This XEP specifies an simple and easy to implement XMPP extension protocol for the Internet of Things. At is core, the IoT protocol defined herein defines, amoungst others, the terms Thing, Owner, Requestor and Provisioning Service and the interaction between those. A fundamental permission concept is Friendship, which is based on XMPP presence subscriptions state. Since a thing can't decide on it's own if another entity should be a friend or not, a proxy mechanism for XMPP subscription states is also specified.
A thing is a physical or virtual entity which provides data and/or can be controlled in some way. Typical examples include a temperature sensor, a light bulb or a door lock. A thing is mapped into XMPP to a bare JID. No bare JID shall represent more than one thing.
A requestor is an XMPP entity which makes a request to a thing. Typical examples for requests include reading out the current temperature, turning the light bulb on, or opening the door lock. A requestor also be a thing, but this is not necessary.
Friendship is the basic mechanism upon which things decide if another XMPP entity is allowed to interact with them. If the requestor is a friend of the thing, then the thing must try to fullfil the request (if no other limitations are in effect).
Friendship is defined on XMPP level as follows: A requestor R is a friend of thing T, if T's roster has an item for R's bare JID with a subscription state of either 'From' or 'Both'.
The provisioning service acts as link between a thing and its owner. It acts as manager between those two types: Things ask the provisioning service if it should accept a friendship request. Owners inform the provisioning service if an XMPP entity is a friend of a thing or not.
Provisioning services may act as as registry for things. Or they could forward their knowledge about existing things and owners to such registries. IoT registry services are not within the scope of this XEP (but may be specified by another XEP).
A owner is an XMPP entity. represented as bare JID, owning a thing. The ownership of a thing is noted in the provisioning service used by the thing. Ownership gives full control over thing and allows to decide about the thing's friends. The owner of thing is always also a friend of the thing.
This section explains how the story of an IoT product and its customer could look like. Note that the manufacturer needs to decide which parameters are pre-configured for the thing. The recommendation is that a thing only has a valid and unique JID and the corresponding credentials shipped, and is able to to generate and show a key to the user.
During the initial setup of the thing, e.g. after customer has unpacked the thing, the thing creates a new random key, presents the key to the customer, connects to the XMPP network and registers itself with the provisioning service.
Now the customer can claim ownership of the thing, just by using the provisining server, the product name and the key of the thing.
The ting can be at any point reset to factory settings. For example when the customer wants to sell it. Doing so will make the thing forget the generated key, but not its XMPP account credentials, so that a new initial setup can be performed
Derivations from this approach, e.g. using the same key all the time, are possible but come with their own drawbacks (and advantages).
A thing registers with the provisioning service by sending an IQ of type 'set' with the <register/> element qualified by the 'urn:xmpp:siot:1' namespace. The element must have an 'name' attribute with the description of the thing, and a 'key' attribute containing a unique key for the thing.
<iq type='set'
from='thing@example.org/f65dece8'
to='provisioning.example.org'
id='register-1'>
<register xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'
key='TWNK-KD5Y-MT3T-E1GS-DRDB-KVTW'>
<name>Futuretec Light Bulb 10X'</name>
<name xml:lang='de'>Futuretec Glühbirne 10X</name>
</register>
</iq>The value of the key element must be a string consiting of at
least TODO entropy. It is suggested that it consists of 24 upper
case characters from the Latin alphabet and numbers without 'O'
("LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O") and '0' ("DIGIT ZERO") (alphabet:
123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ) grouped into
4-character chunks
If the registration was successful, then the provisioning service replies with a empty result response.
<iq type='result'
from='provisioning.example.org'
to='thing@example.org/f65dece8-4d69-4b71-80ed-da9562882a61'
id='register-1'>
</iq>After the provisioning service has acknowledged the registration, it MUST send send a presence subscription request to thing in order to subscribe to the thing's presence.
<presence from='provisioning.example.org'
to='thing@example.org'
id='subscription-request-1'
type='subscribe'/>A thing MUST approve any presence subscription request from the provisioning service.
