coreflightexec Files

Core Flight Executive Open Source Release Readme

Date: 
April 10, 2014

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 ) 6.3.2
 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 and 6.x
  On a 64 bit system, it should build and run as a 32 bit application.
  You may have to install 32 bit development libraries in order to compile
  and link everything. 
 
  It should be possible to build on other linux distributions
  ( Debian, Ubuntu, SUSE, etc ) 
  
  Previous versions of the OSAL and cFE supported building and running on 
  cygwin and OS X, but these are no longer supported due to a lack of 
  resources to maintain these ports.

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: 
    One more target is included, but it may take additional work to
    run. It is included as examples of other target 
    environments.
    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.

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