thsq-agent

Description

thsq-agent is a tool for running a Thingsquare gateway agent on a Linux machine such as a Raspberry Pi. The gateway agent sets up serial line IP, Ethernet, and WiFi connections on the Linux gateway.

Installation

Install the forever npm package first:

sudo npm install -g forever

The install the agent:

sudo npm install -g thsq-agent

To use the agent with PPP, you may also need to install the PPP package:

sudo apt install ppp

To run the agent on a gateway, dnsmasq and packet forwarding is usually required. This is done by adding the following to /etc/rc.local (and possibly update IF with a different interface name):

IF=wlan0

iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o $IF -j MASQUERADE
iptables -A FORWARD -i $IF -o ppp0 -m state --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp0 -o $IF -j ACCEPT

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

DNS masquerading is also needed:

sudo apt install dnsmasq

sudo -s
echo "interface=ppp0" >> /etc/dnsmasq.conf

Usage

To run the agent, start the following command:

sudo thsq-agent [options]

If the --autostart option is provided, then press Ctrl-C and reboot the Pi.

Options:

• -f <frontend>: the Thingsquare frontend ID to connect the agent to.
• -b <backend>: the Thingsquare backend server address to connect the agent to.
• --autostart: register the agent in /etc/rc.local so that it starts on the next boot.
• --reset: resets a previously saved configuration.
• --ppp [tty regexp | disable]: set up a PPP interface for directly connected serial port devices. The argument is a Javascript regular expression that should match the filename of the serial devices that the PPP server should listen on, excluding the /dev/ prefix. For example "ttyS*|ttyUSB*". If no argument is given, the default is ttyACM0.
• --blecommands: configure the agent to listen for encrypted Bluetooth commands to setup WiFi, which can be sent from a Thingsquare-compatible smartphone app.