A new version of Windows 10 IoT is available on Windows Dev Center. Version 5.x of SysInfo is now available on GitHub that addresses the OS changes in the web portal. This version has two versions of the commands in the JSON file. One for the new OS and one for the RTM version.
Version 5.0 Adds [Rename Device] and [Set Admin Password]. There are also some coding corrections for the generic [api] command.

The New Release of the OS

Link: http://ms-iot.github.io/content/en-US/Downloads.htm

• The RTM downloads are on the left and the new versions are on the right.
• You download a .iso that you open it and run the .msi.
• You run IoTCoreImageHelper.exe in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft IoT
• The FFU is in a folder below that eg. C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft IoT\FFU\RaspberryPi2

The new version of the OS adds the rename device and reset password commands to the web portal.

Undocumented Web Portal APIs

Last week when I formally announced this app, Microsoft released this new version of the OS. This app was based upon undocumented APIs of the web portal gleaned from some reverse engineering of the web portal plus some “undocumented documentation” on the portal The new version of the OS changes a number the portal URLs, HTTP methods and required parameters. Also there is a “gotcha” with one of the required parameters. Some much for writing software that uses undocumented features … a no-no is Computer Science 101!

Latest version of the app

Version 5.x of the app is now available on GitHub (see link below). Besides the capabilities of the earlier version (getting system information, network config, installed apps, installed devices etc) this version can start and stop installed packages as well as shutdown or reboot the system. The key configuration of the app is contained in a JSON (ie. text) file that lists all commands along with their web portal relative URL. This url can specify whether POST or GET (the default) is used when sending the REST Request to the portal. This means that, except for specific post processing, the app is simple to extend. Under the hood, the code behind has been substantially improved to make it more general. For example the, processing of the REST Response (text) string is quite generic (can handle any JSON string).

Version 5.0 implements the “Rename Device” and “Set Admin Password” commands as available on the new web portal.

MVP Collaboration

This continues the collaboration between two Microsoft Embedded MVPs, myself and Bruce Eitman. Bruce initially blogged about how to use the web portal  to get the MAC address of a device in the Universal Windows code snippet format (for Windows 10). I turned it into a full UW app that exposed a number of other device properties. Bruce has since posted other how-to code snippets in this area (plus another relevant one) on stopping a running package as well as shutting down or rebooting a device which have been incorporated into this app.  Bruce’s code can be directly copied from his blog posts here on Embedded101. His code and my apps will run on a device or remotely, say, on a Windows 10 desktop. Also, it is possible that given that they are Universal Windows code, they will also run on a Windows 10 phone ( there are some screen trigger resizing issues to resolve here though).

What is the purpose of this app?

This app mimics the web portal to a Windows 10 IoT device that facilitates remote management of a device through a web browser. What is the purpose of this app given that it just implements the same functionality as the Windows 10 IoT Web Portal?

• Just because we can.
• The app will run on the device which web portal web page can’t do on the device as it has no Web Browser.
• You can create custom apps to automate management of the device, or a set devices

The latter point means that you could, for example, start and stop apps on a farm of Raspberry PI2 devices as well as rebooting and shutting them down. Also a later version may expose the remote Appx API enabling remote installation and removal of packages completing the requirements for remote management. Cool eh?

The Take Home

This app shows you how you access various system attributes of a Windows 10 IoT device from a Universal Windows App running on the device or on another Windows 10 device (IoT, Phone or Desktop). The source code exemplifies REST calls and recursive JSON parsing in a Universal Windows context.

Links

Project Source

• IoTSysInfo Project Source Code on Github

My Blogs on this topic

• Win 10-IoT: SysInfo: A Windows Universal App to get system info (as per the web portal)
• Win 10-IoT: SysInfo: A Universal Windows App (Part 2): REST & JSON Code
• Win 10-IoT: SysInfo: A Windows Universal App to get system info–Take Two
• (This page) Win 10-IoT: SysInfo: A Windows Universal App to get system info– OS Version 10.0.10531

Bruce Eitman’s Blogs on this topic

• Windows 10 IoT Core: Getting the MAC Address from Raspberry Pi.
• Windows 10 IoT Core: Stop A Running Package
• Windows 10 IoT Core: Shutdown and Reboot the Raspberry Pi
• Windows 10 IoT Core: Why is My App Package Name a GUID?

