October 2017

Author: Daniel Sangorrin, CIP TSC member

Today, at Embedded Linux Conference Europe, the CIP Project announced the new CIP Core. The CIP Core project aims to provide minimal reference file system images and SDK’s to test and demonstrate the use of the CIP kernel and the CIP Core packages, a selected set of open source software components that require super long-term support.

Within the open source base layer, the CIP Core connects the CIP Kernel with non-CIP packages (see figure 1).

The implementation of the CIP Core is based on the Deby distribution, a reproducible and maintainable embedded Linux distribution based on poky. Deby overlays meta-debian on top of poky to build file system images out of Debian long-term supported source code packages. The associated source code (metadata) is available on the CIP Core repository and this first release contains support for the following CIP reference hardware:

• iWave RZ/G1M Qseven Development Kit
• Beaglebone Black
• QEMU x86_64
• DE0-Nano-SoC development kit.

Users of CIP Core can easily extend or customize the reference file system by adding some of the packages already supported by Deby (non-CIP packages).

For more about CIP Core, visit the wiki page, follow the quickstart or check out the source code. You can also register in the CIP’s public mailing list to learn more about CIP’s technical roadmap and participate in discussions.

The Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) project, hosted by The Linux Foundation, announces the publication of a new version of Board At Desk v1.0, a customized and easy to deploy instance of the kernelci and LAVA projects that should allow developers to test Linux kernels on boards connected to their own development machines using the tooling provided by one of the most successful Open Source testing projects.

Board at Desk (B@D) v1.0 is provided in two forms:

• As a vagrant VM recipe.
• As a VM image, widely called a B@D box.

Please visit the CIP Testing project Download page to download the latest Board At Desk (B@D v1.0) box.

With this effort, the CIP project is moving towards a “shared and trusted testing” targeting not just those directly involved in maintaining the CIP kernel but any kernel developer that has physical access to a board. This reduces deployment, configuration and maintenance costs. B@D introduces a “local” approach to kernelci.org which is a distributed service centrally managed. In addition, CIP intends to increase the number of developers and organizations willing to participate in upstream kernel testing by providing a simple mechanism to evaluate the technologies developed by that community (LAVA and kernelci) which CIP considers upstream.

Some of the most important new features shipped with this B@D release include:

• LAVA has been updated to 2017.7 version.
• B@D now works on Windows 10 systems.
• B@D now works behind a webproxy.
• initramfs is now built locally, increasing reliability.

Newer version of LAVA

The LAVA community releases a new LAVA version every month. CIP testing team have updated Board at Desk LAVA version to 2017.7, released this past July. It comes with many new features, enhancements and bug fixes that allow the CIP testing project to introduce more verbose reports, prevents issues related with partitions being filled with system logs, etc..

B@D supports Linux and Windows as host OS

The previous version only supported Linux based systems as host OS. This new version of B@D also supports Windows 10 expanding the potential targets to those engineers who use this proprietary operating system in their development machines.

B@D now works behind a webproxy

Many organizations works behind a webproxy. B@D needed to give an answer to this use case, popular among CIP Members. Thanks to some contributions from Daniel Sangorrin, a Toshiba developer, Board at Desk now works behind a webproxy.

initramfs is now built locally

Previously Board At Desk was using the initiramfs provided by Linaro in their infrastructure. This created in B@D a dependency on the network connection latency that, under certain circumstances led to errors due to timeouts. Now initramfs is built locally which improves the speed of the tests, removing that need to access to internet.

In addition to the above, other features have been added and several bugs has been fixed, making Board at Desk more robust and reliable than before. Further information about this new Board At Desk (B@D v1.0) release can be found at the B@D Feature Page.

If you are interested in testing kernels using Board at Desk, meet the developers at the cip-dev mailing list. If you find bugs in KernelCI or LAVAv2 themselves, please report them upstream. If you find them in the configuration or any of the previously described topics, please report them in the CIP-testing bug tracker. More general information about the CIP testing project can be found in the CIP wiki.

