WebThings Gateway

Web of Things gateway.

Installation

• If you have a Rasberry Pi, the easiest way to use the gateway is to download and flash a pre-built software image to an SD card.
• If you prefer to use Docker, we have a prebuilt Docker image available here, for both ARM and amd64. You can also build your own image from this repository.
• On Fedora, Debian, Raspbian, or Ubuntu, you can install the relevant .rpm or .deb package from the releases page. Those packages are built from the gateway-rpm and gateway-deb repos.
• On Arch Linux, you can install the webthings-gateway AUR package. The PKGBUILD for this package can also be seen here.
• Otherwise, you can build it from source yourself (see below).

Documentation

• Getting Started Guide
• User Guide
• Wiki
• Various other docs

Community

• Discourse
• Matrix (#iot:mozilla.org)

Prerequisites for Building

Install OS

(If you're just installing on your PC, you can skip this step).

If you're installing on a Raspberry Pi then you may need to set up the OS on the Raspberry Pi first. See here for instructions.

Update Package Cache (Linux only)

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt update

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf --refresh upgrade

Install pkg-config

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install pkg-config

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install pkgconfig

Under macOS:

$ brew install pkg-config

Install curl (needed to install nvm)

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install curl

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install curl

Install nvm (Recommended)

nvm allows you to easily install different versions of node. To install nvm:

$ curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.36.0/install.sh | bash

Reinitialize your terminal session.

$ . ~/.bashrc

Install node (if you didn't use nvm)

(If you already installed node via nvm you can skip this step)

Follow the directions from NodeJS to install on your platform.

Set up Bluetooth permissions (Linux only)

The following is required in order to let node and python3 use the Bluetooth adapter.

$ sudo setcap cap_net_raw+eip $(eval readlink -f `which node`)
$ sudo setcap cap_net_raw+eip $(eval readlink -f `which python3`)

Install Bluetooth and BT Low Energy support libraries (Linux only)

The following are required in order to install the Python modules that support Bluetooth

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install libboost-python-dev libboost-thread-dev libbluetooth-dev libglib2.0-dev

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install boost-python2-devel boost-python3-devel boost-devel bluez-libs-devel glib2-devel

Install libusb and libudev (Linux only)

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install libusb-1.0-0-dev libudev-dev

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install libudev-devel libusb1-devel

Install autoconf

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install autoconf

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install autoconf

Under macOS:

$ brew install autoconf

Install libpng (Linux only)

Under x86-64 or x86 Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install libpng16-16

Under ARM Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install libpng-dev

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install libpng-devel

Install libffi

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install libffi-dev

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install libffi-devel

Under macOS:

$ brew install libffi

Install git

You'll need git to checkout the repositories.

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install git

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install git

Install gcc

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install build-essential

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf group install "C Development Tools and Libraries"

Install Python tools

Under Ubuntu/Debian Linux:

$ sudo apt install python-pip python3-pip
$ sudo python2 -m pip install six
$ sudo python3 -m pip install git+https://github.com/WebThingsIO/gateway-addon-python#egg=gateway_addon

Under Fedora Linux:

$ sudo dnf install python2-pip python3-pip
$ sudo python2 -m pip install six
$ sudo python3 -m pip install git+https://github.com/WebThingsIO/gateway-addon-python#egg=gateway_addon

Download and Build Gateway

• Clone the GitHub repository (or fork it first):

  $ git clone https://github.com/WebThingsIO/gateway.git
  

• Change into the gateway directory:

  $ cd gateway
  

• If you have chosen to install nvm above, install and use an LTS version of node and then set the default version. The .nvmrc file will be used by nvm to determine which version of node to install.

  $ nvm install
  $ nvm use
  $ nvm alias default $(node -v)
  

• Verify that node and npm have been installed:

  $ node --version
  v12.19.0
  $ npm --version
  6.14.8
  

  Note: these versions might differ from the LTS version installed locally.

• Install dependencies:

  $ npm ci
  

• Add Firewall exceptions (Fedora Linux Only)

  $ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=4443/tcp --permanent
  $ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=8080/tcp --permanent
  $ sudo firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=5353/udp --permanent
  

• Set up domain:

  • If you plan to use the provided tunneling service to set up a _.webthings.io domain:

    • Start the web server:

      $ npm start
      

    • Load http://localhost:8080 in your web browser (or use the server's IP address if loading remotely). Then follow the instructions on the web page to set up domain and register. Once this is done you can load https://localhost:4443 in your web browser (or use the server's IP address if loading remotely).

