AWS IoT 设备载入

Question

I'm working on a learning project for IoT with AWS IoT Things and ESP32 using Arduino/C (no micro-python). While I have shadows and messages working well, the part I'm not sure about is the best approach to onboard new devices.

Currently the onboarding process is:

1. I create the Thing in the AWS Console
2. I create the certs
3. I save the certs to laptop
4. I copy cert contents into the Shadow.h then upload the sketch to the ESP32

This feels incredibly manual:(

Hypothetically how would a reseller of ESP32-based IoT devices automate the onboarding process? How can the Things and certs be automated?

Many thanks in advance

Ant

Answer 1

We're talking about provisioning devices in cloud.

If you (or your organization) is adding your own devices to your own cloud, then it's quite easy to automate. Steps 1 and 2 are the cloud-side part of provisioning - just install the required SDK-s and write a script in your favourite supported scripting language to do the dirty work. For steps 3 and 4 you just use the device's own Flash to store the device certificates. Espressif has a useful non-volatile storage system called NVS - it's fairly easy to use and supports Flash encryption (this bit could be more elegant, but it works). You can use their NVS Partition Generator to pre-create the required storage with the device's certs in it, then flash it into the device when setting it up. Device-side provisioning can be scripted together with cloud-side provisioning so you can do the whole thing in a single step. The Arduino IDE is not the tool to use, though. You just need the final program binaries, but everything else you need to create on your own.

If you're talking about a third party taking your device and provisioning it in their cloud, this is a bit more difficult (but not impossible). Presumably they need to do steps 1 & 2 on their own and you need to give them a way to configure their AWS endpoints and certificates on the device. So you need to build some interface which allows them to do it.