ZDS: Connecting Zephyr Logging to the Cloud Over Constrained Channels

Marcin Niestrój helped to implement a solution to IoT logging in Zephyr, and that work is the subject of his Connecting Zephyr Logging to the Cloud Over Constrained Channels talk, presented during the 2022 Zephyr Developer’s Summit.

Marcin has been working as an embedded engineer for over 10 years, with the last four of them in Zephyr. He is an active contributor to the Zephyr networking stack, and works on the Zephyr SDK at Golioth, a device management cloud company.

Long-distance logging

Logging is the first line of defense in figuring out what an embedded system is doing. Whether you want to monitor that all is well, get some quick feedback on sensor data, or jump into troubleshooting when something isn’t working, logs are a developer’s best friend. But what about those times when you can’t just plug a programmer or a USB cable into the device sitting on the desk in front of you?

The Internet of Things presents a challenge with device logging as you need to find a way to access logs when you don’t have physical access to the device. The answer, of course, is logging IoT data to the cloud. Marcin guides us through the layers of the existing Zephyr logging system, then shows how Golioth built a backend that allows Zephyr to move messages from the logging core to a remote server.

The Basics of Zephyr Logging

Logs are like fancy printf() statements. They have a subsystem behind them to keep the logs out of the way of more time-sensitive operations. The string messages you would expect to find in each log are joined by some metadata. This includes a timestamp that records the exact timing of the logged event, a log level (Error, Warning, Info, or Debug), and the module/component name where the log originated.

Hundreds of Zephyr logging modules can send messages to the logging core, which then routes those to whichever backend is configured. You’ve probably used the UART, the Shell, and the RTT backends of Zephyr to route your logs to the most convenient place for your development.

To solve the cloud-logging challenge, Golioth implemented a backend that packages each log message and its metadata for transport. Messages are stored, and may be accessed via a web interface or command line tool. This makes those messages persistent for future debugging, and easily filterable/searchable.

Sending messages with constrained devices in mind

When connected over USB, the more data the better! But when you start to think about devices operating from a small battery source, or chirping data over cellular or a thread network, you need your messaging to be as lean and quick as possible.

One simple way to do this is by making sure that the device only sends messages that are needed, based on the logging level. The device monitors a LightDB endpoint on the server, and will only transmit messages within that log level range. This effectively becomes “on-demand logging”. You can leave it off by default, but you always have the option to turn it on remotely to monitor devices in production without breaking the bank on bandwidth charges.

But of course, the way each message is sent also matters greatly. Log messages are transmitted as a UDP datagram, using CBOR for serialization and CoAP as the protocol layer. This has numerous bandwidth-saving benefits (and therefore radio-on time battery benefits) over other options like sending JSON over HTTP. This approach has also shown to be more efficient than the MQTT protocol which itself targets constrained devices.

This is just the preamble

What you’ve read so far is all just set up for the technical dive that Marcin treats us to. Scroll back up and watch his talk which shares the reasoning behind each decision that has been made. He also delves into some areas for future work: advanced message queuing, resend logic, packing multiple messages into each datagram for bandwidth saings, and using a dictionary for module names instead of sending them as text in every message.

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How to add custom shell commands in Zephyr

The Zephyr shell is a powerful tool that we use all the time here at Golioth for prototyping and troubleshooting. But it’s also a fantastic way to provide user control of your devices. It’s actually quite easy to add your own commands, and that’s what I’m writing about today!

Back in May we showed how to provision devices by adding Golioth encryption keys using the Zephyr shell. One use case is sending unprovisioned devices to customers, enabling them to connect via USB to add their encryption keys when they first receive the hardware. That system used a custom shell command build into the Golioth SDK as the interface. The same technique can be used to provide run-time interactivity. I recently implemented a serial command interface that let me send commands from Node-RED to a Zephyr device for automated control.

The good news is that all you have to do is turn on the shell (if it’s not already enabled), register your commands with Zephyr, and provide a callback function to react to the user input.

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Starting a basic project and turning on the Zephyr shell

The first step is to enable the Zephyr shell using KConfig, and include a header file in your main.c. I’m using a virtual device based on QEMU for today’s example (but this will work with any Zephyr-compatible device that has a serial connection). Golioth has a quickstart guide for using QEMU to simulate devices, which is really handy for testing out new development in isolation from existing projects.

To begin this demo I copied the basic/minimal sample from the Zephyr tree. From there I added a prj.conf file with just one KConfig symbol in it to turn on the shell:

CONFIG_SHELL=y

I also included shell.h in the main.c file:

#include <shell/shell.h>

Creating the custom shell command

I will walk through a very basic custom shell command. The topic goes much deeper and it’s worth reading through the official Zephyr documentation on shell commands.

Inside of main we want to set up the command structure, then register the command. Our demo will set a numeric value for how awesome Golioth is. We also want to be able to read back that value. So I’ll set up two different commands, one that takes a value as an argument.

SHELL_STATIC_SUBCMD_SET_CREATE(
    g_awesome_cmds,
    SHELL_CMD_ARG(set, NULL,
        "set the Golioth awesome level\n"
        "usage:\n"
        "$ golioth_awesome set <awesome_value>\n"
        "example:\n"
        "$ golioth_awesome set 1337\n",
        cmd_g_awesome_set, 2, 0),
    SHELL_CMD_ARG(get, NULL,
        "get the Golioth awesome level\n"
        "usage:\n"
        "$ golioth_awesome get",
        cmd_g_awesome_get, 1, 0),
    SHELL_SUBCMD_SET_END
    );
 
SHELL_CMD_REGISTER(golioth_awesome, &g_awesome_cmds, "Set Golioth Awesomeness", NULL);

The SHELL_STATIC_SUBCMD_SET_CREATEdefines our command structure and I’ve given it an arbitrary symbol name (g_awesome_cmds)as an identifier.

The next two commands are established using the SHELL_CMD_ARG. Let’s walk through the arguments for that macro:

  • The first argument is the subcommand set orget (note these are not strings)
  • The second argument is for subcommands of these subcommands, which are needed for this example
  • The third argument is the help string to show in the shell
  • The fourth argument is the callback function the shell will execute
  • The fifth and six arguments are the number of required and optional arguments. Note that we need 2 required arguments for set in order to capture the submitted value, but only one for get (the subcommand itself).

Finally, I need to register the shell command. The SHELL_CMD_REGISTERtakes a series of arguments. First is the command itself (note that this is not a string), the address of the subcommand structure, the help text for this command, and a function handler which we don’t need since we’re using callback functions defined in the subcommand macro.

A custom shell command in action

We’re not quite done coding yet as we need to make the callback functions. See the bottom of this post for the complete code. But let’s skip right to the demo since the meat of the work has already been done.

uart:~$ help
Please press the <Tab> button to see all available commands.
You can also use the <Tab> button to prompt or auto-complete all commands or its subcommands.
You can try to call commands with <-h> or <--help> parameter for more information.
 
Shell supports following meta-keys:
  Ctrl + (a key from: abcdefklnpuw)
  Alt  + (a key from: bf)
Please refer to shell documentation for more details.
 
Available commands:
  clear            :Clear screen.
  device           :Device commands
  devmem           :Read/write physical memory"devmem address [width [value]]
  golioth_awesome  :Set Golioth Awesomeness
  help             :Prints the help message.
  history          :Command history.
  kernel           :Kernel commands
  resize           :Console gets terminal screen size or assumes default in case
                    the readout fails. It must be executed after each terminal
                    width change to ensure correct text display.
  shell            :Useful, not Unix-like shell commands.
uart:~$

The readout above shows that typing help lists our new command in the menu.

uart:~$ golioth_awesome --help
golioth_awesome - Set Golioth Awesomeness
Subcommands:
  set  :set the Golioth awesome level
        usage:
        $ golioth_awesome set <awesome_value>
        example:
        $ golioth_awesome set 1337
 
  get  :get the Golioth awesome level
        usage:
$ golioth_awesome get
uart:~$

If we call our custom golioth_awesome --help command, the help strings we specified are displayed.

