IoT Platform:Release notes

V3.0.1

The following section describes the differences between SDK V2.3.0, which was released in November 2018, and SDK V3.0.1, which was released in March 2019.

Porting by using the source code

• This development method is suitable for on-premises machines that run Ubuntu16.04 64-bit, Windows XP, Windows 7, and Windows 10.

• You can run the make menuconfig command on Ubuntu or click the config.bat file on Windows to select the features.

• After you select the features based on your business requirements, you can run the extract.sh command on Ubuntu or click the extract.bat file on Windows to extract the required source files.

• You can add the source files to your project on an on-premises machine and use a preferred method to compile the source code.

All hardware abstraction layer (HAL) interfaces that you must implement are automatically collected in the wrapper.c file in the output/eng/wrappers directory.

In the past, you cannot perform development operations if you failed to cross-compile the SDK. SDK V3.0.1 improves the portability and usability.

Directory structure

• SDK V3.0.1 uses a flat directory structure that is easy to use. For example, all .h and .c files about Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) features on the cloud are stored in the src/mqtt directory.

• Except the src/infra directory that contains the infrastructure, a src/xxx directory is mapped to an SDK feature and contains all source files of the feature. The number of src/xxx directories are the same as the number of SDK features. Examples:

  • src/dynamic_register: contains all source files of the unique-certificate-per-product verification or dynamic registration feature.

  • src/dev_sign: contains all source files of the device signature feature.

  • src/mqtt: contains all source files of the MQTT connection feature.

  • src/ota: contains all source files of the over-the-air (OTA) firmware update feature.

  • src/dev_model: contains all source files of the Thing Specification Language (TSL) model management or sub-device management feature.

Presentation of APIs and HAL interfaces

In the earlier versions of the SDK, the global header file iot_import.h contains external HAL_XXX() interfaces on which the SDK depends and the global header file iot_export.h contains the IOT_XXX APIs that are provided by the SDK.

Specific customers assume that they must implement all of the more than 100 HAL interfaces in the iot_import.h file and get familiar with all of the more than 200 APIs in the iot_import.h file. This causes heavy workloads for the customers.

The following improvements are made in SDK V3.0.1:

• The iot_import.h and iot_export.h files are removed.

• The include directory in the root directory is removed.

• Source files are classified and stored in dedicated directories based on the SDK features to prevent excessive information display.

To use SDK V3.0.1, you must perform the following steps:

• Make sure that you are familiar with the SDK features such as the MQTT connection to IoT Platform and OTA updates, determine the required features, and then configure and select the features in a graphical user interface (GUI).

• Then, run the extract.sh script on Ubuntu or the extract.bat script on Windows to obtain the source files of the selected features and store the source files in the output directory.

• Implement APIs and HAL interfaces to use the SDK based on the following rules:

  • The output/eng/xxx directory stores source files of the xxx feature. The source files are obtained from the src/xxx directory.

  • The output/eng/xxx/xxx_api.h file contains the APIs of the xxx feature. The APIs are obtained from the src/xxx/xxx_api.h file.

  • All HAL_XXX() interfaces that you must implement to interact with a specific embedded system are automatically added to the output/eng/wrappers/wrapper.c file.

• • You need to only view the source files of the required features in the src/xxx/xxx_api.h for output/eng/xxx/xxx_api.h file. The API declarations that are irrelevant to your business requirements are not displayed.

  • All HAL interfaces that you must implement are added to the output/eng/wrappers/wrapper.c file. The HAL interfaces that are irrelevant to your business requirements are not displayed.

For example, the basic feature of the SDK is to calculate the signature for establishing an MQTT connection to IoT Platform. This feature is supported by the src/dev_sign or output/eng/dev_sign interface.

• In this case, only one interface of the signature calculation feature is visible to you in the dev_sign_api.h file.

• No HAL interfaces or no wrapper.c file is displayed because this feature has no dependencies and no C functions are required.

make.settings file

• Apart from on-premises machines that run Linux, developers can run config.bat on Windows XP, Windows 7, or Windows 10 machines to configure required features in a GUI.

• The following table describes the FEATURE_XXX options whose names are changed.

• The following options are added:

  • FEATURE_AWSS_SUPPORT_SMARTCONFIG_WPS: the point-to-point configuration mode for Wi-Fi setup.

  • FEATURE_AWSS_SUPPORT_DEV_AP: the device access point mode (dev-ap-config) for Wi-Fi setup.

MQTT interfaces

• You can call the IOT_MQTT_Construct() interface to establish a Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) connection. The IOT_SetupConnInfo() interface is no longer required.

• When you call the IOT_MQTT_Construct() interface, you can leave most connection parameters empty. The SDK automatically uses the default values and no errors are returned.

New features and interfaces

• The device signature feature is added, which is the basic feature of an SDK.

  • Only the IOT_Sign_MQTT() interface is related to the feature.

• The unique-certificate-per-product verification feature is added. The feature can be used when you burn a device certificate that includes a ProductKey, a DeviceName, and a DeviceSecret to all devices.

  • Only the IOT_Dynamic_Register() interface is related to the feature.

• The device reset feature is added. The feature can be used to disassociate a sub-device with the corresponding gateway after the sub-device sends a disassociation request to IoT Platform.

  • Only the IOT_DevReset_Report() interface is related to the feature.

• The HTTP/2 file upload feature is added. The feature can be used to upload large files to IoT Platform.

  • The IOT_HTTP2_UploadFile_Connect(), IOT_HTTP2_UploadFile_Request(), and IOT_HTTP2_UploadFile_Disconnect() interfaces are related to the feature.

