IoT Operations Example Ble App

This is an example application for HPE Aruba Networking IoT Operations project that guides you to develop your own IoT apps. This app implements the Device Classification and Edge Compute + Data Transport functionalities. Any APIs and Edge Compute functionality can be added as part of your docker container as per your use case.

Note: This app uses Lua script for setting the device class attribute. The data transport functionality is written in GoLang.

1) classifying BLE devices with iBeacon Device Class using a Lua script
2) taking data from IoT Operations connector and transferring the data to your own cloud service. This app uses
HiveMQ as the cloud service as an example.

Before developing your own app, please read the documentation for setting up your IoT hardware, software and related accounts and configurations related to HPE Aruba IoT Operations,Configure your IoT setup in HPE Aruba Central

Contents

• Topology
• Project structure
  • Lua
  • Container
    • Access IoT Operations infrastructure service
• Build and Application Onboard
  • Container Build
  • AppBundle Configuration
  • Installation
  • Data Display
• Jenkins CICD pipeline for App Updation
• License

Topology

Project structure

aruba-iotops-example-ble
    |-- container
    |   |-- application
    |   |-- Dockerfile
    |   |-- Makefile
    |-- lua
    |-- resource
    |-- Jenkinsfile
    |-- README.md
    |-- VERSION
    |-- LICENSE

lua

The lua directory contains a Lua script for BLE device data packets processing. IoTOps collectors use the Lua scripts to parse BLE device packet data and classify BLE device into Device Classes. Application developers need to define a function decode(address, addressType, advType, elements) function as the entrance of device data processing. In this example we use a Lua script to decode iBeacon packets. Different devices with different data types and structures should have different scripts.

container

The container directory holds the source code of a containerized program. IoTOps runs third party applications in a containerized environment. Application developers can define their own data processing logic and integrate their private solutions using within this container.

In this example, the application receives the subscribed device packets from collector's API Gateway, then forwards the packet to HiveMQ topic.

Note: An app developer need not follow this same project structure. The docker container and / or Lua script can be uploaded via HPE Aruba Networking App Developer Portal (ADP) app creation wizard. This structure and the scripts within should be used as a reference.***

Access IoT Operations infrastructure service

Container programs can access collector through HTTP API as follows:

func (c *httpClient) Connect() {
	req, _ := http.NewRequest("GET", "http://$(apiGwUrl)/api/v2/ble/stream/packets", nil)
	req.Header.Set("apikey", "")

	client := &http.Client{}
	resp, _ := client.Do(req)
	defer func() {
		resp.Body.Close()
	}()

	reader := bufio.NewReader(resp.Body)

	for {
		line, err := reader.ReadBytes('\n')
		if err != nil {
			fmt.Println(err.Error())
			return
		}
		fmt.Println(string(data))
	}
}

Note: More IoTOps API please visit https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis/davix/aruba_iot_gateway_container_api/2.0

Build and Application Onboard

Container Build

cd $(BASE_DIR)/container/
make docker

AppBundle Configuration

The IoT app developer should use ADP to create and manage their app. The app creation wizard will walk you through the required and optional fields. The ADP app creation wizard also provides a Lua script editor, where a user can create or upload their Lua script and a docker container library where container images can be uploaded and specified for use in the respective apps. Below is a summary of the required and optional app metadata for the AppBundle for this example.

[required] App Icon
[required] App Name
[required] Summary
[required] Description
[optional] Release notes for this version of the app
[required] App support: URL, email or phone of the customer support
[required] Developer website URL : Author’s website with more information about the App
[optional] Platform URL
[optional] Privacy policy URL
[optional] License agreement URL
[required] Categories: Choose up to 3 app categories like Enterprise, Location, Hospitality, Networking, etc.
[required] Supported Platforms : Choose from Legacy AP, AP as IoT Connector and the VM based Data Collector.
[required] Minimum SDK version : Specify lowest SDK version that your app can support
[required] App features

