Introduction

Moxa Industrial Linux (MIL) is a high-performance industrial-grade Linux distribution developed by Moxa to help accelerate your industrial projects. MIL is based on Debian and the standard Linux kernel, which makes it easy to deploy your applications on multiple systems.

To address the long-term system needs of smart cities and industries such as power, water, oil and gas, transportation, and factory automation, every odd-number version (e.g., MIL v1.0, MIL v3.0) of MIL comes with 10-year Linux support that includes security patches and bug fixes, making industrial projects secure and sustainable.

In addition, Moxa is working with industry leaders to create a reliable and secure Linux-based embedded software platform that can be sustained for more than 10 years. Moxa is a member of The Linux Foundation® and is part of its Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) project that aims to create an open-source platform for managing and monitoring smart cities, civil infrastructure, and factories, to make them secure, reliable, scalable, and sustainable.

Debian Compatibility

Moxa Industrial Linux is a Debian-based distribution that can use all standard Debian packages for the kernel version. Benefits include:

• Access to the comprehensive repository of packages from Debian

• Field-proven OS stability

Hardware Root of Trust Secure Boot (MIL2 and later only in secure version of models)

A one-time-programmable (OTP) fuse is used as the hardware Root of Trust to initiate a chain of trust validation sequence during boot up, which ensures the integrity and authenticity of the bootloader and kernel before allowing access to the root filesystem.

Automatic System Failback (MIL2 and later)

Automatically restores the system to the last known secure working state when the system fails to boot due to a power outage during a critical update or due to an unauthorized change to a critical software that causes Secure Boot to fail.

Robust File System

The robust file system integrated into Moxa Industrial Linux provides extra protection during firmware upgrades and downgrades with:

• Guaranteed system operation when there are power losses during firmware upgrades/downgrades

• Fast and secure reset-to-default function built into the system

Over-the-air (OTA) Software Updates

Because gateway computers are usually located at remote sites, it is a challenge to upgrade the system and applications. A suitable way to upgrade the firmware on remote computers is to use wireless technology such as cellular or Wi-Fi. Moxa Industrial Linux supports secure Advanced Packaging Tools (APT) for OTA remote update and uses a GPG Key to validate the package source list obtained from the software repository.

Long-term Support

Moxa Industrial Linux allows users to keep the same kernel version and Debian user space without having to frequently upgrade the entire system. In addition, subscription services for Moxa Industrial Linux, throughout its 10-year life-cycle phase provide security updates and bug fixes that include:

• Critical security patches

• High-priority bug fixes