Manufacturing
Before an IoT Gateway leaves the production line, it must be prepared with the bootstrap credentials and registry record required to authenticate with Bifrost on its first boot.
Because hardware preparation is separate from final business unit ownership, devices can be produced generically on the line and claimed later when they are deployed, while ensuring that only registered, verified hardware can connect during Commissioning.
During manufacturing, the production line prepares the hardware and registers it in Bifrost:
Loading the claim certificate
On the manufacturing line, each device is flashed with a shared claim certificate.
The claim certificate is strictly a bootstrap credential: its only permission is to request provisioning when the device boots for the first time. A device authenticating with a claim certificate cannot publish telemetry, subscribe to operational topics, or establish normal communication with Bifrost.
Registering the IMEI
Alongside loading the claim certificate, the manufacturing line registers the device's 15-digit IMEI in Bifrost by calling POST /v1/devices on the Device API (see the Operations matrix).
Registering the IMEI creates the device record in a pending provisioning state so Bifrost recognizes the hardware as legitimate when it later connects in the field. If no business unit or environment is specified at registration, the record defaults to addv (the manufacturing unit) and prod until it is reassigned during commissioning.
The IMEI must be registered in Bifrost before the device is powered on for the first time. Even if a device has a valid claim certificate, Bifrost's pre-provisioning check will reject the provisioning request if the IMEI does not exist in the registry in pending status.