In this example, you would choose BLE and Edge Compute & back end connections

BLE section: Enter the details and edit Lua script to decode bluetooth packets

[required] Subscriptions: Create the subscription match for the BLE advertisements
[required] Match Type : Select one of the folowing subscription types
MANUFACTURER ID, SERVICE UUID, Local Name, Device Class
[required] Match Value : Matching value for current subscription [optional] Additional Proprietary Value
[required] Lua Script : Upload your lua script or create a new one [required] Device classes : Select which device classes your app can classify [required] Permissions : A list of permissions by device class

Edge Compute & Back end connections section:

[required] Container image for data collector
[required] CPU usage for mini data collector : Specify max CPU usage on different sizes of the IoT Connector
[required] Memory usage for mini data collector : Specify max memory usage on different sizes of the IoT Connector

[required] Subscriptions : Create the subscription match for the container
[optional] Outbound firewall permissions : Allowlisted URL for external access. [optional] API Permissions : A list of permissions by device class [optional] User configuration [optional] Permissions [optional] Subscriptions [optional] Outbound firewall [optional] Certificates [optional] Enviroment variables : A list of enviroment variables definitions

Installation

After config AppBundle, you will see your app in your Aruba central. You only need to config the MQTT topic. After the installation is complete, you can access http://www.hivemq.com/demos/websocket-client/ and subscribe MQTT data topic to get data.

Data Display

Access MQTT web page http://www.hivemq.com/demos/websocket-client/, subscribe data topic as shown in the image below:

On this web page, we will have the following operate step:

1. on Connection part, type "test.mosquitto.org" into Host field, then click "Connect" button (It will establish a connection with MQTT broker)
2. on Subscriptions part, click "Add New Topic Subscription" button, then it will pop up a window, you should type your own public topic name into Topic field, then click "Subscribe" button. The topic name is set when the app is installed. If you haven't set this topic, we also have default value: "app2broker_topic".
3. on the "Messages" part, you will see the data from your app.

Jenkins CICD pipeline for App Updation

Pre requisite for Node on which jenkins pipeline is executed.

1. Installables required for jenkins pipeline/node

• jq, curl, docker, bash, golang, make

3. appbundle.json

• This is the app json which can be downloaded via ADP NBAPI Get App Version Details (/v1/adp/apps/{app_id}/details)

Create a new Jenkins pipeline with below mentioned parameters and use the jenkins script available in Jenkinsfile file.

Parameters:

1. url

• type: String
• example: https://pavan257-cl-hybrid-arm-578-0-api.lite.arubadev.cloud.hpe.com
• description: Central URL required for NBAPI call. It can be obtained from Central NBAPI page

2. token

• type: String
• example: WjxstwgRaPVOgyhy1JT64o8Mi031WhA7
• description: Central token required for NBAPI authorization. It can be obtained from Central NBAPI My Apps and token page

3. appid

• type: String
• example: 659bbda98db7a017ddd9147a
• description: ADP application id to be updated. It can be obtained from ADP app version page- it is available in url

4. lua_upload_required

• type: Boolean
• description: Select the checkbox if lua file update is required for ADP app.

5. icon_upload_required

• type: Boolean
• description: Select the checkbox if app icon update is required for ADP app.

6. image_upload_required

• type: Boolean
• description: Select the checkbox if container image upload is required for ADP app.

7. imagename

• type: String
• example: ExampleApp
• description: Image name which should be used while uploading container image to ADP

8. timeout

• type: String
• example: 120
• description: Wait time in seconds required during image upload. It should be configred based on image size (expected time for image upload to be completed in image repository)

Jenkins pipeline can be used for updating app icon, lua file and/or container image depending on the options used during job execution.

It converts icon and lua file content into base64 and app information gets updated for icon and lua content.

Similarly pipeline uses git details and build docker image, which gets saved as tar file and md5 is also generated on tar for verification purpose.

Image version details retrieved from ADP and is incremented by 1 and image upload to ADP gets triggered. Once image is uploaded, pipeline waits for configured time.

After which app version details based on appid for draft state gets retrieved and based on appid and app version - app information gets retrieved

App information gets updated for container image (which was uploaded earlier) and the updated information is stored in ADP.

License

MIT LICENSE