• The App

Version 5.x of the App (Click-me to expand)

Using the app

For general use refer to my first blog (as above).

For Version 4.x set of commands see the previous blog

The Version 5.x set of commands and parameters is:

• The URLs are appended to http://<device IPAddress or localhost>:8080/  when creating the HTTP Request.
• These commands and their URLs are listed in  the project’s  JSON file: See the JSON file listing here. (Previous version only)  This file is deployed with the app and so can be modified in-situ and so the app can be extended without modifying its source code.
• The URLs in blue have been modified.
• The two in purple are new commands
  Note that the last 6 commands, the * indicates to use POST or DELETE  rather than GET ,which is used for all other requests. (the asterix is removed of course).
• Note that two of the commands now use the DELETE method.
• Two of the commands require two parameters. For each the URL is in two parts with the first parameter placed between them and the second is placed on the end. The extra part to these URLs is in cmd.id
• Unlike the previous version of the web portal, ALL parameters are encoded. There is also some escaping of certain characters that have specific uses in HTML/REST.

        private static string Encode (string strn)
        {
            byte toEncodeAsBytes = System.Text.ASCIIEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(strn);
            string appName64 = System.Convert.ToBase64String(toEncodeAsBytes);
            appName64 = appName64.Replace(" ", "20%");
            return appName64;
        }

There is actually a full set of escape codes in that function in the file sysinfo,cs

Gotcha

• Startapp for some unknown reason requires a second parameter PackageID. This isn’t the RelativeID. The Web Portal passes this as "dW5kZWZpbmVk" which has been encoded as above. When I decoded it I found it to be “undefined”  ! So there is an additional textbox on the Settings pane with this string which is encoded and used as the second parameter for Startapp. If some other value is required then it can be entered here. MS: Can we get clarification of this??

Popups

A number of the commands on the list above have a confirmation pop-up dialog.  These run in a Try-Catch because the pop-ups don’t work on Win 10 IoT. At Universal APIs not functional in Windows 10 IoT Core at this time the API Windows.UI.Popups.MessageDialog is listed as not supported on IoT. I found that you can instantiate the class but it does not function. Certain references with it generate an error, hence the Try-Catch. This means that if you run the Universal Windows app on the desktop you get a confirmation but on the RPI2 it is effectively bypassed. The stopapp no longer has an option to “ForceStop”.

Where did these URL strings come from?

These URL strings are gleaned from examining the JavaScript files that are referenced on the Web Portal pages. One script, WebRest.js is listed in full here:

http://embedded101.com/Blogs/David-Jones/entryid/683/Win-10-IoT-SysInfo-A-Windows-Universal-App-WebRest-js-

You can also examine what is posted by the Web Portal web page by some network sniffing when a request is made. A simpler way is to enable Developer tools in Internet Explorer (Note that the Edge Web Browser can’t display the Portal ??) . Once you have opened the portal in IE press F12 or get to it from IE settings menu. Here you can examine JavaScripts or capture HTTP Web Requests.

If you select the Debugger tab you can right-click on a JavaScript file and select to show it for examination:

You can examine the HTTP communications via the network tab:

*Task manager

/api/taskmanager/start


Starts a modern app

HTTP verb: POST

Parameters


appid : PRAID of app to start, hex64 encoded

Return codes


Success : 200 OK

Error : 500 Internal server error

Error : 400 Bad request

Some experimentation:

If you wish to experiment with these API paths, note that these paths are copied into the box just to the right of the API textbox.
When the [API] button is pressed, whatever path is in that box is used and so you can test any API path you wish. Note also that below the [API] button is another textbox. (Remember to append an asterix to the URL if POST is to be used.) This can be used to add any REST parameters.