Golioth custom shell command in Zephyr

And finally, using the commands shows the expected output. I’ve embedded an image of my terminal so that you can see the different styles of output. This printout is the result of calling `shell_fprintf()` in my callback functions. We haven’t covered that yet, so let’s look at the whole main.c file next.

Putting it all together

The final piece of the puzzle is to define the callback functions for custom shell commands. These functions interact with the Zephyr app on your device, and are responsible for printing messages in the Zephyr shell as feedback for the user.

#include <zephyr/zephyr.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
 
#include <shell/shell.h>
 
uint16_t golioth_awesome = 10000;
 
static int cmd_g_awesome_set(const struct shell *shell, size_t argc,
                char *argv[])
{
    /* Received value is a string so do some test to convert and validate it */
    int32_t desired_awesomeness = -1;
    if ((strlen(argv[1]) == 1) && (argv[1][0] == '0')) {
        desired_awesomeness = 0;
    }
    else {
        desired_awesomeness = strtol(argv[1], NULL, 10);
        if (desired_awesomeness == 0) {
            //There was no number at the beginning of the string
            desired_awesomeness = -1;
        }
    }
 
    /* Reject invalid values */
    if ((desired_awesomeness < 0) || (desired_awesomeness > 65535)) {
        shell_fprintf(shell, SHELL_ERROR, "Invalid value: %s; expected [0..65535]\n", argv[1]);
        return -1;
    }
    /* Otherwise set and report to the user with a shell message */
    else {
        golioth_awesome = (uint16_t)desired_awesomeness;
        shell_fprintf(shell, SHELL_NORMAL, "Golioth awesomeness set to: %d\n", desired_awesomeness);
    }
 
    return 0;
}
 
static int cmd_g_awesome_get(const struct shell *shell, size_t argc,
                char *argv[])
{
    shell_fprintf(shell, SHELL_NORMAL, "Current Golioth awesomeness level: %d\n", golioth_awesome);
    return 0;
}
 
void main(void)
{
    SHELL_STATIC_SUBCMD_SET_CREATE(
        g_awesome_cmds,
        SHELL_CMD_ARG(set, NULL,
            "set the Golioth awesome level\n"
            "usage:\n"
            "$ golioth_awesome set <awesome_value>\n"
            "example:\n"
            "$ golioth_awesome set 1337\n",
            cmd_g_awesome_set, 2, 0),
        SHELL_CMD_ARG(get, NULL,
            "get the Golioth awesome level\n"
            "usage:\n"
            "$ golioth_awesome get",
            cmd_g_awesome_get, 1, 0),
        SHELL_SUBCMD_SET_END
        );
 
    SHELL_CMD_REGISTER(golioth_awesome, &g_awesome_cmds, "Set Golioth Awesomeness", NULL);
}

The callback functions begin on line 8 and 38 of the example above. The cmd_g_awesome_set function looks more complicated than it is. That’s because the value we receive from the shell is a string and needs to be converted to an integer and then validated (confirm it is actually a number, and inside the acceptable bounds).

The thing to focus on are the shell_fprintf() functions which use some constants to select the text decoration. SHELL_NORMAL is used when everything is working correctly, and SHELL_ERROR for out-of-bounds settings. You can see all constants that work for this, as well as the shorthand functions for them, in the official docs.

The utility of custom shell commands

So fare I’ve focused on shell interaction with a human user. But once this is in place, you can leverage it programmatically as well. In Linux, I can set our Golioth value from the command line: echo "golioth_awesome set 10000" > /dev/ttyUSB0.

You can also extrapolate this feature from set/get to a much more robust tool. For instance, I covered the built-in Zephyr i2c and sensor shells in a previous post. These facilitate runtime changes to the menu (what sensors and devices are available changes without needing to compile for that information). This should get your mind running on how deep you can go with a custom shell tool to fit your needs. But that’s a topic for next time!

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Golioth Showcase at ZDS

Hello from ZDS!

This week the Golioth team is at Zephyr Developer Summit. Previously we announced that we’ll be there and shared the talks we are presenting. We will post those shortly after the conference takes place. In the meantime, let’s recap how we got here in the first place and share a little bit more about what we’re showcasing.

Why Zephyr?

In short, because it helps our users. We are members of the Technical Steering Committee (TSC) and have been almost since the inception of the company. We built our first Device SDK on top of Zephyr because of the broad hardware support and high level integration of Golioth features into the Real Time Operating System (RTOS).

The assertion that “Zephyr helps our users” might be extra frustrating to beginners: Zephyr—and RTOSes more broadly—represents a tricky new set of skills that might be foreign to firmware or hardware engineers. For beginners coming from the hobby space, it can be an extra rude introduction into the world of command line compilation and large ecosystem. However, connecting to the internet is a difficult task, especially for custom hardware: we think that Zephyr represents a great first step towards managing those devices over time. We are committed to pushing for more user-friendly code and methods from the Zephyr foundation, and we will continue to publish best practices on our blog and our YouTube channel to help people get connected.

Showcase

One thing we’re excited about is showcasing how Golioth works to members of the community. We have been developing different “color coded” demos to make them a bit more memorable for folks that stop by our booth. Each of these demos feature a hardware (device) component and a dashboard component, in order to visualize the data that is on the Golioth Cloud.

This is the first time we have showcased the “Aludel”, which is our internal platform for prototyping ideas and switching out different development boards and plug-in sensors. We will post more about this in the future, including our talk on the subject.

Red Demo

The Red Demo is our showcase of devices running OpenThread on Zephyr; this is part of our larger interest in Thread, which we see as a very interesting way to connect a large range of sensors to the internet securely. We have been excited to show how we can use low power devices like the Nordic nRF52840 to communicate directly with the Golioth Cloud.

The devices we are using in this case are off-the-shelf multi-sensor nodes from Laird called the BT510. This hardware has additional sensors on the board which we integrated with LightDB Stream to send time-series data back to Golioth. This was fast work, thanks to Laird’s Zephyr support, it was as simple as calling out the board when we compiled the demo firmware.

We then capture the data from these on the Red Demo Dashboard, showing both historical and live data for the sensors.

 

Green Demo

The Green Demo showcases LightDB State, our real-time database that can be used to control a wide range of devices in a deployment. On the device side, it uses the Aludel platform to measure a light sensor, as would happen in a greenhouse. There is also a secondary Zephyr-based device inside a lamp, representing a grow light that might be inside a grow house. The lamp is set up to “listen” to commands from another node, in this case the Aludel.

LightDB State is used to control elements like “update rate” to control regulate flow of information. It also lets us monitor critical device variables on an ongoing basis and set up logic on the web to take actions as a result. Command and control variables can be set from multiple places, including a custom mobile app, the Golioth Console, a visualization platform, a web page, or (as is the case here) even from another device!

Our Green Demo Dashboard (below) again showcases live and historical information, as well as the current status of the connected lamp.

As an added bonus, we control some of the logic on the back end from a Node-RED instance, including control logic. That takes the light intensity sensor output and calculates how bright the lamp should be. Because this is written in Node-RED, we can include an additional input from a mobile app to control the “target intensity”. In this way, people at the booth can adjust the lamp output if the exhibition space is brighter or darker. Plus…it looks cool!

Blue Demo

The Blue Demo helps to showcase how data migrates into and out of Golioth. Using Output Streams, you can export all cloud events to 3rd party providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud. Buttons on the Blue faceplate switch the output being sent back to the cloud. The sensor readings being exported to all 3 clouds can be turned on or off by changing which variables are exported from the device.

On the device side, we capture a sensor using our Aludel platform. The sensor is a BME280 (in-tree sensor in Zephyr), going through a feather form-factor dev board, talking to the network over a WizNet W5500 Ethernet external chip to the network. The Blue Demo Dashboard showcases the live data, and of course the data is being exported simultaneously to the 3 cloud platforms in real-time.

