Mainflux.mainflux/things

Things

Things service provides an HTTP API for managing platform resources: devices, applications and channels. Through this API clients are able to do the following actions:

• provision new things (i.e. devices & applications)
• create new channels
• "connect" things into the channels

For an in-depth explanation of the aforementioned scenarios, as well as thorough understanding of Mainflux, please check out the official documentation.

Configuration

The service is configured using the environment variables presented in the following table. Note that any unset variables will be replaced with their default values.

Variable	Description	Default
MF_THINGS_LOG_LEVEL	Log level for Things (debug, info, warn, error)	error
MF_THINGS_DB_HOST	Database host address	localhost
MF_THINGS_DB_PORT	Database host port	5432
MF_THINGS_DB_USER	Database user	mainflux
MF_THINGS_DB_PASS	Database password	mainflux
MF_THINGS_DB	Name of the database used by the service	things
MF_THINGS_DB_SSL_MODE	Database connection SSL mode (disable or require)	disable
MF_THINGS_CLIENT_TLS	Flag that indicates if TLS should be turned on	false
MF_THINGS_CA_CERTS	Path to trusted CAs in PEM format
MF_THINGS_CACHE_URL	Cache database URL	localhost:6379
MF_THINGS_CACHE_PASS	Cache database password
MF_THINGS_CACHE_DB	Cache instance that should be used	0
MF_THINGS_HTTP_PORT	Things service HTTP port	8180
MF_THINGS_GRPC_PORT	Things service gRPC port	8181
MF_THINGS_SERVER_CERT	Path to server certificate in pem format	8181
MF_THINGS_SERVER_KEY	Path to server key in pem format	8181
MF_USERS_URL	Users service URL	localhost:8181

Deployment

The service itself is distributed as Docker container. The following snippet provides a compose file template that can be used to deploy the service container locally:

version: "2"
services:
  things:
    image: mainflux/things:[version]
    container_name: [instance name]
    ports:
      - [host machine port]:[configured HTTP port]
    environment:
      MF_THINGS_LOG_LEVEL: [Things log level]
      MF_THINGS_DB_HOST: [Database host address]
      MF_THINGS_DB_PORT: [Database host port]
      MF_THINGS_DB_USER: [Database user]
      MF_THINGS_DB_PASS: [Database password]
      MF_THINGS_DB: [Name of the database used by the service]
      MF_THINGS_DB_SSL_MODE: [SSL mode to connect to the database with]
      MF_THINGS_CA_CERTS: [Path to trusted CAs in PEM format]
      MF_THINGS_CACHE_URL: [Cache database URL]
      MF_THINGS_CACHE_PASS: [Cache database password]
      MF_THINGS_CACHE_DB: [Cache instance that should be used]
      MF_THINGS_HTTP_PORT: [Service HTTP port]
      MF_THINGS_GRPC_PORT: [Service gRPC port]
      MF_THINGS_SERVER_CERT: [String path to server cert in pem format]
      MF_THINGS_SERVER_KEY: [String path to server key in pem format]
      MF_USERS_URL: [Users service URL]
      MF_THINGS_SECRET: [String used for signing tokens]

To start the service outside of the container, execute the following shell script:

# download the latest version of the service
go get github.com/mainflux/mainflux

cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/mainflux/mainflux

# compile the things
make things

# copy binary to bin
make install

# set the environment variables and run the service
MF_THINGS_LOG_LEVEL=[Things log level] MF_THINGS_DB_HOST=[Database host address] MF_THINGS_DB_PORT=[Database host port] MF_THINGS_DB_USER=[Database user] MF_THINGS_DB_PASS=[Database password] MF_THINGS_DB=[Name of the database used by the service] MF_THINGS_DB_SSL_MODE=[SSL mode to connect to the database with] MF_HTTP_ADAPTER_CA_CERTS=[Path to trusted CAs in PEM format] MF_THINGS_CACHE_URL=[Cache database URL] MF_THINGS_CACHE_PASS=[Cache database password] MF_THINGS_CACHE_DB=[Cache instance that should be used] MF_THINGS_HTTP_PORT=[Service HTTP port] MF_THINGS_GRPC_PORT=[Service gRPC port] MF_USERS_URL=[Users service URL] MF_THINGS_SERVER_CERT=[Path to server certificate] MF_THINGS_SERVER_KEY=[Path to server key] $GOBIN/mainflux-things

Setting MF_THINGS_CA_CERTS expects a file in PEM format of trusted CAs. This will enable TLS against the Users gRPC endpoint trusting only those CAs that are provided.

Usage

For more information about service capabilities and its usage, please check out the API documentation.