Removed feature

• CMake is removed from the supported compilation tools because GNU make and porting based on the source code are supported.

V2.3.0

The following section describes the differences between SDK V2.2.1, which was released on August 31, 2018, and SDK V2.3.0, which was released in November 2018.

make.settings file

• Developers can run the make menuconfig command on Ubuntu16.04 64-bit on-premises machines to configure the make.settings file in a GUI.

• The following table describes the FEATURE_XXX options whose names are changed.

• The following options are added:

  • FEATURE_DEVICE_BIND_ENABLED: the switch for the device binding feature. If you use the Living Link console, you must turn on this switch to allow the Cloud Intelligence app to control devices.

  • FEATURE_ALCS_CLIENT_ENABLED: the switch for specific client features that are used in local communication. You must turn on this switch for edge gateways and other devices that manage IoT sub-devices.

  • FEATURE_ALCS_SERVER_ENABLED: the switch for specific server features that are used in local communication. You must turn on this switch for devices that are managed by mobile apps or edge gateways on the local area network (LAN).

  • FEATURE_AWSS_SUPPORT_SMARTCONFIG: the SmartConfig mode (smart-config) for Wi-Fi setup.

  • FEATURE_AWSS_SUPPORT_ZEROCONFIG: the zero configuration mode (zero-config) for Wi-Fi setup.

  • FEATURE_AWSS_SUPPORT_ROUTER: the router configuration mode (router-config) for Wi-Fi setup.

  • FEATURE_AWSS_SUPPORT_PHONEASAP: the phone access point mode (phone-ap-config) for Wi-Fi setup.

• The following option is removed:

  • FEATURE_COAP_DTLS_SUPPORT: the switch that determines whether a connection to IoT Platform over Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) is encrypted by using the Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol. The switch is removed from custom configurations because the encryption is always enabled.

Global interfaces

• The IOT_OpenLog() and IOT_CloseLog() interfaces are removed. You can call the IOT_SetLogLevel() interface to determine whether the SDK prints logs and the logs that you want the SDK to print.

• The IOT_LOG_EMERG log level is replaced by the IOT_LOG_NONE log level. IOT_SetLogLevel(IOT_LOG_NONE) specifies that the logging feature is disabled.

• The IOT_Linkkit_Ioctl() interface is removed. You can call the IOT_Ioctl() interface to implement the features of the IOT_Linkkit_Ioctl() interface. For more information about the options of the IOT_Ioctl() interface, see the enumerated values of the iotx_ioctl_option_t type.

• The IOT_Ioctl() interface is enhanced. The IOTX_IOCTL_SET_MQTT_DOMAIN and IOTX_IOCTL_SET_HTTP_DOMAIN options are added to allow you to pass in custom MQTT or HTTP endpoints to establish connections for new service deployment sites outside China.

MQTT interfaces

• In the following interfaces, you can set the handle parameter to NULL to create a connection by using default parameter values or use the default connection:

  • IOT_MQTT_Construct

  • IOT_MQTT_Destroy

  • IOT_MQTT_Yield

  • IOT_MQTT_LogPost

  • IOT_MQTT_CheckStateNormal

  • IOT_MQTT_Subscribe

  • IOT_MQTT_Unsubscribe

  • IOT_MQTT_Publish

  • IOT_MQTT_Subscribe_Sync

  • IOT_MQTT_Publish_Simple

• The pwrite_buf and pread_buf parameters are removed from the iotx_mqtt_param_t struct.

• The IOT_MQTT_Publish_Simple() interface is added. You can pass in parameters of the string type to specify the topic and payload.

  int IOT_MQTT_Publish_Simple(void *handle, const char *topic_name, int qos, void *data, int len);
                      

• The IOT_MQTT_Subscribe_Sync() interface is added. You can perform the synchronous subscription in a blocking manner, and no data is returned until the subscription is successful.

  int IOT_MQTT_Subscribe_Sync(void *handle,
                              const char *topic_filter,
                              iotx_mqtt_qos_t qos,
                              iotx_mqtt_event_handle_func_fpt topic_handle_func,
                              void *pcontext,
                              int timeout_ms);
                      

• The IOT_MQTT_Subscribe() interface is optimized. Before an MQTT connection is established, you can subscribe to offline messages. The SDK for C sends a subscription packet immediately after the connection is established.

OTA update interface

• If the handle parameter of MQTT interfaces is set to NULL, the third parameter of the IOT_OTA_Init interface can also be set to NULL to use the default connection. IOT_OTA_Init is the basic interface for over-the-air (OTA) updates.

  void *IOT_OTA_Init(const char *product_key, const char *device_name, void *ch_signal);
                      

Removed interface

The linkkit_xxx() and linkkit_gateway_xxx() interfaces in the SDK of the earlier version are optional for compilation. By default, the interfaces are not displayed in the compilation configurations.

Note: 1. You can run the following command in the make.settings file to display the linkkit_xxx() and linkkit_gateway_xxx() interfaces. In this case, new interfaces disappear.

FEATURE_DEPRECATED_LINKKIT=y
            

2. To reduce the memory usage of devices, the SDK no longer checks the validity of data formats when you call API operations of the SDK to submit messages about property changes and events. Therefore, you do not need to export the JSON file of TSL models from IoT Platform, convert the JSON data into strings in C, and add the strings to your code in C.

HAL interfaces

• The HAL_Sys_reboot interface is removed because the corresponding feature is the same as the feature of the HAL_Reboot interface.