AWS IoT and BeagleBone Green Wireless

This post demonstrates how to configure a BeagleBone Green Wireless for Amazon Web Services "Internet of Things" using the AWS CLI.

The ingredients:

• AWS Account
• BeagleBone Green Wireless (BBGW)
• Working WiFi
• Flashed w/image bone-debian-8.6-seeed-iot-armhf-2016-11-06-4gb.img
• apt-get update
• apt-get upgrade

Install AWS CLI on BBGW.  Perform the following steps:

• Create a IAM user for the BeagleBone
• download the access key ID/secret access key
• Install AWS CLI
• pip install awscli
• Configure AWS CLI (using the access key ID/secret access key from above)
• aws configure
• Verify AWS CLI installation by performing simple command
• aws s3 ls (s3 directories are returned)

Generate security certificates:

• mkdir aws_certs
• cd aws_certs
• openssl genrsa -out privateKey.pem 2048
• openssl req -new -key privateKey.pem -out cert.csr
• aws iot create-certificate-from-csr --certificate-signing-request file://cert.csr --set-as-active > certOutput.txt
• grep certificateId certOutput.txt
• aws iot describe-certificate --certificate-id <certificateId from last step> --output text --query certificateDescription.certificatePem > cert.pem

Create a policy and attach generated certificate:

• Create policy document (policy.doc)
  {
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
  "Effect": "Allow",
  "Action":["iot:*"],
  "Resource": ["*"]
  }]
  }
• aws iot create-policy --policy-name PubSubToAnyTopic --policy-document file://policy.doc
• grep certificateArn certOutput.txt
• aws iot attach-principal-policy --principal <certifcateArn from last step> --policy-name "PubSubToAnyTopic" 

At this point, you should be able to see the certificates/policy in the AWS console.  From the AWS IoT page, select "certificates" or "policies".

• Certificates
• Policies

Alternatively, ask for certificates using AWS CLI:

• aws iot list-certificates

Register your BeagleBone (thing) and attach to Principal (policy):

• aws iot create-thing --thing-name bbgw
• aws iot attach-thing-principal --thing-name bbgw --principal  <certifcateArn from previous step>

At this point you should be able to see the thing in the AWS console.  From the AWS IoT page, select "Registry/Things"

• Registry/Things

Alternatively, ask for things using AWS CLI:

• aws iot list-things

Update BBGW status:

• aws iot update-thing --thing-name bbgw --attribute-payload attributes={key1=value1}

Verify update:

• aws iot list-things