Orange Demo

Golioth is a “middleware” built on top of Zephyr RTOS, which means you can use it to implement new features on top of already-existing hardware. This demo uses the Nordic Semiconductor Thingy91 with custom firmware to send GPS data back over the cellular network to Golioth using LightDB Stream. This demo also has Golioth Logging and Device Firmware Update, which are easy to add to any project as an additional service for troubleshooting or in-field updates.

On the dashboard side, we wanted different ways to showcase this data, including “latest update”. Having access to the raw data is useful for anyone wanting to try asset tracking applications. We’re excited to be able to showcase this data as it dynamically flows into the Golioth Console and back out to the Grafana dashboard.

Future showcases

We’re excited to be showcasing our demos at the Zephyr Developer Summit, but these are moving targets! We will continue to update and pull in new feature for future events. We will be at Embedded World in two weeks (June 20-24th) and will have many of the same demos there.

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Zephyr quick tip: Show what menuconfig changed and make changes persistent

Making Zephyr menuconfig changes permanenthttps://blog.golioth.network/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/zephyr-menuconfig-changes.png

The Zephyr project uses the KConfig system to select what subsystems and libraries are included in the build of your project. Sometime this is really simple, like adding CONFIG_GPIO=y when you need to use input/output pins. That’s easy enough to add manually. But things get more complex when you don’t know which configuration you need, or you want to fine tune a value like stack size.

In this post, we’re going to look at how to make changes in menuconfig, but also how to check those changes and make them permanent.

Turning on a watchdog timer

If you want to use the watchdog timer subsystem in Zephyr you need to add CONFIG_WATCHDOG=y to your build. That’s not entirely easy to figure out as the Watchdog entry in the Zephyr docs doesn’t mention it. There is some sample code called Task Watchdog and you can see the symbol is enable in the project configuration file, but there are other symbols related to watchdog timers in there as well. Which ones do we need?

I like to use menuconfig to work out these issue. It’s something we’ve talked about a few times before, and Marcin and Chris even filmed walkthrough of menuconfig system. The first step is to build your project before trying to enable the new configuration. This is necessary to generate the initial configuration for the project; if your project has a build error, you can’t load up menuconfig. Here I’m building for an nRF52840 feather board:

west build -b adafruit_feather_nrf52840 my_app_directory -p

Notice I’m using the -p directive for a “pristine” build. This makes sure that anything in the build directory is generated fresh so we are certain that we begin with a clean build.

Next, use west build -t menuconfig to launch the interactive configuration menu:

Zephyr menuconfig

Zephyr menuconfig

My most-used feature is the forward-slash ( / ) which brings up a text search. I searched for “watchdog” and two similar options came up.

I find that the options with helper text (“Watchdog Support” in this example) next to them are the best items to choose. Pressing enter on that entry takes me to the configuration item where I use the space bar to select it, indicated by an asterisk. That’s it, I’m not going any deeper right now. Pressing q brings up the exit menu, don’t forget to save your changes.

Zephyr kind of takes care of the rest, automatically pulling in a bunch of other options based on the top-level option I enabled. But those are actually why I’m writing this article. How can I see what changes other were made by “under the hood” by menuconfig?

Seeing changes made by menuconfig

Running a build command on a Zephyr project pulls in configurations from all over the place (eg: the board’s default configuration from the Zephyr tree, the project’s prj.conf file, and any .conf files in the boards directory). These coalesce into the build/zephyr/.config file, which is what menuconfig loads and saves to. Luckily, before this happens it makes a copy called .config.old which we can compare using the diff command:


(.venv) mike@krusty ~/golioth-compile/AgTech-Soil/fw $ diff build/zephyr/.config.old build/zephyr/.config
30c30
< # CONFIG_WATCHDOG is not set
---
> CONFIG_WATCHDOG=y
179c179,180
< # CONFIG_NRFX_WDT0 is not set
---
> CONFIG_NRFX_WDT=y
> CONFIG_NRFX_WDT0=y
813a815
> CONFIG_HAS_DTS_WDT=y
1046a1049,1057
> # CONFIG_WDT_DISABLE_AT_BOOT is not set
> # CONFIG_WDT_LOG_LEVEL_OFF is not set
> # CONFIG_WDT_LOG_LEVEL_ERR is not set
> # CONFIG_WDT_LOG_LEVEL_WRN is not set
> CONFIG_WDT_LOG_LEVEL_INF=y
> # CONFIG_WDT_LOG_LEVEL_DBG is not set
> CONFIG_WDT_LOG_LEVEL=3
> # CONFIG_WDT_COUNTER is not set
> CONFIG_WDT_NRFX=y

Check that out! Enabling CONFIG_WATCHDOG automatically pulls in the CONFIG_NRFX_WDT because of the chip used in my project. Be we also learn some interesting things here. It looks like some Nordic chips have multiple watchdog timers as CONFIG_NRFX_WDT0 is selected. If we search in menuconfig for that symbol and type ? on the entry we can get more information on what that’s all about:

Nordic watchdog timer instance info

The help screen in menuconfig for CONFIG_NRFX_WDT0

You can see here that this symbol was enabled (y-selecting) by the WDT_NRFX symbol. So if you’re cruising through menuconfig and want to know why something is turned on, this is a handy way to track down those answers. Try bringing up the help screen for the CONFIG_WDT_COUNTER which is shown above but not enabled. I certainly learned something about this chip for doing so!

Making menuconfig changes persistent

Remember way back at the top of the article when I mentioned I was using a “pristine” build with the -p flag? If you do that now, you’ll lose your menuconfig changes. So make sure you do an incremental build (just don’t use the pristine flag) to test those changes out. But eventually you will want to make them persistent.

The solution for that is easy. Use the diff trick I showed above to confirm what symbols were changed by your menuconfig selections, and add those changes to the prj.conf or board-specific .conf files. Once you commit these to your revision control, you’ll be certain to compile in the options you need for future projects.

Stop by our Discord or our Forum for more quick tips about Zephyr and your next IoT project!

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How to use Zephyr shell for interactive prototyping with I2C sensors

Zephyr has a powerful interactive shell that you need to have in your bag of tricks. Two weeks ago I showed how to use the Zephyr shell to set device keys for authenticating with the Golioth platform. Today I’ll dive into using the same interface for live-debugging of i2c sensors and devices.

i2c shell basics

The ability to type out i2c commands, rather than writing/compiling/flashing code to test your changes will speed up the prototyping process with new i2c parts. My favorite feature is the scan command which lets me verify the part is connected correctly and at the address that I expected. Let’s begin by testing that out.

1. Starting from minimal sample

For this demo I’ll be using an ESP32 and the Zephyr basic/minimal sample. As the name suggests, this starts out with almost nothing running. We need to add a KConfig file that enables GPIO, I2C, and the related Zephyr shells:

CONFIG_GPIO=y
CONFIG_I2C=y

CONFIG_SHELL=y
CONFIG_I2C_SHELL=y

I’m using an ESP32 board with the i2c0 pins. I also have a sensor connected which is shown as a node and will be used in the next section of this demo.

&i2c0 {
	status = "okay";

	apds9960@39 {
		compatible = "avago,apds9960";
		reg = <0x39>;
		label = "APDS9960";
		int-gpios = <&gpio0 26 (GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW)>;
	};
};

west build -b esp32 samples/basic/minimal/
west flash

This can be built and flashed as normal:

west build -b esp32 samples/basic/minimal/
west flash

2. Opening a terminal connection

From there I drop into the shell by opening the device with a serial terminal program. I like to use minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0 --color=on. As a side note, I have noticed with the ESP32 I need to turn off hardware flow control or else keystrokes don’t make it to the device.

