Data collected by balena

In order to make data driven decisions, balena collects usage related events via a 3rd party analytics service, Amplitude. These events provide us context on the state of container execution steps. This way we could observe the health of fleets in balenaCloud ecosystem and analyze the potential problems as well as trends.

User data collected by balena

balena collects information about CLI and web dashboard usage behavior. User data we process includes

• user name (login) and the email address used to log into the system,

• device type, operating system and browser versions,

• device screen size,

• IP address,

• referrer to balena sites,

• company user belongs to (when web dashboard is used only).

Please note that balena does not collect information about end users of devices managed with balena platform, i.e. information about our customer users is not collected or processed. We work only with data collected for users who use balena to manage their device fleets.

balenaEtcher

balenaEtcher is an application maintained by balena team that can be used to easily flash OS images to SD cards and USB drives. If user does not opt out from collecting the analytics data, the application tracks its usage. In addition to the data described above, information about the type of SD cards and USB drives is collected too.

Device data collected by the supervisor

Data are submitted to Amplitude from balena-managed devices on the events listed in the table below. Submitted packets may contain the following information:

• Fleet ID and name

• Docker image hash

• Service ID, name, labels

• Release ID and/or git commit hash used to make the release

• Device IP address (as reported in balena dashboard)

• OS and supervisor versions

• Error root cause message (in case of error events)

• Timing info about device management operations (see event names)

Event name	Report type	Source file
Device state report failure	EventTracker	src/api-binder.ts
Device bootstrap success	EventTracker	src/api-binder.ts
Device bootstrap	EventTracker	src/api-binder.ts
Update notification	EventTracker	src/api-binder.ts
Device bootstrap failed	EventTracker	src/api-binder.ts
Image downloaded	SystemEvent	src/compose/images.ts
Delta still processing remotely.	SystemEvent	src/compose/images.ts
Image removal	SystemEvent	src/compose/images.ts
Image removed	SystemEvent	src/compose/images.ts
Delta image download	SystemEvent	src/compose/images.ts
Docker image download	SystemEvent	src/compose/images.ts
Image cleanup error	SystemMessage	src/compose/images.ts
Image download error	SystemEvent	src/compose/images.ts
Image removal error	SystemEvent	src/compose/images.ts
Network creation error	SystemEvent	src/compose/network-manager.ts
Network creation	SystemEvent	src/compose/network.ts
Network removal	SystemEvent	src/compose/network.ts
Network creation error	SystemEvent	src/compose/network.ts
Remove dead container	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service install	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service installed	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service start	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service started	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service exit	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service kill	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service already stopped	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service stop	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Remove dead container error	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service install error	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service start error	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service restart	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service already stopped and container removed	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Service stop error	SystemEvent	src/compose/service-manager.ts
Volume migration error	SystemMessage	src/compose/volume-manager.ts
Volume creation error	SystemEvent	src/compose/volume-manager.ts
Volume creation	SystemEvent	src/compose/volume.ts
Volume removal	SystemEvent	src/compose/volume.ts
Volume removal error	SystemEvent	src/compose/volume.ts
Purge data	SystemMessage	src/device-api/common.coffee
Purge data success	SystemMessage	src/device-api/common.coffee
Purge data error	SystemMessage	src/device-api/common.coffee
Restart container (v1)	EventTracker	src/device-api/v1.coffee
GET app (v1)	EventTracker	src/device-api/v1.coffee
Apply config change (success/failed/in progress)	ConfigChange	src/device-config.ts
Apply boot config error	SystemMessage	src/device-config.ts
Apply boot config in progress	SystemMessage	src/device-config.ts
Apply boot config success	SystemMessage	src/device-config.ts
Reboot	SystemMessage	src/device-state.coffee
Shutdown	SystemMessage	src/device-state.coffee
Loading preloaded apps failed	EventTracker	src/device-state.coffee
Device blink	EventTracker	src/supervisor-api.ts
Supervisor start	SystemMessage	src/supervisor.ts

Data collected automatically by Amplitude

Amplitude library generates a unique identifier for each device that sends an event. We associate the events with the device UUID provided by balenaCloud as well. Besides these identifiers, we don’t send any other user ID to Amplitude.

Amplitude library automatically extracts geographical location data from the device’s IP address, so it collects city, region and country information. See more in a relevant article by Amplitude.

About logging

Logs produced by the releases deployed to the devices via balena supervisor application can be streamed to web dashboard or CLI user who has permissions to view them through our cloud. However, the logs are stored in the cloud temporarily only in order to allow the streaming functionality - balena does not process device application logs unless technical support is requested by our users.