IoT & Connectivity Tips

  Part I – Securing connection from remote device to Thingworx platform The goal of this first part is to setup a certificate authority (CA) and sign the certificates to authenticate MQTT clients. At the end of this first part the MQTT broker will only accept clients with a valid certificate. A note on terminology: TLS (Transport Layer Security) is the new name for SSL (Secure Sockets Layer).  Requirements The certificates will be generated with openssl (check if already installed by your distribution). Demonstrations will be done with the open source MQTT broker, mosquitto. To install, use the apt-get command: $ sudo apt-get install mosquitto $ sudo apt-get install mosquitto-clients Procedure NOTE: This procedure assumes all the steps will be performed on the same system. 1. Setup a protected workspace Warning: the keys for the certificates are not protected with a password. Create and use a directory that does not grant access to other users. $ mkdir myCA $ chmod 700 myCA $ cd myCA 2. Setup a CA and generate the server certificates Download and run the generate-CA.sh script to create the certificate authority (CA) files, generate server certificates and use the CA to sign the certificates. NOTE: Open the script to customize it at your convenience. $ wget https://github.com/owntracks/tools/raw/master/TLS/generate-CA.sh . $ bash ./generate-CA.sh The script produces six files: ca.crt, ca.key, ca.srl, myhost.crt,  myhost.csr,  and myhost.key. There are: certificates (.crt), keys (.key), a request (.csr a serial number record file (.slr) used in the signing process. Note that the myhost files will have different names on your system (ubuntu in my case) Three of them get copied to the /etc/mosquitto/ directories: $ sudo cp ca.crt /etc/mosquitto/ca_certificates/ $ sudo cp myhost.crt myhost.key /etc/mosquitto/certs/ They are referenced in the /etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf file like this: After copying the files and modifying the mosquitto.conf file, restart the server: $ sudo service mosquitto restart 3. Checkpoint To validate the setup at this point, use mosquitto_sub client: If not already installed please install it: Change folder to ca_certificates and run the command : The topics are updated every 10 seconds. If debugging is needed you can add the -d flag to mosquitto_sub and/or look at /var/logs/mosquitto/mosquitto.log. 4. Generate client certificates The following openssl commands would create the certificates: $ openssl genrsa -out client.key 2048 $ openssl req -new -out client.csr  -key client.key -subj "/CN=client/O=example.com" $ openssl x509 -req -in client.csr -CA ca.crt  -CAkey ca.key -CAserial ./ca.srl -out client.crt  -days 3650 -addtrust clientAuth The argument -addtrust clientAuth makes the resulting signed certificate suitable for use with a client. 5. Reconfigure Change the mosquitto configuration file To add the require_certificate line to the end of the /etc/mosquitto/mosquitto.conf file so that it looks like this: Restart the server: $ sudo service mosquitto restart 6. Test The mosquitto_sub command we used above now fails: Adding the --cert and --key arguments satisfies the server: $ mosquitto_sub -t \$SYS/broker/bytes/\# -v --cafile ca.crt --cert client.crt --key client.key To be able to obtain the corresponding certificates and key for my server (named ubuntu), use the following syntax: And run the following command: Conclusion This first part permit to establish a secure connection from a remote thing to the MQTT broker. In the next part we will restrict this connection to TLS 1.2 clients only and allow the websocket connection.