3. Basic i2c in the shell

Shell commands often include help menus that can be activated by adding -h to your command. I use this to remind me of the syntax for the shell functions I’m using.

uart:~$ i2c -h
i2c - I2C commands
Subcommands:
  scan        :Scan I2C devices
  recover     :Recover I2C bus
  read        :Read bytes from an I2C device
  read_byte   :Read a byte from an I2C device
  write       :Write bytes to an I2C device
  write_byte  :Write a byte to an I2C device
uart:~$ device list
devices:
- clock@5000 (READY)
- gpio@842500 (READY)
- CRYPTOCELL_SW (READY)
- uart@8000 (READY)
- nrf91_socket (READY)
- i2c@9000 (READY)
- flash-controller@39000 (READY)
- bme280@76 (READY)
  requires: i2c@9000
- lis2dh@18 (READY)
  requires: gpio@842500
  requires: i2c@9000
uart:~$

Here you can see that the help menu for the i2c keyword lists the basic syntax. I also called device list which prints out the available devices, including the i2c bus. This means the actual command I want is:

uart:~$ i2c scan i2c@9000
     0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  a  b  c  d  e  f
00:             -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
10: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 18 -- -- -- -- -- -- --
20: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
30: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 39 -- -- -- -- -- --
40: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
50: -- 51 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
60: -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
70: -- -- -- -- -- -- 76 --
4 devices found on i2c@9000

Voila! The grid that prints out shows that I have five devices that responded on the i2c bus. Note that I also get a number of error logs, which is the naturally result of trying to talk to i2c devices that are not present.

4. Direct communication with an i2c device

I know that the device at address 0x58 is an AW9523 port expander. There is no Zephyr driver for this part, so I need to control it with my own code. Before writing the functions in Zephyr, I can try out each command to verify the behavior.

uart:~$ i2c read_byte i2c@9000 0x58 0x12
Output: 0xff
uart:~$ i2c write_byte i2c@9000 0x58 0x12 0x00
uart:~$ i2c read_byte i2c@9000 0x58 0x12
Output: 0x0
uart:~$

Here I’ve read the LED mode switch register on the device, set it to LED mode, and then verified that the new setting was received. The syntax places the device address (0x58) after the read/write command, then the register address (0x12), and for write commands you then add the value you want stored on that register (0x00).

Sensor shell

But wait, what about the i2c sensors with built in Zephyr support? There’s a shell for that too! Using it is an easy way to verify your sensors are working, and to confirm what sensor channels (the uniformed types of data used by the sensor subsystem) are available.

1. Turn on the sensor shell and sensor subsystem

You may remember that I already have an APDS9960 sensor declared as a subnode in my overlay file above. But to use it, we need to configure the sensor subsystem and the sensor shell. Here is my prj.conf file with three new entries:

CONFIG_GPIO=y
CONFIG_I2C=y

CONFIG_SHELL=y
CONFIG_I2C_SHELL=y

CONFIG_SENSOR_SHELL=y
CONFIG_SENSOR=y
CONFIG_APDS9960=y

With those changes in place, just rebuild and flash:

west build -b esp32 samples/basic/minimal/
west flash

2. Open the terminal connection

As above, I’m using minicom -D /dev/ttyUSB0 --color=on to open a serial connection to the Zephyr shell on the device.

3. Read sensor values in the shell

I will again use the built-in help to find the right syntax:

uart:~$ sensor -h
sensor - Sensor commands
Subcommands:
  get  :Get sensor data. Channel names are optional. All channels are read when
        no channels are provided. Syntax:
        <device_name> <channel name 0> .. <channel name N>
uart:~$ sensor get -h
get - Get sensor data. Channel names are optional. All channels are read when no
      channels are provided. Syntax:
      <device_name> <channel name 0> .. <channel name N>
Subcommands:
  RTC     
  GPIO_1  
  GPIO_0  
  UART_0  
  I2C_0   
  APDS9960
uart:~$ sensor get APDS9960
channel idx=15 prox =  16.000000
channel idx=17 light = 143.000000
channel idx=19 red =  77.000000
channel idx=20 green =  56.000000
channel idx=21 blue =  39.000000
uart:~$

Can you hear my evil laugh building to a crescendo?

The help message tells us that get is the only available sensor command, and calling help on that lists our devices. The new entry on the list is the sensor we declared in our devicetree overlay file. Calling it without specifying a channel lists out all that are available. Now compare that to the sensor_channel_get() commands in code sample for this sensor:

sensor_channel_get(dev, SENSOR_CHAN_LIGHT, &intensity);
sensor_channel_get(dev, SENSOR_CHAN_PROX, &pdata);

It’s worth mentioning that we’ve done all of this using KConfig values in Zephyr. The source code for this example is literally empty:

#include <zephyr/zephyr.h>;

void main(void)
{
}

Zephyr has so many shells!

How many shells does Zephyr have? How many stars are there in the sky? There are surely ways to answer these questions but I don’t have them in front of me right now.

Popular among our team is the Network Shell for networking diagnostics, and the OpenThread Shell was used extensively in getting our Open Thread demo up and running. I have used the Kconfig Search page on the Zephyr docs to search for other shells and that yields a lot of really interesting info.

But mostly I just ask Marcin on the Golioth firmware team. He seems to already know about all of the cool ones. Like the Kernel Shell that lets you check on threads and stacks. Here’s a shell output that I’m using to tune up how I’m using RAM. Note that I’ve over-allocated stacks for my animation threads, and the system work queue probably needs a bit more stack space, just to be safe.

uart:~$ kernel stacks
0x3ffd3d60            (real size 2048): unused 1740     usage 308 / 2048 (15 %)
0x3ffd3cc0 weather_tid (real size 2560):        unused 272      usage 2288 / 2560 (89 %)
0x3ffd3c20 hello_tid  (real size 2048): unused 272      usage 1776 / 2048 (86 %)
0x3ffd4490 golioth_system (real size 3072):     unused 768      usage 2304 / 3072 (75 %)
0x3ffd3b80 connection_tid (real size 2048):     unused 304      usage 1744 / 2048 (85 %)
0x3ffd3a40 animate_sense_tid (real size 1024):  unused 524      usage 500 / 1024 (48 %)
0x3ffd3ae0 animate_ping_tid (real size 1024):   unused 524      usage 500 / 1024 (48 %)
0x3ffd47d0 rx_q[0]    (real size 1504): unused 256      usage 1248 / 1504 (82 %)
0x3ffd4718 net_mgmt   (real size 768):  unused 288      usage 480 / 768 (62 %)
0x3ffd45e0 wifi       (real size 3584): unused 1660     usage 1924 / 3584 (53 %)
0x3ffd4938 esp_event  (real size 4096): unused 3388     usage 708 / 4096 (17 %)
0x3ffd4530 esp_timer  (real size 4096): unused 3584     usage 512 / 4096 (12 %)
0x3ffd4b20 sysworkq   (real size 1024): unused 32       usage 992 / 1024 (96 %)
0x3ffd3ef8 shell_uart (real size 2048): unused 588      usage 1460 / 2048 (71 %)
0x3ffd3e20 logging    (real size 2048): unused 336      usage 1712 / 2048 (83 %)
0x3ffd49d8 idle       (real size 1024): unused 828      usage 196 / 1024 (19 %)
0x3ffd4a78 main       (real size 4096): unused 3040     usage 1056 / 4096 (25 %)
0x3ffed510 IRQ 00     (real size 2048): unused 1776     usage 272 / 2048 (13 %)
uart:~$ kernel threads
Scheduler: 2745 since last call
Threads:
 0x3ffd3d60           
        options: 0x0, priority: -1 timeout: 0
        state: pending, entry: 0x4008d72c
        stack size 2048, unused 1740, usage 308 / 2048 (15 %)

 0x3ffd3cc0 weather_tid
        options: 0x0, priority: 14 timeout: 10093
        state: suspended, entry: 0x400d16b0
        stack size 2560, unused 272, usage 2288 / 2560 (89 %)

 0x3ffd3c20 hello_tid 
        options: 0x0, priority: 14 timeout: 5843
        state: suspended, entry: 0x400d1b60
        stack size 2048, unused 272, usage 1776 / 2048 (86 %)

 0x3ffd4490 golioth_system
        options: 0x0, priority: 14 timeout: 3785
        state: pending, entry: 0x400dba6c
        stack size 3072, unused 768, usage 2304 / 3072 (75 %)

