Installing TheThingSystem on Ubuntu 12.04

This is a guide to set up TheThingSystem and the steward on Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS Desktop 64-bit.

More information about the TheThingSystem is available here and on GitHub.

This guide is based on the Bootstrapping guide on TheThingSystem's website, available here.

A very big thanks to TheThingSystem team for the time they’ve put into this project.

I started with a fresh install of Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS Desktop 64-bit using “ubuntu-12.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso” available here.

Once booted into the desktop, open up Terminal:

1. Update the current packages and install basic tools (I also installed vim as my editor of choice)

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install git-core build-essential curl vim

2. Configure git and install node

git config --global user.name "Kyle Schien"

git config --global user.email kyleps@gmail.com

git clone https://github.com/joyent/node.git

cd ~/node

git checkout v0.10.22 -b v0.10.22

./configure

make   

sudo make install

3. Once node is installed, install nodewiki, nvm, and set the default node to v0.10.22

sudo npm install -g nodewiki

git clone git://github.com/creationix/nvm.git ~/.nvm

echo ". ~/.nvm/nvm.sh" >> ~/.bashrc

. ~/.nvm/nvm.sh

nvm alias default v0.10.22

4. Install node-gyp

git clone https://github.com/TooTallNate/node-gyp.git ~/node-gyp

cd ~/node-gyp

sudo npm install -g node-gyp

5. Install required packages for steward

sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev libavahi-client-dev libavahi-core7 libnss-mdns avahi-discover libavahi-compat-libdnssd-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libusb-dev libglib2.0-dev automake libudev-dev libical-dev libreadline-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libexpat1-dev g++ libssl-dev libbluetooth-dev

6. Download and install bluez bluetooth packages

cd ~

wget https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/bluetooth/bluez-4.101.tar.gz

tar -xvf bluez-4.101.tar.xz

cd ~/bluez-4.101

./configure

make

sudo make install

7. Download steward files from git and install node packages

git clone https://github.com/TheThingSystem/steward.git ~/steward

cd ~/steward/steward

rm -rf ~/steward/steward/node_modules

sudo npm install -l

• If you don't have a Bluetooth LE adapter, edit discovery/discovery-ble.js and comment out “noble = require('noble');”

vim ~/steward/steward/discovery/discovery-ble.js

Comment out line 31 to read

//noble = require('noble');

8. Start steward and navigate to the steward interface to set up location and check out detected devices

cd ~/steward/steward

sudo ./run.sh

• The interface is accessible via web browser at

https://127.0.0.1:8888 or

http://127.0.0.1:8887

References and useful links

TheThingSystem homepage

TheThingSystem on GitHub

TheThingSystem Bootstrapping Guide

TheThingSystem on Google+

If you find this guide useful and want to donate, feel free to send me some cryptocurrency =)

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