Consuming RESTful services

In this example, our sensor will read its configuration from a RESTful server by connecting it as a client and publishing its state on the same server. As a server, we will run a simple Flask application in a virtual Python environment. Let’s prepare the server in steps:

1. Copy the ch6/rest_client_ex/server directory from the GitHub repository and switch to this directory. Install the Python requirements in a virtual environment:

   $ python --version
   Python 3.6.8
   $ pyenv virtualenv 3.6.8 apptest
   $ pyenv local apptest
   (apptest) $ pip install -r requirements.txt
   

2. Set the Flask application:

   (apptest) $ export FLASK_APP=./rest_server.py
   

3. Start the server. The -h 0.0.0.0 option makes Flask serve on all network interfaces of the machine:

   (apptest) $ flask run -h 0.0.0.0
   * Serving Flask app './rest_server.py' (lazy loading)
   <logs removed>
   * Running on http://10.8.0.2:5000/ (Press CTRL...