 0x3ffd3b80 connection_tid
        options: 0x0, priority: 14 timeout: 1635823
        state: suspended, entry: 0x400d1c28
        stack size 2048, unused 304, usage 1744 / 2048 (85 %)

 0x3ffd3a40 animate_sense_tid
        options: 0x0, priority: 14 timeout: 592
        state: suspended, entry: 0x400d1bc8
        stack size 1024, unused 524, usage 500 / 1024 (48 %)

 0x3ffd3ae0 animate_ping_tid
        options: 0x0, priority: 14 timeout: 287
        state: suspended, entry: 0x400d1b20
        stack size 1024, unused 524, usage 500 / 1024 (48 %)

 0x3ffd47d0 rx_q[0]   
        options: 0x0, priority: -1 timeout: 0
        state: pending, entry: 0x4008872c
        stack size 1504, unused 256, usage 1248 / 1504 (82 %)

 0x3ffd4718 net_mgmt  
        options: 0x0, priority: -1 timeout: 0
        state: pending, entry: 0x40086ff0
        stack size 768, unused 288, usage 480 / 768 (62 %)

        0x3ffd45e0 wifi      
        options: 0x8, priority: 2 timeout: 0
        state: pending, entry: 0x400949c4
        stack size 3584, unused 1660, usage 1924 / 3584 (53 %)

 0x3ffd4938 esp_event 
        options: 0x8, priority: 4 timeout: 0
        state: pending, entry: 0x400ea860
        stack size 4096, unused 3388, usage 708 / 4096 (17 %)

 0x3ffd4530 esp_timer 
        options: 0x8, priority: 3 timeout: 0
        state: pending, entry: 0x400dcf88
        stack size 4096, unused 3584, usage 512 / 4096 (12 %)

 0x3ffd4b20 sysworkq  
        options: 0x0, priority: -1 timeout: 0
        state: pending, entry: 0x4008d72c
        stack size 1024, unused 32, usage 992 / 1024 (96 %)

*0x3ffd3ef8 shell_uart
        options: 0x0, priority: 14 timeout: 0
        state: queued, entry: 0x400d5570
        stack size 2048, unused 588, usage 1460 / 2048 (71 %)

 0x3ffd3e20 logging   
        options: 0x0, priority: 14 timeout: 36
        state: pending, entry: 0x4008f538
        stack size 2048, unused 336, usage 1712 / 2048 (83 %)

 0x3ffd49d8 idle      
        options: 0x1, priority: 15 timeout: 0
        state: , entry: 0x4008d1b0
        stack size 1024, unused 828, usage 196 / 1024 (19 %)

 0x3ffd4a78 main      
        options: 0x1, priority: 0 timeout: 184000604
        state: suspended, entry: 0x4008cbd4
        stack size 4096, unused 3040, usage 1056 / 4096 (25 %)
uart:~$

Until next time, go out and explore Zephyr shells. Just make sure to pop into our Discord channel and let us know which shells you find the most useful!

/by
,

Taking the next step: Debugging with SEGGER Ozone and SystemView on Zephyr

One small step for debug

If you are getting started in Zephyr, you can get a lot done using the serial/terminal output. I normally refer to this as “printf debugging”. With Zephyr it would be “printk debugging” because of the difference in commands to print to the serial output (or to a remote logging service like Golioth). Honestly, this method works great for example code, including many of our tutorials.

In addition to Zephyr’s ad hoc nature as a package management platform for embedded software, it is also a Real Time Operating System (RTOS). We use Zephyr’s package management as a starting point: we want users to be able to bootstrap a solution by downloading toolchains and vendor libraries. We don’t dig into the operating system very often on this blog or in our tutorials. Much like printk debugging, the details aren’t really needed when getting started with Zephyr and Golioth. But when you begin to dig deeper, you will be kicking off your own threads and workers, and utilizing other features of the RTOS like semaphores and queues. Once you’re doing that, I can all but guarantee you’ll want more visibility into what’s happening in your system.

This article showcases SEGGER Ozone and SystemView tools, which will help you peek inside. It also adds a few pieces to getting started with these platforms that I found lacking when searching for answers on the broader internet.

Saving battery budgets

My motivator to dig deeper on these systems is getting ready for the upcoming conference season. We will be at the Zephyr Developer Summit and Embedded World representing Golioth. We want to showcase our technology, including our capabilities as a Device Management solution for Thread-based device networks. Our demo of Zephyr, OpenThread, and Golioth runs on a battery-based device, which isn’t something we normally do. Most of our demos expect you’ll be powering your platform using a USB cable. When you start to care about power draw, you start to care about where your program is spending its time. Understanding whether a device is in sleep mode and how long it spends processing a piece of data is critical to optimizing for battery life. Since I don’t want to lug along an entire suitcase of batteries with me to the conference, I started wondering where we’re hanging out in the various threads of Zephyr. This is where a debugger and a real-time process recorder come in.

Tooling up for debugging

So I know I need a debugger.

My experience as a hardware engineer is that silicon vendors normally have a dedicated path for their code examples, Real Time Operating Systems (RTOSes), and Integrated Development Environments (IDEs). If I’m being honest, that was the path I took in the past: it was a low friction way to get something blinking or talking back to the network. Going outside of that path to use Zephyr means the tooling is more DIY. Even some vendors that provide support for Zephyr as their primary or secondary solution don’t have a “one way” of doing things. The fact that Zephyr is flexible is both a blessing and a curse. I can implement anything I’d like! But I need to go figure it out.

SEGGER Ozone

SEGGER are the makers of the popular J-Link programmer, in addition to a wide suite of software tools for embedded developers. I was interested in Ozone because of the open nature of their debugger, completely decoupled from any IDE or vendor toolchain.

I was excited to see a webinar from our friends at NXP talking about using SEGGER Ozone with Zephyr (registration required). The webinar showcases using a Zephyr sample called “Synchronize”, which is available at <zephyr_install_directory>/zephyr/samples/synchronize.

The basic idea of the sample is you are sharing a semaphore between two threads. It’s like passing a ball back and forth. Once the loop for one thread runs, it release the semaphore and the other thread can pick it up and use it. Each thread is effectively running the same code, it just only does so when the thread and semaphore line up properly.

the main function of main.c on the synchronize sample (with a small modification)

The net result is that you can see the threads ping-pong-ing back and forth on a debugger. See the NXP link above for a video example of this in action.

Using Ozone with Zephyr

One thing that wasn’t clear to me from the NXP webinar is getting everything set up. This was the genesis of this article. I wanted to put the required steps in one place.

Requirements:

  • J-Link programmer
  • Development board with SWD or JTAG access
  • Compatible chipset/board in the Zephyr ecosysttem (we will be showing the mimxrt1060_evkb below)
  • SEGGER Ozone installed on your machine. You can download and install the program from this page.

Step 1: Compile the program

The first step is to compile the project at <zephyr_install_directory>/zephyr/samples/synchronize with some added settings in the prj.conf file.

You will need to have the Zephyr toolchains installed. For our example, I will compiling for the NXP RT1060 EVKB board, which means I need to include the NXP Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL). If you’re a regular Golioth user, this is not installed by default (but will be soon). Instead, I recommend you install Zephyr directly from the tip of main or start from a “vanilla” Zephyr install already on your machine. Start a virtual environment if you have one (or prefer one) and then run the following:

mkdir ~/RTOS_test
cd ~/RTOS_test
west init
west update

This will be an entire Zephyr default install and will take a bit to download/install. We’re showing this for the RT1060 board but this should work on almost any board in the main Zephyr tree, including virtual devices.

cd ~/RTOS_test/zephyr/
nano samples/synchronize/prj.conf

Add the following to the sample code, if it’s not already there. This will allow Ozone to understand some of the threads in the program.

# enable to use thread names
CONFIG_THREAD_NAME=y
CONFIG_SCHED_CPU_MASK=y
CONFIG_THREAD_ANALYZER=y

Finally, build the code:

west build -b mimxrt1060_evk samples/synchronization/ -p    #you can swap this out for another board
west flash

This loads the binary file (zephyr.bin) onto your board.

