coreflightexec

Core Flight Executive Open Source Release Readme Date: January 16, 2012 Introduction: The Core Flight Executive is a portable, platform independent embedded system framework developed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This framework is used as the basis for the flight software for satellite data systems and instruments, but can be used on other embedded systems. The Core Flight Executive is written in C and depends on another software library called the Operating System Abstraction Layer (OSAL). The OSAL is available at http://osal.sf.net and will be hosted on http://code.nasa.gov. This software is licensed under the NASA Open Source Agreement. http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/opensource/nosa The Core Flight Executive consists of the following subsystems: - Executive Services - initializes and controls applications - Software Bus - A publish and subscribe messaging system based on CCSDS command and telemetry packets - Time Services - Manages system time - Event Services - Event reporting and logging services for applications - Table Services - Data/parameter load and update services for applications The Core Flight Executive is intended to host a suite of applications and libraries. The applications and libraries are not included in this distribution. A sample library and sample application are included to help verify that the build and runtime are configured correctly. Software Included: Core Flight Executive ( cFE ) 6.1.1 Platform Support Package Core Flight System Mission Build system Sample Library and Application Software Required: Operating System Abstraction Layer 3.3 or higher Can be obtained at http://osal.sf.net Supported Build and Runtime Environment Build Environment Supported: This software is built on CentOS/RHEL 5.x and 6.x It should be possible to build on other linux distributions ( Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE, etc ) It should be possible to build on Windows and Mac OS X, but is not currently tested. Runtime Targets Supported: The "out of the box" targets in this distribution include: 1. 32 bit x86 Linux ( CentOS 5.x ) 2. Motorola MCP750 PowerPC vxWorks 6.4 Other targets: Other targets are included, but may take additional work to run. They are included as examples of other target environments. 1. mcf5235-rtems - This is for the Axiom MCF5235 Coldfire board running RTEMS 4.10. It requires a static loader component for the OS abstraction layer. The static loader is currently not available as open source, so this target is not considered complete. RTEMS 4.11 will have a dynamic loader which will be supported by a future release of the OS Abstraction Layer, completing the RTEMS support for the cFE. Once RTEMS 4.11 is released, the goal is to support an RTEMS simulator platform such as SPARC/sis or quemu. 2. mac-osx and pc-cygwin - These targets are included for examples. They will most likely be removed in the future. The pc-linux target is highly recommended. If you have a windows or mac computer it is relatively easy to set up a free virtual machine environment with 32 bit Cent OS 5.x. Quick start: The following assumes you are in a CentOS/RHEL terminal. The cFE distribution file is in a directory called "Projects". Unpack the cFE distribution [cfe@localhost ~]$ cd Projects [cfe@localhost Projects]$ tar -zxf cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release.tar.gz [cfe@localhost Projects]$ cd cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release Unpack the OSAL distribution ( obtain from sources above ) Assuming the file is in your Projects directory ( example: /home/acudmore/Projects/osal-3.4-release.tar.gz) [cfe@localhost cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release]$ tar -zxf ../Projects/osal-3.4-release.tar.gz [cfe@localhost cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release]$ mv osal-3.4-release osal Build the cFE source code NOTE: In the first command, make sure you enter a '.' then a space then './setvars.sh' !!! ( see the bash command "source" ) [cfe@localhost cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release]$ . ./setvars.sh [cfe@localhost cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release]$ cd build [cfe@localhost build]$ cd pc-linux [cfe@localhost pc-linux]$ make [cfe@localhost pc-linux]$ make install When the build completes, the cFE core executable that runs on on CentOS is i in the exe directory. It can be run by doing the following: [cfe@localhost pc-linux]$ cd exe [cfe@localhost exe]$ ./core-linux.bin At this point, the linux version of the cFE will start running. Note that the OSAL uses POSIX message queues to implement the inter-task communication queues. The cFE by default needs a larger "msg_max" parameter in linux to run. There are two solutions to this problem: 1. increase the /proc/sys/fs/mqueue/msg_max parameter 2. run the cFE core as root [cfe@localhost exe]$ su ( type in root password ) [cfe@localhost exe]# ./core-linux.bin With the cFE starting, it should initialize, then read the cFE startup i script and load the sample library and application. New applications can be added by editing the cfe_es_startup.scr file. Stop the cFE and all applications by hitting control-c in the terminal Where to find more info: There is much more information that is beyond the scope of a readme file. The current documents can be found in the following directories: cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release/docs cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release/osal/docs ( once the OSAL is installed ) cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release/cfe/docs cFE-6.1.1-OSS-release/cfe/docs/doxygen/index.html -- a good place to start for the cFE