Test Things

Collection of IoT device simulators that can be used for testing and exploration purposes of different protocols and other Web of Things mechanisms. The devices are implemented via various programming languages and frameworks. The protocols you can currently test are:

• HTTP
• CoAP
• MQTT
• Modbus

Dependencies

The project has several dependencies. Currently JavaScript and Python is used for simulating different devices. Every device has its own dependencies and they should be handled separately. For that reason, Node.js is used for JS code and poetry is used for Python code to run the scripts and handle the dependencies.

Testing

For testing JavaScript Testing Framework mocha is used. Therefore, the tests are written in JavaScript. Every Thing should have its Thing Model and Thing Description validation test. Thing Model validation test should be put under Thing's main directory and named as tm.test.json. Thing Description validation test should be put under protocol and programming language/framework's test directory and named as td.test.json. For Thing Description validation test, the device should boot up and to understand the device booted up without any error, a message "ThingIsReady" is expected to be prompted to the console by the device.

Port Configuration

It is possible to run several Things at the same time in a container, which requires container to expose that many ports. Traefik helps with this issue and routes the requests on one exposed port to relevant services inside the container. Traefik configuration can be seen inside docker-compose.yml. It is not possible to route using path prefix with UDP, therefore port must be exposed for new Things that use UDP.

Adding a new Thing

If you are going to add a different protocol for an existing Thing:

1. Create a directory such as things/<existing_thing>/<your_protocol>/<your_programming_language/your_framework>/.
2. Create your project files and write your code inside this directory.
3. If you are adding a new programming language, please use a tidy dependency management tool for the programming language. Otherwise use already used tools and frameworks not to overcomplicate the project.
4. Create your test/ directory under your Thing's directory and add your test files there.

If you are going to add a different programming language/framework for an existing protocol:

1. Create a directory such as things/<existing_thing>/<existing_protocol>/<your_programming_language/your_framework>/.
2. Create your project files and write your code inside this directory.
3. Please use a tidy dependency management tool for the programming language/framework. Otherwise use already used tools and frameworks not to overcomplicate the project.

If you are going to add a completely new Thing:

1. Create a directory such as things/<your_thing_name>/.
2. Add your Thing Model under the previously created directory and name it such as <your_thing_name>.tm.json.
3. Follow the steps above to add your protocol and programming language/framework.

Current Devices

Calculator

Calculator is a simple device, which has a read only result variable and depending on the action selected by the user, it adds or subtracts user input from the result. There is also a read only lastChange variable, which indicates the last time result variable has changed. Additionally, the device publishes an event, when result is changed.

Elevator

Elevator is a simple device, which has three variables lightSwitch, floorNumber and onTheMove. lightSwitch is a boolean which represents whether the light on the elevator is turned on or not on. floorNumber is an integer and represents the floor number of the elevator. onTheMove is a boolean and represents whether the elevator is on the move or not.

Supported Protocols and Programming Languages

• HTTP
  • JavaScript Express framework
  • Python Flask framework
• CoAP
  • JavaScript
• MQTT
  • JavaScript
• Modbus
  • JavaScript

How to Run

You can start the devices inside a container, for that running docker-compose up at the root directory builds and runs the containers. For custom configuration, take look at the Dockerfile of each device or docker-compose.yml.

For running the things separately, using their Dockerfile's, docker build -t <image-tag> -f ./Dockerfile ../../ command must be used to give the context to be able copy tm.json into the container.

For Node.js based devices, we use npm workspaces and running npm install at the root directory installs all the packages needed for every device. After packages are installed, running node main.js would run the thing. For port configuration, running either node main.js -p 1000 or node main.js --port 1000 would start the thing on port 1000.