Step 2: Load the ELF into SEGGER Ozone

Normally it’s the “binary” version of your program that is loaded onto the board. To use a debugger, we want something called an ELF File instead, which stands for “Executable and Linkable Format”. I think of it as an annotated version of your binary, because it includes the source files and all of the references as you go through your program.

Start a new project using the New Project Wizard, walking through the various dialogs:

If it’s not already selected, choose your processor (in the case of the mimxrt1060_evkb, the part is actually the rt1062)

Choose your J-Link (required for SEGGER Ozone). On my board it uses Single Wire Debug (SWD) but some boards might use JTAG.

Load the ELF file from your build directory. This will be located at  <zephyr_install_directory>/zephyr/build/zephyr, using the instructions above.

The most critical piece!

I wanted to call this out because it took me so long to find how to enable the “thread aware” debugging part of Ozone. You need to run the following command in the Console:

Project.SetOSPlugin ("ZephyrPlugin")

This tells SEGGER to run a built-in script and enable a new window in the “View” menu. Select the newly available “Zephyr” option or hit Alt + Shift + O to enable it. You should now see a new window pop up on your screen.

This window shows the two threads that are available in the “Synchronize” program.

I set a breakpoint on the printk command that is writing to the terminal (click the gray button next to the line where you want to set a breakpoint). Then I start debugging from the menu Debug -> Start Debug Session -> Attach to Running Program. This should start the debugger and then halt where you set a breakpoint:

Click the Resume button or hit F5 and you will see the Zephyr window switching between Thread A and Thread B.

SEGGER SystemView

SystemView is something I first became aware of in Brian Amos’s book “Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers”. I was reading it to learn more about the pieces of Real Time Operating Systems and he uses SystemView to help analyze where an RTOS is spending the majority of time. This is critical because operating systems rely on the concept of a “scheduler”, which relinquishes control over precisely what is happening when in a program.

SystemView is a separate piece of software from Ozone and is licensed differently. It is free to use as a trial, but extended usage by commercial operations will need to purchase a license. You can download the software from SEGGER for trial usage.

Using SystemView with Zephyr

There are some additional steps required to get a program working with SystemView on Zephyr.

The most critical piece(s)!

There are two critical pieces to get a Zephyr program running with SystemView:

  1. You must be doing your logging using RTT.
    • Using only UART logging of messages will not work. SystemView requires an “RTT Control Block” in your code and if it’s not there, SystemView will timeout while trying to capture events.
    • The message I kept receiving was “Could not find SystemView Buffer”.
  2. You must log traces using RAM instead of UART (default)
    • This allows the debugger to extract trace information from memory. Some other OSes can pull in UART trace messages but this is not enabled on Zephyr yet.

You can enable RTT and other required settings in the prj.conf file (these can also be set through Zephyr’s menuconfig):

CONFIG_THREAD_NAME=y
CONFIG_SEGGER_SYSTEMVIEW=y
CONFIG_USE_SEGGER_RTT=y  #see point 1 above
CONFIG_TRACING=y
CONFIG_TRACING_BACKEND_RAM=y  # see point 2 above

Recompile the program and flash to your board. You should now be able to open SystemView and get started. Upon opening the program, you’ll need to configure for your J-Link:

And your board settings:

Finally when you hit the “Play” button (green arrow) or hit F5, it should start to capture events on your device.

As you can see below in the “Timeline” window, control is bouncing back and forth between “Thread A” and “Thread B”.

Using Ozone and SystemView together

These are two different tools using the same interface. The cool thing is that you can use them together at the same time. This is especially useful because SystemView will capture all events, which can quickly become overwhelming. You might instead only want to see a small subset of events. You can set a breakpoint in Ozone, start recording in SystemView, and then get a targeted look at the program execution right where the breakpoint is happening. You can target smaller subsections of your code to really pinpoint and optimize your functions.

Giant Leaps in Debugging

These are just some of the tools that will help to give you more insight into your Zephyr programs as you dig deeper into the ecosystem and the Golioth Zephyr SDK. Once you start adding more capabilities, you will be able to visualize the finest details of what is happening and develop better software for your customers.

If you need help getting started with the tools described here, you can always join us on the Golioth Discord or check out the Golioth Forums for assistance. Happy debugging!

/by

Zephyr does Ethernet Too!

When it comes to the Internet of Things, wireless tech like celluar and WiFi get all the flashy press coverage. But wired devices aren’t second class citizens, they’re the connectivity-of-choice for tons of industrial applications. Zephyr makes it really easy to add an Ethernet connection to any project.

Here at Golioth we’re getting ready for a couple of conferences: the Zephyr Developer’s Summit and the Embedded World Conference, both in June. We’ll have hardware demos on site, and the thought of competing for RF spectrum with tens of thousands of other radios gives me the demo blues. So we will include a wired-network demo at the Golioth kiosk to be on the safe side.

What did it take to get our hardware up and running with Ethernet? Not much. It’s a quick and easy process, so let’s dive in!

Wire up an Ethernet module

We’ve chosen the WIZnet W5500 Ethernet chip to handle the Ethernet PHY. It connects to a microcontroller using SPI and there is a handy ETH WIZ Click module available that includes the jack and magnetics for easy prototyping. This chip has great driver support in Zephyr, which we’ll get to in the next section.

Wiring it up will be familiar to anyone who has worked with Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) devices. I’m using an nRF52840 microcontroller in this demo. The bindings page for nrf-spi lists sck-pin, mosi-pin, miso-pin, and cs-gpios which connect to the ETH WIZ Click’s SCK, SDI, SDO, and CS pins. The w5500 bindings page also details int-gpios and reset-gpios which connect to the INT and RST pins on the Ethernet module.

We need to tell Zephyr that this module is present by adding it to an overlay file.

&spi1 {
	compatible = "nordic,nrf-spi";
	status = "okay";
	cs-gpios = <&gpio0 3 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
	test_spi_w5500: w5500@0 {
		compatible = "wiznet,w5500";
		label = "w5500";
		reg = <0x0>;
		spi-max-frequency = <10000000>;
		int-gpios = <&gpio0 2 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
		reset-gpios = <&gpio0 30 GPIO_ACTIVE_LOW>;
	};
};

This overlay file uses the SPI pin definitions already present in the board DTS file. The node for the W5500 chip correctly assigns CS (chip select), INT, and RST pins.

Configure the Ethernet library and IP handling

The node shown above needs to be added to a board overlay file in your project. For your convenience, we have hello-ethernet sample code that includes board files for several different microcontrollers.

In addition to telling Zephyr how the Ethernet chip is connected, we need to tell Zephyr to build in the proper libraries.

CONFIG_SPI=y
CONFIG_NET_L2_ETHERNET=y
CONFIG_ETH_W5500=y
CONFIG_ETH_W5500_TIMEOUT=1000
CONFIG_NET_DHCPV4=y
CONFIG_NET_MGMT=y

These KConfig symbols tell the build tools that we need the SPI peripherals, we’ll be using Ethernet–specifically the W5500 chip, and that we’re going to need some tools to manage the DHCP process for acquiring and using an IP address. I’ve added these settings to a board-specific conf file, but they could be added to the prj.conf if you prefer.

That last part requires just a bit of work in the main.c file. We need to tell Zephyr that if Ethernet is enabled, we want to make an API call to acquire and use an IP address assigned by the wired network’s DHCP server.

#if IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_NET_L2_ETHERNET)
#include <net/net_if.h>
#endif

/* This next part goes in main() before the loop */
	if (IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_NET_L2_ETHERNET))
	{
		LOG_INF("Connecting to Ethernet");
		struct net_if *iface;
		iface = net_if_get_default();
		net_dhcpv4_start(iface);
	}

Don’t forget to plug it in

This sounds silly, but I have spent fives-of-minutes wondering why I wasn’t able to get an IP address. I’m so used to working with WiFi and cellular, sometimes I forget to plug in the Ethernet cable. Don’t be me.

