Device Controller Extension Development

As explained in the introduction the Device Controller are physical gateway extensions specifically designed to add support for new device protocols.

The following guide will show you how to create a basic device controller extension that you can use as a template to create your own.

Requirements:

JDK1.8+
Maven3+
Installation of the physical and virtual part of the gateway to test your controller, following the user guide

Generate a basic device controller example

Follow these steps in order to create an example device controller extension:

Create a directory with the name of your device controller project.
In a command console, cd to the directory where your project will reside and execute the following command: mvn org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:2.4:generate -DarchetypeCatalog=http://nexus.inter-iot.eu/repository/maven-releases/archetype-catalog.xml*.
Select the desired version of the gateway that you will develop the extension for.
Type in your groupId, artifactId, version and package (optional, defaults to groupId) of your project when the interactive tool asks for them.
The project will be generated in your workspace and you can open it as a maven project with your IDE.

*change maven-releases to maven-snapshots in the url if you want to create a extension project for a snapshot version of the gateway

Structure of the project

The project will have the following structure:

<artifactId>
├── pom.xml
├── .gitignore
└── src/
    ├── deploy/
    │   ├── conf.d/
    │   │   └── 00.<artifactId>.properties
    │   └── device-examples/
    │       └── <artifactId>-device-01.json.example
    └── main/
        └── java/
            └── <package>/
                ├── Activator.java
                └── ExampleDeviceController.java

The pom.xml file is your maven "Project Object Model" containing all the details that maven needs to compile your project. Check in the developer side notes for more details about the interesting parts of this pom.
The src/deploy folder contains files that will be unpacked in the physical gateway once the extension is installed, such as configuration properties and device examples, see this section for further details.
The main/java/<package> folder is where the actual Java code resides, as explained in the extension development common documentation, here is where the Activator and other classes of the extension will reside.

Device Controller Extension Development

Generate a basic device controller example

Structure of the project

Creating your own device controller