Firebase Remote Configuration

Firebase can be used to remotely configure some device and system parameters, e.g. the E4 API key, kafka server address and upload rate. The default parameters are also stored locally in app/src/main/res/xml/remote_config_defaults.xml, which will be used if the remote parameters cannot be accessed.

Setup

Install the Firebase SDK in Android Studio.
Login to a Google account.
In the Firebase console, add the app (org.radarcns.android) to a new Firebase project.
Download the google-services.json from the Firebase console (under Project Settings) and move the file to the common-android/ folder.
[Optional] Set the parameter values on the server. The avaiable parameters can be found in app/src/main/res/xml/remote_config_defaults.xml. Note - Set the unsafe_kafka_connectionparameter to true if the server with kafka and schema-registry is using a self-signed certificate over SSL. If the certificate is issued by a valid CA then leave it to false. In production, do NOT set this value to true.

Full Firebase guide

Global app parameters

The configurable parameters can be found in remote_config_defaults.xml and are:

Parameter	Description	Default
`device_services_to_connect`	Space separated list of ServiceProviders of the plugins to connect	`.phone.PhoneSensorProvider` `.phone.PhoneLocationProvider` `.phone.PhoneLogProvider` .phone.PhoneUsageProvider `.application.ApplicationServiceProvider`
`start_at_boot`	Start the pRMT app when the phone starts?	`true`
`kafka_rest_proxy_url`	URL where your instance of Kafka is running
`schema_registry_url`	URL where your schema registry is running
`ui_refresh_rate_millis`	Number of seconds between User Interface updates	250 milliseconds (4Hz)
`kafka_records_send_limit`	Number of records to send per batch	1000 records
`kafka_upload_rate`	Number of seconds between successive uploads to Kafka	60 seconds
`kafka_clean_rate`	Period for cleaning the cache	1 hour
`sender_connection_timeout`	Number of seconds after which the send request times out	20 seconds
`management_portal_url`	URL where your instance of the Management Portal is running

Plugin parameters

Each plugin also has a separate set of parameters. For an overview of these parameters, please check the Readme of the plugin repository.