*** Booting Zephyr OS build zephyr-v3.0.0-3806-g05cc2e1ac388  ***

[00:00:00.259,429]  golioth_system: Initializing
[00:00:00.259,796]  golioth_hello: main: Start Hello sample
[00:00:00.259,826]  golioth_hello: Connecting to Ethernet
[00:00:00.259,887]  golioth_hello: Sending hello! 0
[00:00:00.259,948]  golioth_system: Starting connect
[00:00:00.260,131]  golioth_hello: Failed to send hello!
[00:00:00.260,467]  golioth: Fail to get address (coap.golioth.io 5684) -11
[00:00:00.260,467]  golioth_system: Failed to connect: -11
[00:00:00.260,498]  golioth_system: Failed to connect: -11
[00:00:05.260,223]  golioth_hello: Sending hello! 1
[00:00:05.260,437]  golioth_hello: Failed to send hello!
[00:00:05.260,589]  golioth_system: Starting connect
[00:00:05.260,925]  golioth: Fail to get address (coap.golioth.io 5684) -11
[00:00:05.260,955]  golioth_system: Failed to connect: -11
[00:00:05.260,955]  golioth_system: Failed to connect: -11
[00:00:05.300,750]  net_dhcpv4: Received: 192.168.1.106
[00:00:10.260,498]  golioth_hello: Sending hello! 2
[00:00:10.260,711]  golioth_hello: Failed to send hello!
[00:00:10.261,047]  golioth_system: Starting connect
[00:00:10.315,734]  golioth_system: Client connected!
[00:00:15.260,803]  golioth_hello: Sending hello! 3
[00:00:20.263,305]  golioth_hello: Sending hello! 4

That warning aside, the display above is a typical run of the hello-ethernet sample. You can see that the Ethernet connection is initialized shortly after power-on. The Golioth client immediately starts trying to send log messages to the cloud but fails until an IP address is secured about 5.3 seconds into runtime.

All Internet connections act the same in Zephyr

Zephyr abstracts the details of your Internet connection. Once it’s set up, your app has access to sockets for whatever operation it needs. For the most part your code doesn’t need to know how it’s actually getting to the network.

Of course there are exceptions. Here we needed to explicitly sort out an IP address. But considering the complexity that actually goes into operating a network stack, Zephyr sure has taken the degree of difficulty down to a minimum.

/by
,

Golioth Zephyr SDK gets a name change and looks to the future

Preparing the Golioth Zephyr SDK for the futureRoyalty free structured beams image source: https://pixabay.com/photos/structure-beams-engineering-839656/

The Golioth Zephyr SDK has a new name, a new recommended install method, and a new recommended install directory name.

If you installed our SDK prior to May 2022, now is a great time to make one change to your manifest file and pull the newest version. We’ll walk you through that in the next section, but first let’s discuss what changed, and why we’re excited about it!

Last week we changed the name of our SDK from zephyr-sdk to golioth-zephyr-sdkto make it clear this code is for using Golioth device management features with Zephyr. We also updated our recommended install directory names to golioth-zephyr-workspace and golioth-ncs-workspace.

This second change differentiates the “vanilla” version of Zephyr from the specialized “nRF Connect SDK” (NCS) version of Zephyr that Nordic Semiconductor maintains for chips like the nRF52 and the nRF9160. It also prepares the way for Golioth to expand our platform support beyond Zephyr, which is extremely exciting for us.

For new installs, our getting started guide for ESP32 or for nRF9160 have already been updated and you won’t notice the difference. For existing installs, read on for simple steps to keep your local copy in sync with this new development.

Existing Golioth Zephyr SDK installs: How to update

A small manual update needs to be made to any Golioth SDK that was installed prior to May of 2022. If you previously followed our getting started docs, you have a folder called ~/zephyrproject for the Zephyr version of our SDK, or ~/zephyr-nrf for the NCS (nRF Connect SDK) version of our SDK.

Begin in that directory:

1. Edit the .west/config file

If you have the Golioth Zephyr SDK installed, change the manifest section of ~/zephyrproject/.west/config to match the following:

[manifest]
path = modules/lib/golioth
file = west-zephyr.yml

If you have the NCS version of the Golioth Zephyr SDK installed, change the manifest section of ~/zephyr-nrf/.west/config to match the follow:

[manifest]
path = modules/lib/golioth
file = west-ncs.yml

2. Update your Golioth remote, then pull and update the SDK

cd modules/lib/golioth
git checkout main
git remote set-url origin https://github.com/golioth/golioth-zephyr-sdk.git
git pull
west update

That’s it, your SDK is now up to date!

What changed for new installs: west init option and directory names

The install instructions for the Golioth SDK are very similar to what they were before this change. The most obvious difference is that we’ve moved away from using west.yml as the manifest file and instead use west-zephyr.yml for vanilla Zephyr, or west-ncs.yml for the Nordic “flavor” of Zephyr. When calling west init, we use a flag to chose one of these manifest files:

#Installing the Golioth Zephyr SDK:
west init -m https://github.com/golioth/golioth-zephyr-sdk.git --mf west-zephyr.yml ~/golioth-zephyr-workspace
cd golioth-zephyr-workspace
west update
#Installing the Golioth NCS SDK:
west init -m https://github.com/golioth/golioth-zephyr-sdk.git --mf west-ncs.yml ~/golioth-ncs-workspace
cd golioth-ncs-workspace
west update

This makes the installation process, and the update process for both approaches the same which it wasn’t before.

The old install directory (zephyrproject and zephry-nrf) have been updated to golioth-zephyr-workspace and golioth-ncs-workspace. This change does two things to better describe the contents of these directories. First, they are much more specific about the intended purpose of the folder contents. Second, calling these directories a workspace helps with understanding that you will find multiple repositories inside of each directory (the Golioth SDK, the Zephyr Project RTOS, and the nRF Connect SDK will also be there for NCS installs).

Golioth is a Rolling Stone

We are constantly improving how Golioth empowers you to manage your IoT infrastructure. These changes to the Golioth Zephyr SDK deliver a better workflow, and prepare Golioth to add SDKs for additional platforms in the future. We are dedicated to updating our users about changes that might impact their setup and tooling. If you have any questions on these changes, or want help getting up to speed with our tools, we’d love to hear from you on the Golioth Discord server!

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Add Custom Kconfig Symbols in Zephyr

Custom Kconfig symbols

Last week I programmed 15 consecutive boards with unique firmware images. I needed to build multiple versions of the same Zephyr firmware, supplying unique values to each process during build time. The Zephyr Kconfig system provides built-in support for passing values during a build. The trick is that you can’t just dynamically declare symbols, you need to tell Zephyr that you are expecting a value to be set for a new symbol. Today I will walk through how to do this, and why you might want to.

Fifteen Devices, Fifteen Names

Golioth device names

In my case I was pre-provisioning devices to use in a training workshop. I supplied each build them with credentials so they would be able to authenticate with the Golioth Cloud platform. There is already built-in Kconfig support for these values. But at the same time, I wanted the devices to have a human-readable name that matches up with the device displayed on our cloud console. During the training, the device prints its name on a screen as an easy reference.

The solution to both of these needs is to set the values at build time using the -D<SYMBOLNAME>=flag format on the command line. Any Kconfig value that you would normally set in a prj.conf file can also be set this way. So if you wanted to enable the Zephyr Logging subsystem for just one build, you could turn it on by adding -DCONFIG_LOG=y to your west build command.

I used a script that called the goliothctl command line tool to create each device and to make the credentials for each on our cloud platform. The script then called the west tool to build the firmware, supplying the device name and the credentials as arguments.

The gotcha is that if you try to make up your own symbols on the fly (like -DGOLIOTH_IS_AWESOME=y) you will be met with errors. Zephyr needs to know what symbols to expect–anything else is assumed to be a typo.

