Getting Started

This is the Getting Started page for version 1.4 of FlashLex.

This abridged guide assumes the following:

  • You have registered. Go to the Register for FlashLex docs for more info.

  • You are trying to get the basics that prove that you can send a message to a thing on the internet.

How It Works

The Flashlex platform is an internet gateway for your thing. It simplifies accessing your IOT device by providing a simple HTTP REST API to dispatch messages.

how it works

  • FlashLex Site & API - The SaaS Internet Gateway for all your things. FlashLex is responsible for managing your things, storing messages for retrieval and coordination your services.

  • Your Thing and The FlashLex SDK - A thing is a small computer that you would like to either send messages to or collect messages from on the internet.

  • Your Dispatch Application - Sends or collects messages across all your things. It orchestrates communication between multiple things.

This guide will show you in the simplest terms:

  1. How to provision a new thing.

  2. How to download and install the SDK on your thing.

  3. How to bootstrap the Thing SDK.

  4. How to Authenticate to the FlashLex API

  5. How to Send a message to your Thing using the FlashLex API

Provision Your Thing

You will need to provision you thing and download the distribution.

Go to the "Things" Tab to provision a new thing.

things tab

And then create a thing.

things page

A modal form will then pop up with the details to be entered for the the new thing.

things page

Once you submit the thing will be created, and it will prefix the name of the thing with a unique id related to your user namespace.

Running Bootstrap

  1. download the dist file

  2. unzip it in a directory that has the name of your thing

36180455-reedway-home-1: (venv) $ ls -al
total 416
drwxr-xr-x  12 claytongraham  staff   384B Nov 29 11:59 ./
drwxr-xr-x   4 claytongraham  staff   128B Nov 29 11:54 ../
-rw-r--r--@  1 claytongraham  staff   6.0K Nov 29 11:55 .DS_Store
-rw-r--r--   1 claytongraham  staff   1.2K Nov 29  2019 36180455-reedway-home-1-certificate.pem
-rw-r--r--   1 claytongraham  staff   1.6K Nov 29  2019 36180455-reedway-home-1-keypair-private.pem
-rw-r--r--   1 claytongraham  staff   451B Nov 29  2019 36180455-reedway-home-1-keypair-public.pem
-rw-r--r--   1 claytongraham  staff   2.3K Nov 29  2019 README.md
-rw-r--r--   1 claytongraham  staff    99K Nov 29 11:57 base64.txt
-rw-r--r--   1 claytongraham  staff   1.2K Nov 29  2019 config.yml
-rw-r--r--   1 claytongraham  staff    75K Nov 29 11:58 dist.zip
drwxr-xr-x  20 claytongraham  staff   640B Nov 29 12:17 flashlex-iot-python/
-rw-r--r--   1 claytongraham  staff   1.2K Nov 29  2019 root-ca-cert.pem

  1. goto the flashlex-iot-python dir and run teh following:

python3 -m venv venv --system-site-packages
source venv/bin/activate
python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade pip
python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
python3 -u bootstrap.py -c $(pwd)/../config.yml

you should see the bootstrap running:

starting flashelex app.
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,663 __init__                             87  : MqttCore initialized
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,663 __init__                             88  : Client id: 36180455-reedway-home-1
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,663 __init__                             89  : Protocol version: MQTTv3.1.1
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,663 __init__                             90  : Authentication type: TLSv1.2 certificate based Mutual Auth.
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,663 configure_endpoint                   139 : Configuring endpoint...
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,663 configure_cert_credentials           131 : Configuring certificates...
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,672 configure_reconnect_back_off         151 : Configuring reconnect back off timing...
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,672 configure_reconnect_back_off         152 : Base quiet time: 1.000000 sec
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,672 configure_reconnect_back_off         153 : Max quiet time: 30.000000 sec
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,673 configure_reconnect_back_off         154 : Stable connection time: 10.000000 sec
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,673 configure_offline_requests_queue     181 : Configuring offline requests queueing: max queue size: -1
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,673 configure_draining_interval_sec      186 : Configuring offline requests queue draining interval: 0.500000 sec
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,673 configure_connect_disconnect_timeout_sec  143 : Configuring connect/disconnect time out: 60.000000 sec
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,673 configure_operation_timeout_sec      147 : Configuring MQTT operation time out: 120.000000 sec
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,673 connect                              190 : Performing sync connect...
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,674 connect_async                        199 : Performing async connect...
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:15,674 connect_async                        200 : Keep-alive: 600.000000 sec
collecting message from thing: 5da91b24-28f2-4b55-829e-26528ba7a2eb
/Users/claytongraham/data/app/things/36180455-reedway-home-1
https://api.flashlex.com/prd/v1/things/5da91b24-28f2-4b55-829e-26528ba7a2eb/collect {'foo': 'bar'} {'Authorization': 'Bearer eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJSUzI1NiIsImtpZCI6IjVkYTkxYjI0LTI4ZjItNGI1NS04MjllLTI2NTI4YmE3YTJlYiJ9.eyJleHAiOjE1NzUwNjM1NTUsIm5iZiI6MTU3NTA2MjgzNSwiaXNzIjoidXJuOnRoaW5nOjVkYTkxYjI0LTI4ZjItNGI1NS04MjllLTI2NTI4YmE3YTJlYiIsImF1ZCI6InVybjpmbGFzaGxleDo1ZGE5MWIyNC0yOGYyLTRiNTUtODI5ZS0yNjUyOGJhN2EyZWIifQ.UTOtMxXIwbXqGXQU8gJJ_J1GYI8jDu1ZLq7g6owwP6w--YRxR4m8ciJTW6NcFYGMbYeNZLUg8QD0gIOP0vnEiD_phl6h8_Tq3bMuMKNPlk71QQ6fQn5LzQTsqE01yyb_Xl2XVMugEW-Zwpy6S4nMNLfl2d7kF1XrrUVop-LYcUxtPfcueBuyc7gKSJPGrz-CYYge7gAw8lteJy7ip56qaqXHvy3WEPP71F00xK4BNc3jITCRHC1JOH5jsvwhhuTv1sdV3HzI7k8no4-LXt3m1feo3-Zv54PQ2rzpXz1G9Q6qzzefor4yPcjuSTGIVgNfdd4xoJaOLUpweR5YG1hsyg', 'Content-Type': 'application/json'}
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:18,624 publish                              258 : Performing sync publish...
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:18,731 run                                  173 : Published topic flashlex/test: {"thingId": "5da91b24-28f2-4b55-829e-26528ba7a2eb", "thingName": "36180455-reedway-home-1", "message": "This is a really basic message.", "sequence": 0}

{"status":"OK","code":200,"messages":[{"key":"message","value":"Message collected."}],"result":{"message":"Message collected.","flthingspk":"5da91b24-28f2-4b55-829e-26528ba7a2eb","flmessagespk":"f5f10afe-0bb8-46be-a8c4-661c7a2e08bf"}}
FlashlexSDK Collector Status Code: 200
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:23,736 publish                              258 : Performing sync publish...
INFO       2019-11-29 13:33:23,851 run                                  173 : Published topic flashlex/test: {"thingId": "5da91b24-28f2-4b55-829e-26528ba7a2eb", "thingName": "36180455-reedway-home-1", "message": "This is a really basic message.", "sequence": 1}