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Lukas Sigrist edited this page Apr 16, 2020 · 50 revisions

Software Installation Guide

System Image Setup

Start on your local computer by installing the Debian operating system on the SD card:

  1. Download the latest system image of Debian 7.11 (Wheezy), i.e. the bone-debian-7.11-lxde-4gb-armhf-2016-06-15-4gb.img.xz image file from the firmware release repository, or using the get_image.sh bash script found in the software/debian/ folder.
  2. Flash this image onto an empty SD card following steps #0.B to #0.F of official BeagleBone Getting Started Guide or using the flash_image.sh <image file> <SD card target> bash script found in the same folder.
  3. Remove the SD card from your computer and insert it into the powered-down RocketLogger. Connect the power supply and network cable to boot your system.
  4. Once the logger started up, login via ssh as root: ssh root@<host>, where <host> refers to the RocketLogger's IP address or hostname. NOTE: for security reasons, this login will be deactivated by the setup script.

You should now have an SSH session open in your terminal that should now show root@beaglebone:~#. If not, login as described above. It is important that you perform the following steps inside this SSH session.

  1. Install git and ntp tools first using apt-get install git ntp
  2. Clone the RocketLogger repository using git clone https://gitlab.ethz.ch/tec/public/rocketlogger.git
  3. Change to the folder software/debian/ of the cloned repository
  4. Run the setup script to perform the necessary system configuration ./setup_beaglebone.sh
  5. Once completed (it takes a while) the script asks to reboot. Confirm to reboot the system to complete this one-time system configuration.

After reboot you log into the system with the RocketLogger default configuration listed below. You will need SSH access to compile and install the rocketlogger software as described in the following sections.

SSH login info summary

After initial system setup you will only be able to login as rocketlogger user using the default ssh key. The user password is only useful for gaining root privileges once logged in (using sudo). Password only and root logins are blocked. The required settings are summarized in the table below.

<host> refers to the RocketLogger's IP address or hostname.

Setting RocketLogger config SSH flag
ssh port 2322 -p 2322
private key rocketlogger.default_rsa -i rocketlogger.default_rsa
key passphrase show passphrase prompted for at login
username rocketlogger rocketlogger@<host>
user password beaglebone not used for login

The full ssh login command for the RocketLogger configuration is:

ssh -p 2322 -i ~/.ssh/rocketlogger.default_rsa rocketlogger@<host>

After successful login an SSH session starting with rocketlogger@beaglebone:~$ should be opened.

We highly recommend that you replace the standard key with an ssh key generated yourself (replace both files in the /home/rocketlogger/.ssh/ folder)!

How to generate your of key is explained in the SSH Help at Gitlab.

RocketLogger Software Installation

Log into an SSH session as described above. Make sure you have a copy of the rocketlogger repository by cloning (or pulling the latest) the repository: git clone https://gitlab.ethz.ch/tec/public/rocketlogger.git.

Device Tree Overlay

  1. Change to the subfolder software/device_tree_overlay
  2. Compile and install device tree overlay: make and sudo make install

RocketLogger Binary

  1. Change to the subfolder software/rocketlogger
  2. Build and install software: make and sudo make install
  3. Reboot to apply all changes

Webserver/Control Interface

This component is optional, but highly recommended for convenient device control.

  1. Change to the subfolder software/webserver
  2. Run sudo ./setup_web.sh
  3. Create password file using the command htpasswd -c /home/rocketlogger/.htpasswd "username". Remember the set password, you will use it later to login to the web interface.

Calibration

Now it is time to perform a calibration of the RocketLogger. To do so follow the Calibration Guide. If reinstalling a device with existing calibration, the calibration files can be reused.

Software Updates

Updating the software is also straight forward. Backup any important measurement data before updating!

  1. Pull the last revision of the repository
  2. Rebuild and install the RocketLogger binary
  3. Run the web interface install script to update the web interface (existing password files can be reused)
  4. Reboot

Updates to the system configuration or the device tree overlay are not necessary unless otherwise noted in the release notes. You might need to set a new default measurement configuration if the configuration file structure was updated. Calibration is hardware specific and recalibration not necessary when updating the software only.

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