To setup the Single-Sign On with Windchill, we can just follow steps in Windchill extension guide. However, there is a huge problem to use "Websocket" for EMS or Edge SDKs from devices since Apache for Windchill blocks to pass "ws" or "wss" protocol. It's like a problem of a proxy server. There might be a couple of ways to avoid this issue, but I suggest to change filter-mappings for the SSO filter. When you look at the Windchill extension guide, it says that users set filters for all incoming URLs of ThingWorx by using "/*" filter mappings. Please use below settings for "web.xml" of ThingWorx server to avoid the problem that I stated above. It looks quite long and complicated, but basically the filter mappings from settings for "AuthenticationFilter" which are already defined by default except "Websocket" related urls. <!-- Windchill Extension SSO Start--> <filter> <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name> <filter-class>com.ptc.connected.plm.thingworx.wc.idp.client.filter.IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-class> <init-param> <param-name>idpLoginUrl</param-name> <param-value>http(s)://<SERVERHOSTURL>/Windchill/wtcore/jsp/genIdKey.jsp</param-value> </init-param> </filter> <filter-mapping>   <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>   <url-pattern>/extensions/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/action-authenticate/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/action-login/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/action-confirm-creds/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/action-change-password/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingworxMain.html</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingworxMain.html/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Server/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ApplicationKeys/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Networks/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Dashboards/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DirectoryServices/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Authenticators/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/PersistenceProviderPackages/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/tunnel/wsadapter.jsp</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/tunnel/adapter.jsp</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Logs/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Resources/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Subsystems/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Users/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Home/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/StateDefinitions/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/StyleDefinitions/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ScriptFunctionLibraries/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/AtomFeedService/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DataShapes/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Importer/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ImageEncoder/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Exporter/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExportDatabase/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExportTheme/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExportDefaultEntities/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ImportDatabase/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DataExporter/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DataImporter/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Widgets/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Groups/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingPackages/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Things/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingTemplates/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingShapes/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DataTags/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ModelTags/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Composer/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Squeal/index.html</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Runtime/index.html</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Mashups/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Menus/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/MediaEntities/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/loaders/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/demos/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExtensionPackageUploader/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExtensionPackages/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/FileRepositoryUploader/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/FileRepositoryDownloader/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/FileRepositories/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/xmpp/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/LocalizationTables/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Organizations/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/RemoteTunnel/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderAuthenticationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/PersistenceProviders/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping> <filter> <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name> <filter-class>com.ptc.connected.plm.thingworx.wc.idp.client.filter.IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-class> <init-param> <param-name>keyValidationUrl</param-name> <param-value>http(s)://<SERVERHOSTURL>/Windchill/login/validateIdKey.jsp</param-value> </init-param> </filter> <filter-mapping>   <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>   <url-pattern>/extensions/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/action-authenticate/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/action-login/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/action-confirm-creds/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/action-change-password/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingworxMain.html</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingworxMain.html/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Server/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ApplicationKeys/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Networks/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Dashboards/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DirectoryServices/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Authenticators/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/PersistenceProviderPackages/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/tunnel/wsadapter.jsp</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/tunnel/adapter.jsp</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Logs/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Resources/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Subsystems/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Users/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Home/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/StateDefinitions/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/StyleDefinitions/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ScriptFunctionLibraries/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/AtomFeedService/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DataShapes/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Importer/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ImageEncoder/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Exporter/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExportDatabase/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExportTheme/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExportDefaultEntities/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ImportDatabase/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DataExporter/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DataImporter/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Widgets/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Groups/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingPackages/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Things/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingTemplates/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ThingShapes/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/DataTags/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ModelTags/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Composer/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Squeal/index.html</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Runtime/index.html</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Mashups/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Menus/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/MediaEntities/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/loaders/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/demos/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExtensionPackageUploader/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/ExtensionPackages/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/FileRepositoryUploader/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/FileRepositoryDownloader/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/FileRepositories/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/xmpp/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/LocalizationTables/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/Organizations/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/RemoteTunnel/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping>   <filter-mapping>     <filter-name>IdentityProviderKeyValidationFilter</filter-name>     <url-pattern>/PersistenceProviders/*</url-pattern>   </filter-mapping> <!-- Windchill Extension SSO End-->

