[CSE]  Advanced Operating Systems 
COMP9242 2013/S2 
UNSW
CRICOS Provider
Number: 00098G

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Developing your AOS project on Linux

Many CSE students have Linux machines which they would like to be able to use to work away from the CSE labs. The following is a guide as to how to set up the necessary drivers/software if you wish to work locally. These instructions will be distribution specific (for Ubuntu) but they should at least give you an idea of how to set up other distributions.

The components you will need to install are:

  • Cross compilers
  • Driver for the USB->serial converter
  • A serial terminal program (we recommend picocom)
  • TFTP server
  • time server
  • An NFS server/share
  • netcat
Once installed, the installation can be tested by following the milestone 0 instructions.

Ubuntu Instructions

Updated based on Ubuntu 12.04, tested on 13.04.

Cross compilers

The Ubuntu default version of gcc-arm seems to work fine.

apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi

NOTE: After checking out the AOS codebase, you will need to change the cross compiler prefix to arm-linux-gnueabi-. Do this by running make menuconfig from the checked out check out source directory, and then going to Toolchain Options.

If you have problems with this compiler, a precompiled 32bit cross compiler has been provided for you:

Linux 32bit cross compiler

Once the file has downloaded, install it by using the following commands

sudo mkdir -p /opt
sudo tar -xf arm-2013.05-24-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2 -C /opt
export PATH=/opt/arm-2013.05/bin:$PATH

In this case, your cross compiler prefix should be set to arm-none-linux-gnueabi-.

Installing drivers

The Ubuntu USB serial and USB ethernet drivers seem to work by default.

You may need to install some of the following packages:

apt-get install build-essential mercurial
apt-get install libncurses5-dev
apt-get install netcat.traditional
update-alternatives --set nc /bin/nc.traditional
apt-get install picocom minicom
apt-get install tftpd-hpa tftp-hpa
apt-get install nfs-kernel-server
apt-get install xinetd

Setting up the network

Unfortunately, newer Ubuntu distributions include the 'easy to use' NetworkManager, which destroys everything. You could use the NetworkManager GUI to set a static ip of 192.168.168.1 to keep NetworkManager happy. Or alternatively, add the following lines to /etc/network/interfaces:

iface eth1 inet static
    address 192.168.168.1
    netmask 255.255.255.0
Then, restart NetworkManager, and bring up the interface:
sudo service network-manager restart
sudo ifup eth1

Setting up the TFTP server

After installing the tftpd-hpa package, the default Ubuntu tftp directory will be /var/lib/tftpboot. You will either need to modify our helper scripts to match the new default, or modify /etc/default/tftpd-hpa, i.e. change TFTP_DIRECTORY to match our source.

You may need to adjust ownership and/or permissions to allow you access to the directory (e.g. chmod a+rwx /var/lib/tftpboot if you are in a benign environment.

Our source expects the tftp directory to be /var/tftpboot/$USER.

Setting up the time server

Configure xinetd to serve time by editing /etc/xinetd.d/time to set disable = no, and restart via sudo service xinetd restart.

# default: off
# description: An RFC 868 time server. This protocol provides a
# site-independent, machine readable date and time. The Time service sends back
# to the originating source the time in seconds since midnight on January first
# 1900.
# This is the tcp version.
service time
{
        disable         = no
        type            = INTERNAL
        id              = time-stream
        socket_type     = stream
        protocol        = tcpar
        user            = root
        wait            = no
}

# This is the udp version.
service time
{
        disable         = no
        type            = INTERNAL
        id              = time-dgram
        socket_type     = dgram
        protocol        = udp
        user            = root
        wait            = yes
}

Apparently, for some versions of ubuntu there was no obvious ways to coerce xinetd into serving TIME. On the other hand, it's a 5-line Java program, so writing a server for it is left as an exercise to the reader. Have a read of this.

Set up an NFS share

Make sure NFS server is installed:

$ apt-get install nfs-kernel-server nfs-common
Then set up the exports by editing /etc/exports and adding the following lines (adjusted for the location of your tftp root directory and your username):
/var/tftpboot/USERNAME 192.168.168.2(rw,sync,all_squash,subtree_check,anonuid=UID,anongid=GID)
Substitute /var/tftpbootUSERNAME to whatever is set TFTP_DIRECTORY to in your tftpd configuration.

Serial Line Access

Add your account to group dialout to give access to /dev/ttyUSB0. You'll need to logout and back in to update your groups. If you skip this minicom may need root permissions to run.

You may be required to change the settings for minicom. Use dmesg to work out which port the USB to serial converter has been attached to (its usually /dev/ttyUSB0). Then set minicom to use that serial port, 115200 baud rate, 8N1, and no hardware flow control, using sudo minicom -s /dev/ttyUSB0.
Last modified: 28 Jul 2014.