin UI and registers the updater engine container for image-update tracking.

The heavy lifting (image listing, version switching, self-update, hardware UI) happens in the signalk-updater-server container, which the signalk-universal-installer drops as a systemd Quadlet. This plugin is just the deep-link from the admin UI.

Status: 0.1.0. First release; pairs with signalk-updater-server 0.x.

What this plugin does

• Polls for globalThis.__signalk_containerManager (provided by signalk-container).
• Calls containers.updates.register({...}) to enroll the updater container for update notifications — without ensureRunning. The container's lifecycle is owned by systemd, not this plugin (marine-reliability principle: a broken plugin must never break recovery).
• Verifies the updater container is running; on any other state, raises a plugin error in the admin UI explaining how to recover (without taking the server down).
• Serves a webapp at /signalk-updater/ that embeds the Updater Console same-origin under /plugins/signalk-updater/console/. The console proxy forwards to the co-located engine over loopback (http://127.0.0.1:3003); signalk-server runs Network=host so loopback always reaches it with no DNS.

What this plugin does not do

• Start, stop, or recreate the updater container. The bash installer sets up the systemd Quadlet; this plugin only adopts it for update tracking.
• Mutate any host state. The managedContainer: true advanced toggle hints at a fallback ensureRunning path, but the default is false and that's what should ship in production.

Configuration

Field	Default	Purpose
managedContainer	false	Advanced opt-in. If true, the plugin attempts to start the container itself instead of relying on the installer's Quadlet. Leave false in production.
logLevel	info	error | info | debug.

Companion repos

Repo	Role
signalk-universal-installer	Bash bootstrap that drops the systemd Quadlets.
signalk-updater-server	Engine container — the real updater service.
signalk-doctor-server	Sister engine container for diagnostics + recovery.
signalk-container	Cross-plugin container-runtime substrate.