  • If you plan to use your own SSL certificate:

    • The HTTPS server looks for privatekey.pem and certificate.pem in the ssl sub-directory of the userProfile directory specified in your config. You can use a real certificate or generate a self-signed one by following the steps below.

      $ WEBTHINGS_HOME="${WEBTHINGS_HOME:=${HOME}/.webthings}"
      $ SSL_DIR="${WEBTHINGS_HOME}/ssl"
      $ [ ! -d "${SSL_DIR}" ] && mkdir -p "${SSL_DIR}"
      $ openssl genrsa -out "${SSL_DIR}/privatekey.pem" 2048
      $ openssl req -new -sha256 -key "${SSL_DIR}/privatekey.pem" -out "${SSL_DIR}/csr.pem"
      $ openssl x509 -req -in "${SSL_DIR}/csr.pem" -signkey "${SSL_DIR}/privatekey.pem" -out "${SSL_DIR}/certificate.pem"
      

    • Start the web server:

      $ npm start
      

    • Load https://localhost:4443 in your web browser (or use the server's IP address if loading remotely). Since you're using a self-signed certificate, you'll need to add a security exception in the browser.

Browser Support

The Gateway only supports the following browsers, due to its use of the Fetch API and WebSocket API:

• Firefox 52+
• Chrome 43+
• Edge 14+
• Safari 10.1+
• Opera 29+

Debugging

If you are using VS Code, simply use the "launch" target. It will build the gateway in debugger mode.

If you are not using VS Code, run npm run debug and it will build the gateway and launch it with --inspect.

Install additional dependencies for Test (Debian)

These steps are required on Debian

$ sudo apt install firefox openjdk-8-jre

Running Tests

To run the linter and all tests:

$ npm test

To run a single test:

$ jest src/test/{test-name}.js

(assumes you have the jest command on your PATH, otherwise use ./node_modules/jest/bin/jest.js)

To compare UI with parent branch:

$ npm run screenshots
$ npm test

(if you have the screenshots in the folder ./browser-test-screenshots, npm test should compare UI with screenshots stored)

Source Code Structure

• config/ - Gateway configuration files
• image/ - Tools for building the Raspberry Pi image
• src/
  • addons-test/ - Add-ons used strictly for testing
  • controllers/ - App URL routes and their logic
  • models/ - Data model and business logic
  • platforms/ - Platform-specific functionality
  • plugin/ - Utility classes and methods used by add-ons
  • rules-engine/ - The rules engine
  • test/ - Integration tests
  • views/ - HTML views
  • addon-loader.js - Script used for starting up Node-based add-ons
  • addon-manager.js - Manages add-ons (e.g. Zigbee, Z-Wave)
  • app.js - The main back end
  • certificate-manager.js - Certificate registration and renewal, via Let's Encrypt
  • command-utils.js - Utilities used by commands parser
  • constants.js - System-wide constants
  • db.js - Manages the SQLite3 database
  • deferred.js - Wraps up a promise in a slightly more convenient manner for passing around, or saving
  • dynamic-require.js - Small utility to require code from file system, rather than webpacked bundle
  • ec-crypto.js - Elliptic curve helpers for the ES256 curve
  • jwt-middleware.js - Express middleware for determining authentication status
  • log-timestamps.js - Utilities for adding timestamps to console logging functions
  • mdns-server.js - mDNS server
  • oauth-types.js - OAuth types
  • passwords.js - Password utilities
  • platform.js - Platform-specific utilities
  • push-service.js - Push notification service
  • router.js - Routes app URLs to controllers
  • router-setup.js - Initial router setup code for OpenWrt
  • sleep.js - Small utility to implement a promise-based sleep
  • ssltunnel.js - Utilities to determine state of tunnel and manage the PageKite process
  • user-profile.js - Manages persistent user data
  • utils.js - Various utility functions
  • wifi-setup.js - Initial Wi-Fi setup code for Raspbian
• static/ - Static CSS, JavaScript & image resources for web app front end
• tools/ - Helpful utilities (not part of the build)
• package.json - npm module manifest