Logging and device access

I just installed openhab-cloud, connected via the cloud connector binding, along with the openhab-alexa skill via AWS Lambda and I have everything working, but I can’t seem to remove access to a device and I frankly don’t understand how this access control works in the first place.

Initially I selected only two items in the binding configuration which, after updating each device, did appear under items in openhab-cloud. The Alexa skill did not discover either item. I added a homekit [ “Lighting” ] tag to one of the items and it was discovered immediately and I am able to control it.

After getting this working, I de-selected all items from the binding but was still able to control it via Alexa. I then deleted all items from openhab-cloud but am still able to control these items. Finally, I removed the [ “Lighting” ] tag from the item and restarted everything but still I am able to control the device through Alexa. I also see no logging in the openhab-cloud/logs directory so I am just tailing out NGINX logs to see the rest commands coming in.

I suppose in order the questions I have are:

  • What is the purpose of the binding item configuration and the items in openhab-cloud if the openhab-cloud server will control devices that are not exposed?
  • How do I enable some debug logging to understand what is happening with openhab-cloud (e.g. authentication, access control, etc…)?
  • How do I disable access to a device that was once enabled?

Thank you,

-Ryan

You only need to expose items in the cloud connector civic if you want external services like IFTTT to be able to access the Item.

As described in the docs, Alexa didn’t use this. Instead, you must tag your Items, as you demonstrate above. Tagging and installing the Alexa binding is sufficient to expose the Item so Alexa can control it.

Google Assistant works the same way.

I don’t use Alexa, but in Google Assistant, you must ask Google to “sync devices” in other for it to pick up changes to your tags. I’d surprised if Alexa didn’t require the same.