3 XiFox Setup
XiFox is a Node.js application that can be deployed to any Node server, but the most convenient option is to host it on Heroku by using the provided deployment procedure. For more details, please refer to the README.
Heroku will prompt you for an application name and a target run-time environment (United States or Europe). You also need to define a XiFox username and password. All settings and parameters on this page are for administrative purposes only, and will never be exposed to the end users of your solution.
Click 'Deploy' and wait until the application has been deployed and the database provisioning script has been executed. If you need to change the XiFox credentials at some point, navigate to the app settings and make the necessary changes, without changing the database URL.
Your new XiFox instance is available on myapplicationname.herokuapp.com. Start the configuration by logging in with the username and password you set in the previous step.
The connection to Xively is configured on the 'Configuration' page. You don't need to configure a connection to Sigfox, since XiFox will passively wait for Sigfox POST callbacks. The callback URL and a sample callback body are provided for your reference.
Click the 'New device type' button to create a new device type item which represents a Sigfox device type and Xively device template. You only need to define an arbitrary display name that helps you identify the item, then click 'Save device type'.
Every device type has a Devices and Data section. Each device item in XiFox contains a pair of unique Sigfox and Xively device identifiers (Device IDs). When the Sigfox back-end receives a message from a physical device and forwards the message through the defined callbacks, XiFox will receive the message, look up the devices section for the source device, and process all data mappings of the application to forward data to Xively.
Click 'New device' to create a device item which links a Sigfox device to a Xively device instance.
Click 'New mapping' to create a new data mapping item which defines what elements and values of the message will be forwarded to the specified Xively channel.
Device types, devices, and data mappings can be added on-the-fly. In case the Xively connection settings change, XiFox needs to be restarted so that the MQTT connection to the Xively broker can be re-established. To restart the service, navigate to the 'Dashboard' page and click the 'Restart XiFox' button. If the the application crashes, check the server log, restart the server, and create an issue. Any feedback is very much appreciated!
