ThingWorx eMessage Connector

2.0.0

Axeda-ThingWorx Entity Exporter (ATEE)

1.2.3

ThingWorx Connection Services Extension (CSE)

2.0.0

ThingWorx Axeda Compatibility Extension (ACE)

4.0.1

ThingWorx Migrator for the Axeda Compatibility Extension (ACE)

4.0.1

ThingWorx Remote Access Extension (RAE)

2.0.0

ThingWorx Utilities Core (Thingworx-Utilities-Core-9-0-0.zip)

9.0.0

ThingWorx SCM Extension (ThingWorx-Utilities-Software-Content-Management-9-0-0.zip)

9.0.0

Java Development Kit (JDK)

Java SE Development Kit 8, Update 141 or later, v.1.8.0_u241-bxx (64-bit)

Linux 64-bit operating system

Tested on Linux 64-bit version of Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS

Axeda Platform

v.6.9.0 or later to export users; otherwise, 6.8.0 or later

Axeda Global Access Server

v.6.9.2 or later

ThingWorx Platform

9.0.0-b9554, or later

ThingWorx Remote Access Client (RAC)

2.0.0

Axeda Gateway Agent or Axeda Connector Agent

For security reasons, PTC strongly recommends that these Axeda Agents be at v.6.6.3 or later. In addition, if you require the remote interfaces configuration from Axeda Platform, the Agents must be at version 6.8.2. Refer to the Caution below.

EMX-3398

Support for GAS registration in a ThingWorx High Availability (HA) Cluster. When a GAS registers, the GAS Thing is created in such a way that it will synchronize to all ThingWorx Platform instances in a ThingWorx HA Cluster. A new service, GASRemoteAccessProvider.RegisterGAS(), has been added to ACE 4.0.0 to support this GAS registration workflow. The eMessage Connector v.2.0.0 requires ACE 4.0.0.

In addition, the eMessage Connector GAS registration workflow was updated to call the RegisterGAS() service, and the Retry Service was introduced to retry ThingWorx Platform service calls on failure. This service is used too execute any failing ThingWorx Platform service calls during the GAS registration process. For more information on the retry-service , refer to Retry Service for GAS Registration.

EMX-3401

The smoke test for the eMessage Connector has been updated to run in a ThingWorx High Availability (HA) Cluster.

EMX-3460

Changes have been made to the eMessage Connector to support operation with the Axeda Global Access Server in a ThingWors High Availability (HA) Clustering environment. The following topics in this help center have been updated to explain what is needed to support the Global Access Server (GAS) in a ThingWorx HA cluster:

EMX-3483

Read host-name validation rules from platform TLS settings.

The eMessage Connector smoke test enables/disables host-name validation based on the configuration file of the Connector.

EMX-3504

Update troubleshooting documentation based on testing scenarios in both single server and clustered ThingWorx Platform. Refer to Troubleshooting the eMessage Connector.

EMX-3528

Update the eMessage Connector to support PKCS certificates.

For information on converting your current JKS certificates to PKCS#12 format, refer to Converting JKS Keystores to PKCS Keystores. For information on configuring the Connector to use PKCS#12 certificates, refer to the configuration topic for your ThingWorx Platform environment:

EMX-3391 (15170045)

SCM deployment failed for Axeda Agent Embedded.

This issue is fixed in this release. Note, however, the Axeda Agent Embedded does not support the Execute instruction.

EMX-3397

When an eMessage Connector is shut down in a High Availability (HA) environment, its endpoint is closed, and the ThingWorx Platform does not continue to send egress to the endpoint for the Connector that just shut down.

Note that you must start a safe shutdown of the Connector using SIGTERM signal instead of SIGKILL. To send SIGTERM on Linux:

OR

EMX-3408 (15166839)

The SCM Execute instruction should be synchronous by default.

With this release of the eMessage Connector, the SCM Execute instruction is synchronous by default.

EMX-3451 and UTL-5962

Software fixes for security-related issues.

EMX-3482

The Download Instruction of an SCM package for the ThingWorx Platform differs in behavior from the Download Instruction of an SCM package for the Axeda Platform. On the Axeda Platform, a Download Instruction compresses the file to download by default, unless the user explicitly selects a check box stating not to compress the file before downloading. If you choose not to compress the file, read and write access are provided only to the user context of the user who started the Axeda agent.

On the ThingWorx Platform, there is no option to compress the file before downloading and the file is transferred uncompressed. As a result, when a Download Instruction sent from ThingWorx completes, the file permissions of the file after the download are the same as if you chose not to compress the file on Axeda Platform.

To work around this limitation on ThingWorx, you can manually compress the file before including it in your SCM package and select the Agent should uncompress this file after downloading check box when adding the Download Instruction to your SCM package.

EMX-3550 (15398489)

Updates were made to work around an bug in versions of the Axeda Agent Embedded prior to version 6.9 that caused a crash of Axeda Agent Embedded during file download.

