A Raspberry Pi 5 (ideally the 8 GB RAM model) with a 256 GB SSD is plenty for an edge broker that (a) terminates VPN, (b) brokers device messages (MQTT/NATS), (c) hosts a tiny .NET API for “agentic” control, and (d) syncs upstream to your DiscountASP.NET SQL Server–backed cloud. The constraints you’ll hit first are thermals, SD/SSD wear, and bursty CPU when you run local AI inference—so use active cooling, put logs on the SSD, and containerize to keep services lean.
Below is a clean, end-to-end starter you can drop on the Pi that matches your stack (C#/.NET 8, MVC/Worker, EF Core) and your plan (Pi as “Edge Broker” + VPN + MQTT + NATS + Postgres cache + Redis + Nginx). I’m giving you the full file list and complete, commented code/config so you don’t have to edit—just copy, build, and run.
Below is a clean, end-to-end starter you can drop on the Pi that matches your stack (C#/.NET 8, MVC/Worker, EF Core) and your plan (Pi as “Edge Broker” + VPN + MQTT + NATS + Postgres cache + Redis + Nginx). I’m giving you the full file list and complete, commented code/config so you don’t have to edit—just copy, build, and run.
What this gives you (conceptually)
- WireGuard: the Pi joins your private mesh → “gated world” entry point. This is your VPN
- Nginx: reverse proxy + TLS for your local APIs.
- Mosquitto (MQTT): field devices, NFC doors, fans, pumps publish/subscribe.
- NATS: fast internal bus between your .NET services (and future agents).
- Postgres: local cache/queue/outbox for store-and-forward when the WAN blips.
- Redis: hot cache + distributed locks.
- Edge.Api (.NET 8 Minimal API): health, commands, device registry endpoints.
- Edge.Broker.Worker (.NET 8): subscribes to MQTT, normalizes, validates, persists, and forwards to NATS/upstream.
- Outbox pattern: reliable upstream sync to your DiscountASP.NET MVC app/SQL Server.
- Systemd units: autostart on boot.
- Access to Chat GPT and Grok AI.
