E2C-Block

E2C-Block is a proposed model architecture that aims to provide an effective solution for managing and securing data generated by IoT sensors in a distributed environment. It ensures that data generated by these IoT sensors are securely transmitted and stored tamper-proof. The model comprises two blockchain networks and an external data repository.

The first blockchain network is located in a fog computing environment close enough to the IoT sensors generating the data. This Blockchain is called the Sensor Blockchain Network(SBN). In the E2C-Block architecture, the fog computing environment provides a secure communication channel between IoT devices and the cloud infrastructure. This SBN has peers that process and transmits data to a second blockchain network in a cloud computing environment.

The second blockchain network is the larger of the two blockchain networks. It is located in a cloud computing environment. It is called the Primary Blockchain Network(PBN). It receives IoT Sensor data from the SBN, hashes and stores this hash of the sensor data on the ledger of its peers, and passes on the originally received IoT sensor data to an external data repository. As discussed in Section 3, this hashing process becomes useful when we check the integrity of the IoT’s Sensors Data.

To store the vast amount of data generated by IoT sensors, the E2C-Block architecture uses an offsite data store. This provides an optimal storage option as it allows data to be stored in a secure and scalable manner

See it in Action

Demo

We have the EC2-architecture deployed in UT's HPC. It can be tested, but you will need to be connected to the UT's VPN

- Register a sensor on the Sensor Blockchain Network

1. Generate an auth token from the Fabric CA on the Sensor Blockchain Network

curl --location 'http://172.17.89.13:8801/user/enroll' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer' \
--header 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
--data '{"id": "admin", "secret": "adminpw"}'

2. Register a particular sensor, in this case SensorOne of the TartuCityCouncil Organization

curl --location 'http://172.17.89.13:8801/invoke/fognodechannel/fognode' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer 32e92650-edfe-11ed-bdb9-b9b0558852d1-admin' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "method": "KVContract:registerSensor",
  "args": [
    "TartuCityCouncil:sensorOne",
    "TartuCityCouncil:sensorOne@ut"
  ]
}

- Generate Sensor Data

1. Generate Sensor data from particular sensor, in this case SensorOne of the TartuCityCouncil Organization

git clone https://github.com/chinmaya-dehury/Blockchain4E2CC.git
cd sensors/tartucitycouncil/sensor-one
py app.py

Sensor data should now be generated, sent through the Sensor Block Network to the Primary BLockchain network and up to the MinIO Server.

- View Data in MinIO Server.

Geenerated Sensor Data can be seen at

URL: http://172.17.89.13/login

USERNAME: hlf

PASSWORD: hlf@minio@edge

- Verify if data has changed since it got generated and stored on MinIO .

Generated data can be verified at

http://172.17.89.13:5000

Sample response for data that has not been tampered with

Sample response for data that has been tampered with

Architecture

Overview

To Deploy EC2-Block, We would need to setup Two Blockchain networks - one to serve as the Sensor Blockchain network and another to serve as the Primary Blockchain Network. We would also need to set up the External Data Repository. In the steps that follow, we would be generating some data from one or more sensors, send them to the Sensor Blockchain Network that sends them off the the Primary Blockchain network where this data is hashed and the hash stored. The data is then stored off chain on the external data repository.

Installation

You would need atleast two seperate servers to deploy the two Blockchain networks. The MinIO server can be on either of the servers, but preferably the server that hosts the Sensor Blockchain Network.

You would to ensure you have Python3.x installed locally on your test machine.

To install the prerequsites, clone the repository and run the ansible playbook contained in ansible/. You would have to set the ip address of the host in ansible/inventory/hosts.yaml. This playbook also installs and sets up the minio server.

cd ansible
ansible-playbook setup-host.yaml -i inventory/hosts.yaml

To setup the servers for the two blockchain networks, set their IPs in ansible/inventory/hosts.yaml and

cd ansible
ansible-playbook setup-fabric.yaml -i inventory/hosts.yaml

On the Server for the Sensor Blockchain Network, to setup the Sensor Blockchain Network, clone this repository,

git clone https://github.com/chinmaya-dehury/Blockchain4E2CC.git
cd Blockchain4E2CC/fognode/fablo
fablo up fablo-config.json

On the Second Server for the Primary Blockchain Network, to setup the Primary Blockchain Network, clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/chinmaya-dehury/Blockchain4E2CC.git
cd Blockchain4E2CC/fablo
fablo up fablo-config.json

Both Blockchain networks should take a while to setup. The Primary Blockchain network will take a little longer. .

If the commands above all complete successfully, you should have two Hyperledger Fabric networks.

Starting Minio Server

As unhashed data would be stored offchain on minIO, we need to start the minio server. The minio server was setup when the first ansible playbook was ran. On the server running the MinIO,

MINIO_ROOT_USER=$MINIO_ROOT_USER MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=$MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD minio server /mnt/data --console-address ":9001"

Where MINIO_ROOT_USER abd MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD are enviroment variables of you choice. Next, generate(from the Minio Web interface) and set the following environment variables MINIO_URL,MINIO_PORT,MINIO_ACCESS_KEY,MINIO_SECRET

Now, it time to do some testing!!

Registering Sensors on the Sensor Blockchain Network

Before the Sensor Blockchain Network can accept any sensor data, that sensor needs to be registered on the Sensor Blockchain network, otherwise all data from such a sensor will be dropped.

First, we would need to enroll a user on the fognode blockchain. 127.0.0.1 can be changed to the ip address of the machine running the Sensor blockchain network

curl --location --request POST 'http://127.0.0.1:8801/user/enroll' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer' \
--header 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
--data-raw '{"id": "admin", "secret": "adminpw"}'

We should get an authorization token as a response, that would be needed for the next command

Next, we register the sensor on the Sensor blockchain network. In this example, we would be registering sensor-one belonging to some example organization.

curl --location --request POST 'http://127.0.0.1:8801/invoke/fognodechannel/fognode' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer 671da960-8b38-11ed-8e65-d70eccfee9d0-admin' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "method": "KVContract:registerSensor",
  "args": [
    "example:sensorOne",
    "example:sensorOne@ut"
  ]
}

You should get back

{
    "response": {
        "success": "Ok: Sensor Registered on Network"
    }
}

Optional: Note, you would have to repeat the same process as above when registering other sensors.

Generating Sensor Data

We have now registered a sensor, to generate some sample sensor data and send such to the fognode for onwards delivery to the blockchain network, you would have to run the sensor python script. In this example, we would be emulating data from sensor-one

cd sensors/example/sensor-one
py app.py

Mock Sensor data should now be generated and sent to the fognode. You should see some logs

MinIO Web Interface

You can visit the Minio Server Web Console to see Mock data being recieved from the Main Blockchain after such data is hashed and stored.

We try to detail the flow of data from the sensors to the MinIO server with the image below

Query for Stored Sensor data

Query for Stored sensor data is done to the MinIO Server. We developed a simple interface that allows us to query and verify if the sensor data has been tampered with or not.

To run this interface,

cd query-interface/
py app.py