EMX-3383

eMessage Connector 1.2.4 will not start up on Windows machines if the Connector home path is sufficiently long

This issue is for Windows only. To avoid it, install the Connector in a location that results in a short path to the start-up script for the Connector. The documentation has been updated to explain how to avoid it and how to resolve it.

EMX-3505

The targetPath parameter for the FileTransferSubsystem.Copy service to transfer a file from ThingWorx Platform to an Axeda Agent cannot be empty. The error in the description is visible in the eMessage Connector log.

To work around this issue, make sure that the targetPath parameter is not empty by entering a forward slash, /, as the value for the parameter.

PSPT-69989 / ACE-161 (15618880)

Non-administrator users cannot see the Axeda viewer information on the Remote Access Client (RAC) due to a missing permission in a service that grants permissions for Remote Access.

To work around the issue, ThingWorx Administrators must grant both non-administrator users and the System user the Property Read permission to the remoteSessionViewers property of the AxedaRemoteViewerManager Thing. Administrators can use ThingWorx Composer to grant the permission to these users.

UTL-5611

After importing the SCM extension bundle, a warning message about the extension trying to overwrite existing entities may appear. This message is expected and does not cause an issue. You can ignore it. In addition, refer to Importing ThingWorx Utilities Core and the SCM Extension.

UTL-5462

Delivery target times out of the Instructions Received state when its installation date is set too far in the future. Currently, the Instructions Received timeout does not take the installation date into account. For now, be sure that installation dates and the Instructions Received timeout are configured in such a way that package installation will being on the targeted devices before the Instructions Received timeout is exceeded.

EDGA-1853

The Axeda Connector Agent ignores the deviceRelativePath setting for SCM deployments. The deployment of a package with the following Download instruction succeeds when it should fail::

This same deployment to an Axeda Gateway device or a device managed by an Axeda Gateway Agent fails as expected.

CORE-4376

113580

Gateway Asset Link is missing

This issue affects Axeda Platform, versions 6.8.0, 6.8.1, and 6.8.2, and impacts the Axeda-ThingWorx Entity Exporter (ATEE) as follows:

EMX-607

In the unlikely event of a setDataItem service call failing, the ThingWorx Platform does not receive a notification event. It would be better if the eMessage Connector could notify ThingWorx Platform of this event.

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-1749

File transfers to the ThingWorx Platform instances that are running on the Windows OS are subject to the file naming restrictions of Windows, including the use of special characters such as question mark, colon, and so on. Refer to https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa365247(v=vs.85).aspx

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-1892

eMessage XML is incomplete and does not send specific information back to the agent in the status message. This did not appear to cause issues with the Axeda agents that were tested; it is just a difference between the Axeda Platform and the eMessage Connector.

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-1893

Invalid Axeda alarms result in a blank value being written to the alarm field. Axeda Platform would reject these bad values. This is a difference between Axeda and the eMessage Connector.

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-2178

In eMessage Connector, if a configuration value is not provided, the helper method that is used to obtain it (except getIntegerValue() and getLongValue()) throws a ConfigException

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-2193

Axeda Gateway agents receive too much xml when registering. Currently, a redundant SetPingServlet is returned to Gateway agents. This has no known effects on the agents.

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-2198

Currently, selecting the time zone, Asia/Riyadh87, causes an error in the eMessage Connector, saying that the time zone was not valid, even though it is one of the time zones in the TimezoneMapper class.

Asia/Riyadh87 is no longer a valid time zone. There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-2232

When a download request is issued from the ThingWorx Platform with targetPath:<empty>, the job eventually transitions to a state of CANCELLED, and a null pointer exception is observed in the Connector log.

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-2319

After starting the eMessage Connector, the logs directory is in a subdirectory from the current working directory and not where one would expect, at $EMESSAGE_CONNECTOR_HOME/logs.

The creation of a logs subdirectory from the current working directory is how the default logback works. It is expected that customers will create their own logback file when they deploy to place the logs in their desired location.

EMX-2412

NotifyPropertyUpdates invocations to the eMessage Connector are not handled, resulting in a WARN message being logged. The operation of the Connector is not affected.

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-2482

When performing a download that is relative to the agent's home directory, use only the forward slash ("/") to specify the root directory and not "./". Using "./" results in the ThingWorx Platform sending an empty value to the Connector, which triggers an error being logged in the eMessage Connector. In addition, the file transfer will not complete successfully.

There are no plans to implement a change for this issue.

EMX-2486

Certain scenarios can create a flood of Thing look-ups to the ThingWorx Platform. The most likely cause for this situation is if an eMessage Connector fails unexpectedly and is restored while experiencing many requests per second for different agents (~10+ new agent communications per second). During this scenario the eMessage Connector can cause strain on ThingWorx Platform.