AWS IoT Core is AWS' IoT offering. Normally, you would have an AWS SDK on your device, and you would need to generate keys and provision each device before it is ready to be used in AWS IoT Core.

By using a connector, Onomondo takes care of this. The first time your device comes online it is automatically provisioned, and in your AWS IoT Core you will now be able to see the device, and verify that it is online. When the device sends data packets (TCP, UDP, and ICMP), its payload will be sent as events to your AWS IoT Core. All of this is done without having anything installed on your device, and you do not need to generate, or keep any certificates, as Onomondo handles all of this.

It's a way to have your devices be as small as can be, but still use the power of the AWS IoT Core.

In the Onomondo app, create a new connector, select 'AWS IoT Core' as your connector type and then click 'Add Onomondo to your AWS IoT Core'.
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This will open another window that looks like this, where you do not need to change anything. Just check "I acknowledge that AWS CloudFormation might create IAM resources." and click 'Create stack.'
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Now the stack is being created and after a minute or two you should be able to see a 'Role' in the 'Outputs' tab.

You need to copy that value in your connector settings where it says Role (ARN), as well as set the region to where you created the stack, and put that in Region.

There are two topics: Public and Subscribe. You can modify them to fit your current setup. You can even use Basic Ingest to save on cost. Payloads sent by your device will use the Publish topic, and if you need to send payloads back to your device you will use the Subscribe topic.

If you make any mistakes, it's easy to simply delete the setup from AWS and try again. Just go to 'CloudFormation' and remove the 'onomondo' stack.

Find the SIM you want to use for this, and edit it. All you need to do is choose 'my-test-aws-iot-core-connector' in the dropdown.

Now you are ready. Turn on your device.

When Onomondo sees the device come online, it will create certificates for the device and provision it. You will be able to see it under 'Things'. The name is the SIM id that is used in Onomondo.
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If you click on the name and click on 'Device Shadows' you will see that Onomondo has already set some information about the current connection.

To help see data, we advise you to use the 'MQTT test client' that AWS has. You can find it under the 'Thing'.

Onomondo will use the 'Publish' and 'Subscribe' topics you have set. In the following examples we use 'my-company/[SIMid]/outbox and my-company/[SIMid]/inbox'. You can even subscribe to all events by subscribing to 'my-company/#'.

Subscribe to the outbox, like this:

It also advises to keep an eye out on the Onomondo app while you set up a new device. Keep Traffic Monitor open, to see any traffic going in or out of your device.

Any data sent from the device will be sent to your Publish topic. In this example on my-company/[SIMid]/outbox.

To test here we send a UDP packet to 1.2.3.4:4321

In your AWS IoT Core you will be able to see the message.

One thing to notice is the header property. Onomondo will post relevant information about how the payload was sent. Note that the IP address mentioned is a private one and is not accessible on the Internet but is available if you use OpenVPN.

If you look at Traffic Monitor you will be able to see what it looks like from your device's point of view. Notice that it is only one little UDP packet - the device is unaware of AWS IoT Core and can remain as small as possible.

By publishing to your Subscribe topic you are able to send low-level data packets to the device. In this example we use my-company/[SIMid]/inbox.

This sends one single UDP packet to the device, on port 1337 with the payload hello world.

If you open Traffic Monitor you can see it there:

If you need to send binary data, then use data instead of text and base64 encode the data you need to send. It is similar to the Message API we also offer.

When creating a CloudFormation stack ,Onomondo’s service account is given access to all IoT Core publish & subscribe events. While Onomondo does not subscribe to anything other than the Subscribe topic, it can be a good idea to still lock down the access even further. This can be set in the AWS Console by going to IoT Core → Security → Policies and selecting “onomondo-thing-policy”.

Then, select latest version and click 'Edit Version'

Then, using the AWS’s Policy Builder you need to update the last two columns — iot:Publish,iot:Receive and iot:Subscribe.

Here we will let the Onomondo’s service account access only the onomondo/* namespace, but it can include other policy variables, more details can be found here.

Then, check “Set the edited version as the active version for this policy” and click 'Save as new version'.
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We explored how to use a device that doesn’t generate keys, isn’t provisioned, lacks AWS SDKs, and doesn’t understand TLS, yet is still able to communicate with AWS IoT Core through Onomondo's connectors.

We can monitor when a device comes online or goes offline, read packet payloads, and even send data back to the device - all by using AWS IoT Core.

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