The 4 Parts of Nabto
The Nabto platform consist of four logical parts:
- Base Station, located "somewhere" on the Internet
- Nabto Plugin, installed in browsers
- uNabto Adapter, located on embedded device
- HTML Device Driver, static content and information on how plugin interacts with device
Nabto Plugin
The plugin will register in the browser to serve “nabto://” requests.
uNabto Adapter
Handles communication between the embedded system and plugin, registers with the basestation.
Base Station
Mediates connections between plugins and devices. The DNS address of the embedded device resolves to the basestation(s), hereby giving the plugin and embedded device an easy method to establish contact to the base station. The base station software can be located on a Linux or Microsoft Windows server, router hardware or in the “cloud”.
HTML Device Driver
The HTML device driver is a .zip file, located on a public web server. The HTML device driver can hence be referenced and downloaded through a simple URL received by the plugin from the base station upon connect request to a specific device. The HTML device driver stores the following information:
- Graphics: GIF, JPG, PNG etc
- Style sheets
- Javascript
- Request Mapping - HTTP request to compact UDP based protocol
- Response Mapping - compact UDP based protocol to template parameters
- Static HTML pages
- HTML templates
The Value
The storage of the device is offloaded, also the CPU of the device does not have to be bothered with rendering of HTML serving graphics, stylesheets and other static utillity content, which normally is a heavy task for industrial designs.
No Internet - No Problem
The system even functions on an autonomous local area network without Internet connection. A good example of such setup consists of a single network cable from a laptop to the device.
In such an environment the plugin on the laptop establishes the connection to the device adapter via a network broadcast. After this discovery sequence is accomplished, the proxy uses the HTML device driver for translating compact binary request and responses from/to the device to an HTML user interface.
More Information
Take a look at the starter kit for more technical information and elaboration on the topics introduced on this page.
Interested?
Please contact our business developers at business@nabto.com to learn more about what Nabto can do for your company.