Are you planning on going to the Embedded Linux Conference Europe? ELCE, located in Prague, Czech Republic from October 23-25, 2017, is the premier technical conference for companies and developers using Linux in embedded products. Traditionally, ELCE has had one the largest collection of sessions dedicated exclusively to embedded Linux and embedded Linux developers.

This year is no different. Vendors and kernel and systems developers will collaborate with the maintainers and experts building the applications running on embedded Linux platforms. This year, developers will have the opportunity to learn about the Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) and how to get involved with industry leaders such as Codethink, Hitachi, Plat’Home, Renesas, Siemens and Toshiba.

The Civil Infrastructure Platform (CIP) is creating a super long-term supported (SLTS) open source “base layer” for industrial grade software, components, tools and methods that will help key systems have a more sustainable workflow and less outdated software. The base-layer consists of an SLTS kernel, a basic set of open source software and standardization concepts that enable long-term management of technical systems such as electric power, transportation, water and waste management, healthcare and communication.

CIP Members Yoshitake Kobayashi, Senior Manager of Open Source Technology Department at Toshiba, and Urs Gleim, head of the Research Group, Smart Embedded Systems at Siemens Corporate Technology, will provide an update CIP on Wednesday, October 25 from 9:50–10:10 a.m. in Congress Hall 1.

They will introduce attendees to the project’s strategy, use cases, technical roadmap, policies and milestones. Participants will also get a look into technical details, development tools, testing and more for the CIP SLTS kernel. Add this to your ELCE schedule here.

CIP also invites Linux developers and maintainers to open workshops in the Athens room at the Hilton Prague that takes place before the conference begins. On Sunday, October 22, CIP members will lead three workshops for testing, collaboration and Q&A sessions. The workshop schedule is below. For more information or to register for a session, visit the CIP wiki page.

Workshops on Sunday, October 22:

2 p.m.: AGL Testing & B@D Collaboration Discussion

4 p.m.: B@D 101

5:30 p.m.: CIP Kernel Maintenance Q&A

Additionally, CIP members will host a Developer’s Meeting on Tuesday, October 24 at 1 p.m. The meeting is open to any and all developers interested in CIP, LTS, Linux maintenance and Debian. For more information, visit the CIP wiki.

Live demonstrations will be on display at the Embedded Linux Conference Europe taking place on October 23-25, 2017. The CIP booth (Booth M17) will be filled with innovative member solutions from Codethink, Plat’Home, Renesas, Siemens and Toshiba.

Please see below for the demo descriptions:

• Renesas will be showcasing the CIP kernel in action with real-time capabilities of the RZ/G1M SoC with an iWave iwg20m board. The demo will display the benefit of low and stable latency, and the value of RT-PREEMPT patch set.
• Siemens will link traditional industrial computing with Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies based on IOT2000 devices, which are part of CIP’s long-term support commitment. The demo shows how to combine state-of-the-art sensor technology with proven, solid industrial approaches, and uses novel software mechanisms to describe automation processes.
• Codethink Ltd will showcase at the event Board At Desk v1.0, released a few days earlier, the CIP testing environment based on KernelCI, so any developer can test a kernel or a simple system locally in a board connected to her machine and share the results and logs. During the demo, the latest CIP kernel will be tested on the Beaglebone Black and  Renesas RZ/G1M boards.
• Plat’Home will show the demonstration with IoT. It runs on original product, “OpenBlocks IoT VX1” with CIP kernel. OpenBlocks IoT VX1 is the compact server for IoT gateway. It uses Environment Sensor made by OMRON.  It shows environment values at venue, such as temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, sound pressure, illuminance and ultraviolet radiation.

If you’re attending ELC Europe, we look forward to seeing you there. If you’re not, stay tuned. We’ll add pictures and updates on the our blog post and @CIP_Project.