January 2023 Summaries

ESP32 and ESP8266 microcontrollers can wirelessly operate robotics, motors, or sensors via web applications, but securely sharing these projects over the Internet can be challenging. Many IoT developers use ngrok tunneling software to simplify this process, allowing their ESP32 projects to be accessible globally by creating and managing tunnels from a local network to the Internet. Setting up requires an ngrok account, downloading the software, and configuring an authentication token. By running specific commands, users can put their ESP32 on the Internet and manage access through features like HTTP Basic Authentication or advanced options using a Pro ngrok account. Additionally, ngrok's architecture supports up to 20 devices per agent, offering scalability for multiple projects. Future developments may allow for direct Internet connections without needing an ngrok agent, enhancing the utility and ease of deployment for ESP32 applications.

We have just purchased a code signing certificate from DigiCert using openssl to generate a CSR, added Windows metadata to our build process using go-winres, and signed our executable using osslsigncode. We recommend automating this process for simplicity and consistency across releases. To make it easier for the next teams, we've documented our steps in detail, covering the basics of purchasing a code signing certificate, generating a CSR, adding metadata to the executable, and signing the executable itself.