Add a Custom Symbol to Zephyr Kconfig

The easiest way to add a symbol is to declare it in the Kconfig file in your project directory. The syntax for this is pretty simple:

  • config SYMBOLNAME
    • bool “Description”

According to the Linux docs, the following types are valid: bool, tristate, string, hex, int. The description string is important if you want the value to appear in menuconfig. Consider the following code:

config GOLIOTH_IS_AWESOME
	bool "Confirm that Golioth is awesome"

config MAGTAG_NAME
	string "MagTag Name"
	default "MagTag-One"
	help
		Used during automatic provisioning for workshops

This creates two new symbols, one accepts a boolean value, the other a string value. These can be viewed and set using the menuconfig interface. After building your project, type west build -t menuconfig.

Custom Kconfig symbols shown in menuconfig

Both of the new symbols appear in the menu, and you can see the strings we used when declaring the type are what is shown as labels in the menu interface. Of course, you can now set the values in a Kconfig file as you would any other interface. But for me, the goal was to do so from the command line. Here is an example build command used by my provisioning script:

west build -b esp32s2_saola magtag-demo -d /tmp/magtag-build -DCONFIG_MAGTAG_NAME=\"azure-camellia\" -DCONFIG_GOLIOTH_SYSTEM_CLIENT_PSK_ID=\"azure-camellia-id@developer-training\" -DCONFIG_GOLIOTH_SYSTEM_CLIENT_PSK=\"b00a0fef769d65d9021d747c8d710af5\" -DCONFIG_ESP32_WIFI_SSID=\"Golioth\" -DCONFIG_ESP32_WIFI_PASSWORD=\"training\"

The symbol will now be available to your c code:

LOG_INF("Device name: %s", CONFIG_MAGTAG_NAME);

And of course you can view the state of all Kconfig symbols processed during the build process. Just open up the build/zephyr/.config file that was generated. Below you will see the first baker’s-dozen lines, including my custom symbols along with some specified by the Golioth SDK, and others that are standard to Zephyr:

CONFIG_ESP32_WIFI_SSID="Golioth"
CONFIG_ESP32_WIFI_PASSWORD="training"
CONFIG_DNS_SERVER_IP_ADDRESSES=y
CONFIG_DNS_SERVER1="1.1.1.1"
CONFIG_GOLIOTH_IS_AWESOME=y
CONFIG_MAGTAG_NAME="azure-camellia"
CONFIG_GPIO=y
CONFIG_SPI=y
CONFIG_I2C=y
# CONFIG_KSCAN is not set
CONFIG_LV_Z_POINTER_KSCAN_DEV_NAME="KSCAN"
# CONFIG_WIFI_WINC1500 is not set
CONFIG_WIFI=y

Learn more about Kconfig

To dive deeper into Kconfig options, your first stop should be the Zephry Docs page on Setting Kconfig values. I also found the Kconfig Tips and Best Practices to be useful, as well as the Linux Kconfig Language reference. Ten minutes of reading the docs, and a little bit of trial and error, and you’ll have a good grasp of what Kconfig is all about.

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Golioth will be at the Zephyr Developer Summit

The Zephyr Developer Summit (ZDS) is coming up June 7th-9th 2022 in Mountain View California at the Computer History Museum. Golioth will be there and we’re very excited to interact with fellow users, developers, and stakeholders in the open source real-time operating system (RTOS) known as Zephyr!

We love Zephyr

People reading this blog will not be surprised to know that we love Zephyr. We write about it quite often and it is the basis of our Zephyr-based SDK. As a result, many of our samples and demos are built using Zephyr. We often talk about Zephyr being an indicator that a hardware device will work with Golioth; all you need is a network connection, a board running Zephyr, and little bit of storage overhead to hold the Golioth code. It’s the hardware interoperability of Zephyr that allows Golioth users to target a wide range of platforms, including microcontrollers from Espressif, Infineon, Intel, Microchip, NXP, Nordic Semiconductor…and more being added every day!

Our plans at ZDS

We’re excited to be returning to ZDS. Last year we officially announced Golioth to the world at ZDS, and talked about how our platform works within the Zephyr ecosystem. We hope to have another year of connection, this time in person and online. Let’s look at how we’ll be participating.

Sponsoring/Showcase

We are helping to sponsor ZDS this year. We believe in the mission of the project and the conference and wanted to be part of it. We will also be showcasing Golioth at a vendor table at the conference. If you would like to see Golioth in action, you can stop by at any time to ask questions and see demos. You can, of course, also try out Golioth at any time using our Dev Tier plan, which gives anyone up to 50 free devices on the platform.

Giving Talks

We will be presenting a range of talks at ZDS:

  • What chip shortage? How we use Zephyr for truly modular hardware
    • Chris and Mike from Developer Relations will highlight the Aludel, an internal hardware platform we’ve built as a customizable solution that can switch out hardware pieces without major redesign. This modular hardware showcases a path for hardware and firmware teams to unify their codebase using Zephyr while targeting a wide range of hardware. Being able to swap out a sensor, microcontroller, or radio but keep the main board, or go from outdoor air monitoring to indoor monitoring is really powerful. Zephyr makes it much easier to create alternate builds and manage firmware pipelines to hardware variants.
  • Connecting Zephyr Logging to the Cloud over Constrained Channels
    • Our resident Zephyr expert Marcin will cover an approach to preparing Zephyr logging messages for transmission through a constrained networking layer, such as a cellular connection. This includes CBOR compression on all logging messages, including special handling around binary payloads. There is also an interface to a CoAP library to take advantage of smaller payloads and standardized format to a cloud backend. Additional tooling is included for selectable acknowledgement of messages, to handle high priority and high traffic scenarios.
  • Zephyr <3 Internet: How Zephyr speeds implementation for new IoT devices
    • I (Jonathan, CEO) will make a case to people outside of the Zephyr ecosystem on why they should adopt the platform and contrast the difficulties to other RTOS solutions. These networking concepts are so baked-in that it fundamentally changes the cost for anyone buying into the ecosystem. From vendors adding modems to developers building apps, the underlying framework saves time and engineering complexity.
  • End-to-end IoT development with Zephyr
    • Founding engineer Alvaro will cover the options for getting a Zephyr app connected (WiFi, Ethernet, Cellular), selecting the right data encoding (JSON/CBOR), securing the data transfer (DTLS/TLS), and choosing a protocol (HTTP/MQTT/COAP). But that’s not the end of the story, the cloud needs to manage devices allowed to connect, consume the data being received, open up options for using that data, and be aware of the continued state of the hardware. And once you have the data you need to build a user-facing application on top of it.

Giving a workshop

Hands-on demos are a critical part of understanding a new system. This is true of both Zephyr and of Golioth. We wanted to showcase how Golioth works to Zephyr users, while also helping people get a real piece of hardware talking to the cloud. We’re giving a workshop called “Hands-on with Zephyr-based IoT Hardware – Data Goes in, Data Comes Out, Data Goes Up“.  This is a hands-on developer training showing how to get a finished piece of hardware utilizing the various features that Zephyr has to offer. The main thrust of the training is getting up and running with the Zephyr toolchain, implementing examples on a piece of hardware (provided), and interacting with cloud services. The user will learn about various abstraction layers around things like CoAP and CBOR, and experience a real world example of a smart device talking back to the Golioth Cloud. This will also expose the user to web-side technologies and how they can export data to external commercial services like AWS, Azure, and GCP.

Meeting with users and partners

We love our community and are always looking to meet new people within it. Interested in setting up a time to discuss something? Email [email protected]

Should you attend?

If you’re a someone already developing for Zephyr and pushing code upstream, this is the best opportunity to meet with others from the community and continue to build your skills. We think this is a perfect event for you!

If you’re new to Zephyr, the content can seem a bit intimidating…but fear not! The first half day of the conference (June 7th starting at 1 pm) is the “Intro to Zephyr” day, and this is a great introduction to the platform and how you can build your skills using Zephyr. There are also reduced cost tickets for students, if you’re still learning. We think if you’re looking to build a product with Zephyr in the future, or already are building with Zephyr, it’s a worthwhile experience to be there.

See you there!

We’re excited to meet more people and hear the other great talks that will be happening at the 2022 Zephyr Developer Summit. While we definitely plan to share the talks after the fact, and you can also participate in the virtual conference, we still hope to see you there!

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