The FIDO Alliance’s specification, FIDO Device Onboard (FDO) is an automatic onboarding protocol for edge nodes and IoT devices.
Device onboarding is the process of installing secrets and configuration data into a device so that the device is able to connect and interact securely with cloud and edge management platforms. The platform is used by the device owner to manage the device by: patching security vulnerabilities; installing or updating software; retrieving sensor data; interacting with actuators; etc. FIDO Device Onboard (FDO) is an automatic onboarding mechanism, meaning that it is invoked autonomously and performs only limited, specific, interactions with its environment to complete. FIDO Device Onboard permits late binding of device credentials, so that one manufactured device may onboarded, without modification, to many different cloud and edge management platforms.
The specification is open and available to download on the “Download FDO Specifications” webpage.
The below figure illustrates how FDO works:
