Installation & Administration Guide

Installation

There are three ways of installing the JSON IoT Agent: using Git, RPMs or Docker image.

Using GIT

In order to install the TT Agent, just clone the project and install the dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/telefonicaid/iotagent-json.git
npm install

In order to start the IoT Agent, from the root folder of the project, type:

bin/iotagent-json

Using RPM

The project contains a script for generating an RPM that can be installed in Red Hat 6.5 compatible Linux distributions. The RPM depends on Node.js 0.10 version, so EPEL repositories are advisable.

In order to create the RPM, execute the following scritp, inside the /rpm folder:

create-rpm.sh -v <versionNumber> -r <releaseNumber>

Once the RPM is generated, it can be installed using the followogin command:

yum localinstall --nogpg <nameOfTheRPM>.rpm

The IoTA will then be installed as a linux service, and can ve started with the service command as usual:

service iotaJSON start

Using Docker

A docker container is available on docker hub. It will start the container with the default settings defined in config.js.

docker run -it --init fiware/iotagent-json

To use your own configuration you can mount a local configuration file:

docker run -it --init -v <path-to-configuration-file>:/opt/iotajson/new_config.js fiware/iotagent-json  -- new_config.js

As an alternative, it is also possible to pass configuration using environmental variables, as explained in Configuration with environment variables subsection.

Usage

In order to execute the JSON IoT Agent just execute the following command from the root folder:

bin/iotagentMqtt.js

This will start the JSON IoT Agent in the foreground. Use standard linux commands to start it in background.

When started with no arguments, the IoT Agent will expect to find a config.js file with the configuration in the root folder. An argument can be passed with the path to a new configuration file (relative to the application folder) to be used instead of the default one.

Configuration

Overview

All the configuration for the IoT Agent is stored in a single configuration file (typically installed in the root folder).

This configuration file is a JavaScript file and contains three configuration chapters: iota: this object stores the configuration of the North Port of the IoT Agent, and is completely managed by the IoT Agent library. More information about this options can be found here. mqtt: this object stores MQTT's specific configuration. A detailed description can be found in the next section. * http: this object stores HTTP's specific configuration. A detailed description can be found in the next section.

There are also some global configuration options: configRetrieval: this flag indicates whether the incoming notifications to the IoTAgent should be processed using the bidirectionality plugin from the latest versions of the library or the JSON-specific configuration retrieval mechanism (described in the User Manual). Simultaneous use of both mechanisms is not allowed. compressTimestamp: this flags enables the timestamp compression mechanism, described in the User Manual.

MQTT configuration

These are the currently available MQTT configuration options: host: host of the MQTT broker. port: port where the MQTT broker is listening. defaultKey: default API Key to use when a device is provisioned without a configuration. username: user name that identifies the IOTA against the MQTT broker (optional). password: password to be used if the username is provided (optional). qos: QoS level: at most once (0), at least once (1), exactly once (2). (default is 0). * retain: retain flag (default is false).

AMQP Binding configuration

The config.amqp section of the config file contains all the information needed to connect to the AMQP Broker from the IoT Agent. The following attributes are accepted:

  • host: Host where the AMQP Broker is located.
  • port: Port where the AMQP Broker is listening
  • username: user name that identifies the IOTA against the AMQP broker (optional).
  • password: password to be used if the username is provided (optional).
  • exchange: Exchange in the AMQP broker
  • queue: Queue in the AMQP broker
  • durable: durable queue flag (default is false).
  • retries: Number of AMQP connection error retries (default is 5).
  • retryTime: Time between AMQP connection retries (default is 5 seconds).

Configuration with environment variables

Some of the more common variables can be configured using environment variables. The ones overriding general parameters in the config.iota set are described in the IoTA Library Configuration manual.

The ones relating specific Ultralight 2.0 bindings are described in the following table.

Environment variable Configuration attribute
IOTA_MQTT_HOST mqtt.host
IOTA_MQTT_PORT mqtt.port
IOTA_MQTT_USERNAME mqtt.username
IOTA_MQTT_PASSWORD mqtt.password
IOTA_MQTT_QOS mqtt.qos
IOTA_MQTT_RETAIN mqtt.retain
IOTA_AMQP_HOST amqp.host
IOTA_AMQP_PORT amqp.port
IOTA_AMQP_USERNAME amqp.username
IOTA_AMQP_PASSWORD amqp.password
IOTA_AMQP_EXCHANGE amqp.exchange
IOTA_AMQP_QUEUE amqp.queue
IOTA_AMQP_DURABLE amqp.durable
IOTA_AMQP_RETRIES amqp.retries
IOTA_AMQP_RETRY_TIME amqp.retryTime
IOTA_HTTP_HOST http.host (still not in use)
IOTA_HTTP_PORT http.port (still not in use)

(HTTP-related environment variables will be used in the upcoming HTTP binding)

Packaging

The only package type allowed is RPM. In order to execute the packaging scripts, the RPM Build Tools must be available in the system.

From the root folder of the project, create the RPM with the following commands:

cd rpm
./create-rpm.sh -v <version-number> -r  <release-number>

Where <version-number> is the version (x.y.z) you want the package to have and <release-number> is an increasing number dependent in previous installations.