Vector Packet Processing (VPP) introduction

The Vector Packet Processing(VPP) platform is an extensible framework that provides out-of-the-box production quality switch/router functionality.It is the open source version of Cisco's Vector Packet Processing (VPP) technology(a high performance packet-processing stack that can run on commodity CPUs). The benefits of this implementation of VPP are its high performance, proven technology, its modularity and flexibility, and rich feature set.

VPP is open source high-performance packet processing software. It leverages the Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) to take advantage of fast I/O. DPDK provides fast packet processing libraries and user space drivers. It receives and send packets with a minimum number of CPU cycles by bypassing the kernel and using a user poll mode driver. Details on how to configure DPDK can be found in the DPDK Documentation. One of the benefits of this implementation of VPP is its high performance on relatively low-power computing. 

This high level of performance is based on the following highlights:

•  High-performance user-space network stack for commodity hardware
• The same code for host, VMs, Linux containers
• Integrated vhost-user virtio backend for high speed VM-to-VM connectivity
• L2 and L3 functionality, multiple encapsulations
• Leverages best-of-breed open source driver technology: DPDK
• Extensible by use of plugins
• Control-plane / orchestration-plane via standards-based APIs

ref:

Vector Packet Processing(VPP) -

1. https://fd.io/technology/
2. https://wiki.fd.io/view/VPP/What_is_VPP%3F
3. https://buildmedia.readthedocs.org/media/pdf/fdio-vpp/latest/fdio-vpp.pdf
4. https://object-storage-ca-ymq-1.vexxhost.net/swift/v1/6e4619c416ff4bd19e1c087f27a43eea/www-assets-prod/presentation-media/VPP-Barcelona.pdf

Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) overview -

1. https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/userspace-networking-dpdk
2. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e6d9/e0b89795005d7d5d4b0464bf7271ddd02ac0.pdf
3. https://doc.dpdk.org/guides/prog_guide/overview.html
4. https://blog.selectel.com/introduction-dpdk-architecture-principles/

Build a Fast Network Stack with Vector Packet Processing (VPP) on an Intel® Architecture Server - https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/build-a-fast-network-stack-with-vpp-on-an-intel-architecture-server

VPP vs DPDK - https://www.dpdk.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2016/08/Day02-Session04-ThomasHerbert-DPDKUSASummit2016.pdf

PVPP(Programmable Vector Packet Processing) - https://web.stanford.edu/~yo2seol/static/talks/pvpp-cisco.pdf

OpenWrt Overview ..

OpenWrt is an embedded operating system based on Linux, primarily used on embedded devices to route network traffic. It can run on various types of devices, including CPE routers, residential gateways, smartphones, pocket computers (e.g. Ben NanoNote), and laptops. It is also possible to run OpenWrt on personal computers, which are most commonly based on the x86 architecture.

Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with package management. This frees you from the application selection and configuration provided by the vendor and allows you to customize the device through the use of packages to suit any application. For developer, OpenWrt is the framework to build an application without having to build a complete firmware around it; for users this means the ability for full customization, to use the device in ways never envisioned.

OpenWrt Commands:

1. Kernel version => uname -a
2. OS version => cat /etc/banner
3. Show contents of syslog => logread
4. Install OpenWRT packages => https://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/ar71xx/generic/packages/packages/
opkg install kmod-bluetooth bluez-utils
opkg install libusb

OpenWRT BlueZ packages =>

bluelog-live_1.1.2-1_ar71xx.ipk 32868 18-Jun-2016 17:57
bluelog_1.1.2-1_ar71xx.ipk 10945 18-Jun-2016 17:57
bluez-daemon_5.38-1_ar71xx.ipk 488028 18-Jun-2016 17:52
bluez-examples_5.38-1_ar71xx.ipk 29941 18-Jun-2016 17:51
bluez-libs_5.38-1_ar71xx.ipk 48830 18-Jun-2016 17:51
bluez-utils_5.38-1_ar71xx.ipk 861936 18-Jun-2016 17:52

ref:

Official - https://openwrt.org/https://openwrt.org/

Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt

OpenWrt github - https://github.com/openwrt

Getting started with OpenWRT - http://www.cambus.net/getting-started-with-openwrt/

OpenWRT Build System - https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/build

Building C++ code - http://www.black-swift.com/wiki/index.php?title=C/C%2B%2B_Building_Environment

OpenWRT SDK download - https://downloads.openwrt.org/

OpenWRT Custom Build - https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/build

OpenWrt BlueZ - https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=1650

OpenWrt on x86 PC - https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=20478, https://we.riseup.net/lackof/openwrt-on-x86-64

OpenWrt on VirtualBox - https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/virtualbox

Generic Basic Howtos for OpenWrt - https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/generic.overview

OpenWRT Mini Handbook - https://github.com/airplug/airplug/wiki/OpenWRT-Mini-Handbook

OpenWRT FAQ before installation - https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/faq/before.installation

OpenWRT after installation - https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/faq/after.installation

Image Generator (Image Builder) - https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/obtain.firmware.generate

USB Bluetooth support - https://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/usb.bluetooth

Misc - https://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?id=1650

ThreadX RTOS ..