A user can make a direct REST call to Thingworx platform, but when it comes to a website trying to make a REST call. The platform server blocks the request as it is a Cross-Origin request. To enable this feature, the platform server needs to allow Cross-Origin request from all/specific websites. Enabling Cross-Origin request can be done by adding CORS filter to the server. CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) specification enables the cross-origin requests from other websites deployed in a different server. By enabling CORS filter, a 3rd party tool or a website can retrieve the data from Thingworx instance. Follow the below steps inorder to update the CORS filter: Update web.xml file (located in $CATALINA_HOME/conf/web.xml) For Minimal Configurations, add the below code: <filter> <filter-name>CorsFilter</filter-name>   <filter-class>org.apache.catalina.filters.CorsFilter</filter-class> </filter> <filter-mapping>   <filter-name>CorsFilter</filter-name>   <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>         // "*" opens platform to all URL patterns, recommended to use limited patterns. </filter-mapping> NOTE: the url-pattern - /* opens the Thingworx application to every domain. For advanced configuration, follow the below code: <filter> <filter-name>CorsFilter</filter-name> <filter-class>org.apache.catalina.filters.CorsFilter</filter-class> <init-param> <param-name>cors.allowed.origins</param-name> <param-value> http://www.customerwebaddress.com </param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>cors.allowed.methods</param-name> <param-value>GET,POST,HEAD,OPTIONS,PUT</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>cors.allowed.headers</param-name> <param-value>Content-Type,X-Requested-With,accept,Origin,Access-Control-Request-Method,Access-Control-Request-Headers</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>cors.exposed.headers</param-name> <param-value>Access-Control-Allow-Origin,Access-Control-Allow-Credentials</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>cors.support.credentials</param-name> <param-value>true</param-value> </init-param> <init-param> <param-name>cors.preflight.maxage</param-name> <param-value>10</param-value> </init-param> </filter> <filter-mapping> <filter-name>CorsFilter</filter-name> <url-pattern>/* </url-pattern>   // "*" opens platform to all URL patterns, recommended to use limited patterns. </filter-mapping> NOTE: update the cors.allowed.origin parameter with the desired web address Save web.xml file Restart tomcat For additional information, please follow the official tomcat reference document: http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-7.0-doc/config/filter.html#CORS_Filter Tested this using an online Javascript editor (jsfiddle) and executing the below script <script> var data = null; var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhr.open("GET", "http://localhost:8080/Thingworx/Things", true); xhr.withCredentials = true; xhr.send(); </script> The request was successful and list of things are returned.

This project is developed out of curiosity of how ThingWorx communicates with sensors and vice versa. Immediately a Smart Parking system idea struck to our mind and I started working on it. While heading from home to office I always worry about car parking space in office especially in rainy season. This project will help user in getting parking space. This project has 4 sections as follows, 1) Smart Parking system: A system application developed in ThingWorx guides user to find empty car parking space. Sensors placed at each car parking slot senses the presence of car. A program running on Raspberry Pi board collects sensor information and sends that information to the Smart Car Parking System application in ThingWorx. The data received through sensor is displayed on ThingWorx dashboard/mashup. 2) Live Traffic: This inherits a Google Map and shows the traffic around user's current location. 3) Traffic Blog: If user is visiting a place and have questions regarding parking, traffic condition etc., then user can post their questions here and people around that area can answer it. Questions are not restricted for parking related questions but like best places to visit in areas, restaurant, shops etc. 4) Automobile Wiki: This page provides an documented help regarding anything related to automobile e.g. how to change car tyres?, how to change car wipers? etc.

The App URI in the ThingWorx Remote Thing Tunnel configuration specifies the endpoint of the specified tunnel. The default value (/Thingworx/tunnel/vnc.jsp) will point to the built in ThingWorx VNC client that can be downloaded through the Remote Access Widget in a Mashup to provide VNC remote desktop access. Leaving the App URI blank will result in the Tunnel being connected to the listen port on the users machine as specified in the Remote Access Widget​. In this case the user must supply the application client (e.g. an ssh client) in order to connect to the tunnel endpoint.

<p>We live in a connected world where we can (want!) to receive instant updates and notifications. ThingWorx leverages the power of Web 2.0 and its Always-On technology to deliver that, but our friendly SMS providers have also provided an easy and powerful way that can be used to deliver SMS notifications right to your phone. Email to Text!</p><div>Set up a 'notification' Thing using our MailServer Template, set up your outgoing e-mail server and you are now ready to invoke the 'SendMessage' service on a given event. All you need now is the email address of your SMS number, which you can find by following this link: <a href="http://sms411.net/how-to-send-email-to-a-phone/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:8.5pt;line-height:115%;font-family:&quot;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;">List of e-Mail to SMS  addresses</span></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></div><p></p>

Remember that when you are calling an external URL to fetch data via an API call to another system that you must encode special characters specifically. For example the URL that you may type into a browser to test may look like this: https://someserver.somwhere.com:443/apicall?parameter1=test string&parameter2=test^number but when scripting that into a string variable you'll need to replace the space and the carrot with the proper encoded values (%20 and %5E) var params = { username : "me", password : "password", url : "https://someserver.somwhere.com:443/apicall?parameter1=test%20string&parameter2=test%5Enumber", ignoreSSLErrors : false, timeout : 60, headers : headers }; var result = Resources['ContentLoaderFunctions'].LoadXML(params); also note that in this instance we're making a secure connection therefore port 443 (typically the default) was explicitly specified...