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Frequently Asked Questions

danbim edited this page Aug 29, 2012 · 39 revisions

General Questions

I Think I Found a Bug, Where Can I Post It?

In the issue tracker. Please make sure to check the existing issues so that issues are not posted twice.

Is There a Mailing List?

Yes, there is! Please see Mailing List for details.

How Can I Contribute?

Easily! The only thing you need is a github account and you're ready to go. If you want to contribute documentation please simply edit the Wiki. Please check Contributing for more information if you want to contribute code.

How Can I Use Serial Port Autodetection?

Please see Serial Port Autodetection.

How Can I Customize the Logging Behavior?

Please see Logging Customization.

Is it possible to use embedded systems like Alix as gateway hosts in my testbed infrastructure?

Sure it is! We tested the deployment of a small-scale testbed with 1 testbed server and 1 Alix acting as a gateway, with a few telosb nodes connected to it. We used the linux voyage distribution on our Alix, so if you use that one you should not have any problem. For details on installation and configuration, just follow the instructions, there is no difference in using an embedded system or a standard pc!

When running TR from my IDE the connection to the Session Management Service hangs

This behavior has been observed at least on Mac computers depending on the current connectivity status (WLAN, Ethernet, ...). Sometimes the TCP connection to the service is made but then no data is transmitted between Web service client and server and eventually the connection times out. This can be fixed by not binding to all network interfaces (i.e. not using 0.0.0.0 as binding IP address). Please pass the command line parameter -DdisableBindAllInterfacesUrl to the JVM when starting TR to disable binding to all interfaces.

Can I specify a default image that is automatically flashed to the nodes after a reservation is over?

Yes, you can (since 0.8.4)! Everything you have to do in order to do so is to specify the path to the default image file in conf/tr.iwsn-testbed.xml as in the following example:

<application name="WSNDeviceApp" factoryclass="de.uniluebeck.itm.tr.runtime.wsnapp.WSNDeviceAppFactory">
  <wsn:wsnDevice xmlns:wsn="http://itm.uniluebeck.de/tr/runtime/wsnapp/xml">
    <urn>urn:local:0x1234</urn>
    <type>isense39</type>
    <defaultImage>/full/path/to/the/defaultimage.bin</defaultImage>
  </wsn:wsnDevice>
</application>

Can I listen to node outputs without a reservation?

There are two answers to this question:

  1. There will be a standardized official API in the next WISEBED API release. However, until this API is fully defined and the implementation is done some time will likely pass by.

  2. Until then: If you're the testbed provider (i.e. you run the testbed) there's an unofficial way to do this. Simply put the following configuration snippet in your tr.iwsn-testbed.xml in the <applications>-section:

<application name="SocketConnector" factoryclass="de.uniluebeck.itm.tr.runtime.socketconnector.server.SocketConnectorApplicationFactory">
<sc:socketconnector xmlns:sc="http://itm.uniluebeck.de/tr/runtime/socketconnector/server/xml">
  <port>1234</port>
</sc:socketconnector>
</application>

Introducing the SocketConnector will create a ServerSocket on the configured port to which any client application speaking the internal Testbed Runtime protocol can connect. SocketConnectorClient 0.8.4 is a sample client application that uses the overlay protocol spoken between the testbed hosts and the application-level protocol spoken between the Web Service endpoint and the gateway hosts.

My iSense device is recognized as "xbee" device and therefore not working

This is a known issue if you're using the new iSense gateway module 2. Testbed Runtime uses the wsn-device-utils to detect which devices are attached to which serial port. Sensor nodes usually have a USB<->serial converter on board that delivers some identification. Unfortunately, this identification is very similar to the xbee identification. Currently, the only solution is to download the FT_PROG application from the FTDI website and rewrite the EEPROM so that the field "Product Description" (FT EEPROM -> USB String Descriptors -> Manufacturer) is set to the string "isense-gateway-module-2". Testbed Runtime should then correctly identify the attached device.