<presence from='thing@example.org'
to='provisioning.example.org'
id='subscription-request-1'
type='subscribed'/>A XMPP entity claims a thing by sending an IQ of type 'set' with a <claim/> child element qualified by the 'urn:xmpp:siot:1' namespace to a provisioning service.
<iq type='set'
from='owner@example.com/76a60ed0'
to='provisioning.example.org'
id='claim-1'>
<claim xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'
name='Futuretec Light Bulb 10X'
key='TWNK-KD5Y-MT3T-E1GS-DRDB-KVTW'/>
</iq>
<iq type='result'
from='provisioning.example.org'
to='owner@example.com/76a60ed0-4f54-4ef7-9589-642ea25d354b'
id='claim-1'>
<claimed xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'
jid='thing@exampe.org'/>
</iq>The provisioning service may now also send a owner update message to the thing, informing the thing about the changed ownership state. The 'jid' attribute must contain the owners bare JID.
<message from='provisioning.example.org'
to='thing@example.org/f65dece8'
id='owner-update-1'>
<owner xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'
jid='owner@example.com'/>
</messaage>A requestor first sends a presence subscription request to the thing in order to establish friendship (see RFC 6121 § 3.1.1).
<presence from='requestor@example.net/10b798d6'
to='thing@example.org'
type='subscribe'
id='subscribe-1'>
</presence>If the thing is unaware wether the requestor is a friend or not (the usual case), then upon receiving a presence subscription request, it must ask the provisioning service about the friendship status.
<iq from='thing@example.org/f65dece8'
to='provisioning.example.org'
type='get'
id='is-friend-1'>
<is-friend-query jid='requestor@example.net'/>
</iq>
<iq from='provisioning.example.org'
to='thing@example.org/f65dece8'
type='result'
id='is-friend-1'>
<is-friend-result friend='yes'/>
</iq>
<iq from='provisioning.example.org'
to='thing@example.org/f65dece8'
type='result'
id='is-friend-1'>
<is-friend-result friend='no'/>
</iq>
<iq from='provisioning.example.org'
to='thing@example.org/f65dece8'
type='result'
id='is-friend-1'>
<is-friend-result friend='pending'/>
</iq>
<message from='provisioning.example.org'
to='owner@example.net'
id='pending-friend-notification-1'>
<pending-friend-notification xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'/>
</message>
<iq from='owner@example.com/76a60ed0'
to='provisioning.example.org'
type='get'
id='pending-friend-requests-query-1'>
<pending-friend-query xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'/>
</iq>
<iq from='provisioning.example.org'
to='owner@example.com/76a60ed0'
type='result'
id='pending-friend-requests-query-1'>
<pending-friend-requests xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'>
<pending-friend jid='possibleFriend@example.net'/>
<pending-friend jid='anotherPossibleFriend@example.net'/>
</pending-friend-requests>
</iq>To inform the provisioning service about a change in the friendship state, the owner sends a friend state update <iq/>. This is typically done by the owner after he became aware of pending friendship requests, if he wants to remove an existing friend, or if he wants to add a new friend.
<iq from='owner@example.com/76a60ed0'
to='provisioning.example.org'
type='set'
id='friend-state-update-1'>
<friend-state-update xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'>
<non-friend jid='possibleFriend@example.net'/>
<friend jid='anotherPossibleFriend@example.net'/>
</friend-state-update>
</iq>
<iq from='provisioning.example.org'
to='owner@example.com/76a60ed0'
type='set'
id='friend-state-update-1'/>In order to inform a thing about changed friendship state, the provisioning service sends a notification to the thing.
TODO: Make this an IQ? Would require mandating the provisioning service to subscribe to the things presence and that the thing allowing it.
<message from='provisioning.example.org'
to='thing@example.org'
id='friendship-state-changed-1'>
<friendship-states xmlns='urn:xmpp:siot:1'>
<item jid='rommeo@example.com' friend='yes'/>
<item jid='julia@example.com' friend='no'/>
</friendship-states>
</message>Involved entities, in particular but not only things, MUST verify the sender of the received messages: Things MUST verify that stanzas send by provisining services have the correct JID set in the 'from' attribute of the stanza.
REQUIRED.
REQUIRED.
REQUIRED for protocol specifications.
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