A project for the remote nerve meetup
Initialize a nerves project with a command like: mix nerves.new sprinkler.
Now are going to add nerves_init_gadget and customize some configuration.
You can see the full diff here for reference.
We start by adding {:nerves_init_gadget, "~> 0.4"} to our target deps and add :nerves_init_gadget the init list of shoehorn in our config/config.exs file.
At the bottom of our config/config.exs we add some configuration that will load our existing public ssh key to make that an authorized key for our device
config :nerves_firmware_ssh,
authorized_keys: [
File.read!(Path.join(System.user_home!(), ".ssh/id_rsa.pub"))
]
We get SSH security on our device!
Next we add some configuration to store Logger entries into RingLogger.
This will keep the last few hundred Logger entries in memory so we can check the log even if we weren't connected the device when it got logged.
config :logger, backends: [RingLogger]
Now we add configuration for the :nerves_init_gadget library to specify the DNS name of our device, tell it which network interface to watch and tell it to give us an ssh terminal port.
config :nerves_init_gadget,
ifname: "wlan0",
address_method: :dhcp,
mdns_domain: "sprinkler.local",
node_name: "sprinkler",
node_host: :mdns_domain,
ssh_console_port: 22
And finally we add configuration for how to connect to the WiFi. We use environment variables to set the WiFi ssid and passkey. You'll notice that we set these in our commands to build and push firmware images.
key_mgmt = System.get_env("NERVES_NETWORK_KEY_MGMT") || "WPA-PSK"
config :nerves_network, :default,
wlan0: [
ssid: System.get_env("NERVES_NETWORK_SSID"),
psk: System.get_env("NERVES_NETWORK_PSK"),
key_mgmt: String.to_atom(key_mgmt)
]
Mount your MicroSD card to the host machine and run a command like:
MIX_TARGET=rpi3 NERVES_NETWORK_SSID=MyWiFi NERVES_NETWORK_PSK=MyPassword mix do deps.get, firmware, firmware.burn
Confirm that it's burning to the correct disk and follow the prompts to burn the image. Now put the MicroSD into your raspberry pi 3 and power it up.
Within a few seconds you should be able to run ping sprinkler.local from your host machine and see that it gets ping results back.
You can further test it by running ssh sprinkler.local and you should have an IEx terminal.
Try running RingLogger.tail() in that IEx session and you should see the recent log entries probably related to bootup, WiFi or DNS updates.
To exit the ssh session you'll need to hit enter a few times and then type ~..
Finally let's make sure we can get another node connected to it.
Run cat rel/vm.args and copy the cookie value.
Now on your host machine run iex --cookie PASTE_YOUR_COOKIE_VALUE_HERE --name iex@host.local.
In your new IEx session type Node.ping(:"sprinkler@sprinkler.local") and you should get back :pong.
Run :observer.start() to open the observer.
In your observer window you can select open the "Node" menu item and select "sprinkler@sprinkler.local".
Now you are seeing memory, CPU and other information from your device.
We now have a device running a custom firmware image that support MDNS for easy discovery, ssh for secure terminal access, and erlang distribution so that we can easily have it coordinate with other programs. This is a powerful set of features, but we aren't quite done yet. When we want to update our program it will be a pain to constantly power-off the device, take out the SD card, burn a new image and then reboot the device.
Luckily the nerves_init_gadget package also makes it possible to securely push firmware updates over-the-wire.
😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
It would be really nice to be able to visually tell if our device is running our code. The Raspberry Pi 3 we are using has a status LED built into it which normally blinks based on disk activity. We are going to take control of that LED and make it blink a recognizable pattern. So whenever our code boots and runs properly we'll be able to see that pattern and know that the device is up and running.
You can see the full diff here for reference.
We start by adding {:nerves_leds, "~> 0.8"} to our target deps.
Then in our config/config.exs file we add some configuration to give our status led the name :status.
config :nerves_leds, names: [status: "led0"]
While we are in the file we are also going to tell shoehorn that it needs to start :runtime_tools and :nerves_leds at boot time.
config :shoehorn,
init: [:nerves_runtime, :nerves_init_gadget, :runtime_tools, :nerves_leds],
app: Mix.Project.config()[:app]
Now we need a process that will periodically call Nerves.Leds.set so we can change the :status LED to be off and on.
We write a small GenServer to handle this.
See the lib/sprinkler/blinky.ex file in the diff link above for details.
Then in our lib/sprinkler/application.ex file we add this process to our supervision tree like this:
def children(_target) do
[
{Sprinkler.Blinky, nil}
]
end
Now when our application starts up it will call Sprinkler.Blinky.start_child(nil) and supervise the pid that is returned.
We can build the firmware image and push it to our device with a single command.
MIX_TARGET=rpi3 NERVES_NETWORK_SSID=MyWiFi NERVES_NETWORK_PSK=MyPassword mix do deps.get, firmware, firmware.push sprinkler.local
This command will take a little while to complete and at the end of it your terminal should say something like:
Success!
Elapsed time: 7.232 s
Rebooting...
If you are looking at your device you will see the red power LED turn off, then turn back on.
The green LED will blink rapidly while the device is going through the linux boot process, reading things off disk etc.
But once your code finishes booting you should see the green LED start a pattern of 2 seconds off, 1 second blinking.
If you start another observer session like we did above you will be able to see that the sprinkler application is running and is supervising the Sprinkler.Blinky process 🎉.
This is a pretty incredible set of features to start a project with. We have a device that can:
- join our WiFi automatically
- makes itself discoverable
- has a secure remote shell access
- secure remote update
- erlang distribution
- ability to introspect any of the processes and send them messages at any time
- based on linux
- really great hardware support
- a ton of standard C and elixir libraries to use
I've been playing around with embedded devices for fun since ~2000. None of the other devices or methods that I've ever used had any of the features above. Each time I wanted to test them I had to run a propietary IDE on my host machine, connect with a proprietary programming cable and write a custom subset of C to get anything done. Nerves provides a really amazing platform to skip most of the annoying bits of embedded programming and get down to features right away.