Mainflux.mainflux/docs/opcua.md

Bridging with an OPC-UA Server can be done over the opcua-adapter. This service sits between Mainflux and an OPC-UA Server and just forwards the messages from one system to another.

Run OPC-UA Server

The OPC-UA Server is used for connectivity layer. It allows various methods to read informations from the OPC-UA server and its nodes. The current version of the opcua-adapter still experimental and only Read and Subscribe methods are implemented. Public OPC-UA test servers are available for testing of OPC-UA clients and can be used for development and test purposes.

Mainflux and OPC-UA Server

Once the OPC-UA Server you want to connect is running, execute the following command from Mainflux project root to run the opcua-adapter:

docker-compose -f docker/addons/opcua-adapter/docker-compose.yml up -d

Remark: By defaut, MF_OPCUA_ADAPTER_SERVER_URI is set as opc.tcp://opcua.rocks:4840 in the docker-compose.yml file of the adapter. If you run the composition without configure this variable you will start to receive messages from the public test server OPC UA rocks.

Route Map

The opcua-adapter use Redis database to create a route-map between Mainflux and an OPC-UA Server. As Mainflux use Things and Channels IDs to sign messages, OPC-UA servers use Node Namespaces and Node Identifiers (the combination is called NodeID). The adapter route-mmap associate a ThingID with a Node Identifier and a ChannelID with a Node Namespace

The opcua-adapter uses the matadata of provision events emitted by Mainflux system to update its route map. For that, you must provision Mainflux Channels and Things with an extra metadata key in the JSON Body of the HTTP request. It must be a JSON object with key opcua which value is another JSON object. This nested JSON object should contain namespace or id field. In this case namespace or id must be an existent OPC-UA Node Namespace or Node Identifier:

Channel structure:

{
  "name": "<channel name>",
  "metadata:": {
    "opcua": {
      "namespace": "<Node Namespace>"
    }
  }
}

Thing structure:

{
  "type": "device",
  "name": "<thing name>",
  "metadata:": {
    "opcua": {
      "id": "<Node Identifier>"
    }
  }
}

Messaging

To forward OPC-UA messages the opcua-adapter subscribes to the NodeID ns=<namespace>;i=<identifier> of the OPC-UA Server. It verifies namespace and id of published messages. If the mapping exists it uses corresponding ChannelID and ThingID to sign and forwards the content of the OPC-UA message to the Mainflux message broker.