ThreadX is advanced Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) designed specifically for deeply embedded applications. ThreadX provides advanced scheduling facilities, message passing, interrupt management, and messaging services, as well as many others. ThreadX has many advanced features, including its picokernel™ architecture, preemption-threshold™ scheduling, event-chaining,™ and a rich set of system services. Combined with its superior ease-of-use, ThreadX is the ideal choice for the most demanding of embedded applications. ThreadX has been deployed in over over 2 billion electronic products in the areas of consumer devices, medical electronics, and industrial control equipment.Similar RTOSes are available from other vendors such as VxWorks, Nucleus RTOS, OSE, QNX, LynxOS, etc.

ThreadX is implemented as a C library. Only the features used by the application are brought into the final image. The minimal footprint of ThreadX is under 2KB on Microcontrollers.

• Minimal Kernel Size: Under 2K bytes
• Queue Services: 900 bytes
• Semaphore Services: 450 bytes
• Mutex Services: 1200 bytes
• Block Memory Services: 550 bytes
• Minimal RAM requirement: 500 bytes
• Minimal ROM requirement: 2K bytes

The name ThreadX is derived from the fact that threads are used as the executable modules and the letter "X" represents context switching, i.e., it switches threads. ThreadX can be seen as the "QThreads" of SystemC implemented in preemptive fashion. Like most RTOSes, ThreadX uses a multitasking kernel with preemptive scheduling, fast interrupt response, memory management, interthread communication, mutual exclusion, event notification, and thread synchronization features.

ThreadX is generally used in real-time embedded systems, especially in deeply embedded systems. Developing embedded systems using ThreadX is usually done on a host machine running Linux or Microsoft Windows, using cross-compiling target software to run on various target processor architectures. Several ThreadX-aware development tools are available, such as Wind River Workbench, ARM RealView, Green Hills Software's MULTI, Metrowerks CodeWarrior, IAR C-SPY, Lauterbach TRACE32, and visionCLICK.

ref:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThreadX

http://rtos.com/products/threadx/

https://students.cs.byu.edu/~cs345ta/reference/RT%20Embedded%20Multithreading.pdf

http://amkamboh.seecs.nust.edu.pk/index_files/Multitasking%20Demo.pdf

http://rtos.com/products/guix/

ThreadX Application API - http://rtos.com/images/uploads/programmersguide_threadx.pdf

ThreadX to Linux porting -

• http://www.mapusoft.com/port-threadx-applications-to-linux/
• http://www.slideshare.net/MapuSoft/easy-way-to-port-thread-x-applications-to-linux
• http://info.mapusoft.com/Webinar3-29-11Webdnldpg.html

Yocto Embedded Linux ..

The Yocto Project is an open source collaboration that provides standardized high-quality infrastructure, tools, and methodology to help decrease the complexity and increase the portability of Linux implementations. This open standard environment helps developers more easily create and maintain their own custom Linux distributions that can run across multiple hardware architectures and support different market segments.

The Yocto Project is an umbrella project. Poky is one of the the largest components of the Yocto Project, and Poky continues as an independent, open source project developing the build system used by the Yocto Project, as well as by other open source projects. Poky is a reference system of the Yocto Project. It is the platform-independent, cross-compiling integration layer that utilizes OpenEmbedded Core. It provides the mechanism to build and combine thousands of distributed open source projects together to form a fully customizable, complete, coherent Linux software stack.

The Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded share a core collection of metadata called openembedded-core. However, the two organizations remain separate, each with its own focus. OpenEmbedded provides a comprehensive set of metadata for a wide variety of architectures, features, and applications. The Yocto Project focuses on providing powerful, easy-to-use, interoperable, well-tested tools, metadata, and board support packages (BSPs) for a core set of architectures and specific boards.

The Yocto ADT (application developper tools) are based on the SDK (i.e. architecture-specific cross-toolchain and matching sysroot), but when talking about the ADT we also mean the Eclipse Yocto Plug-in, the Quick EMUlator (QEMU, which lets you simulate target hardware) and various user-space tools (e.g. for application profiling or latency measurements). The default development toolchain is based on GCC.

High-performance, flexible Wind River Linux delivers the power of the industry-standard Yocto Project infrastructure with better interoperability across many popular platforms. With the Yocto Project 1.7 open source development infrastructure as its core foundation, Wind River Linux uses the latest Linux kernel as its upstream source to ensure customers have commercially supported access to the newest advancements from the open source community. 

Intel's Edison computing module was built on Yocto-based Linux and the Intel Atom processor.

Wind River Linux Core Platform:

ref:

Yocto project - 

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yocto_Project
• https://www.yoctoproject.org/
• http://www.aosabook.org/en/yocto.html

Yocto source repositories - https://git.yoctoproject.org/

Yocto Faq - https://wiki.yoctoproject.org/wiki/FAQ

WindRiver Linux - http://www.windriver.com/products/linux.html

Yocto project documentation - https://www.yoctoproject.org/documentation 

Yocto project development manual - http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/current/dev-manual/dev-manual.html#usingpoky-extend-addpkg 

Yocto project Linux Kernel Development Manual - http://www.yoctoproject.org/docs/1.7/kernel-dev/kernel-dev.html

Intel Yocto Project - https://software.intel.com/en-us/search/site/language/en?query=Yocto%20Project

Architecture of opensource applications - http://www.aosabook.org/en/index.html

Miscellaneous:
http://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/mobile-linux/788030-intels-edison-brings-yocto-linux-to-wearables