wfantund is derived from wpantund which was written and developed by
Nest Labs to make supporting Thread
connectivity on Unix-like operating systems more straightforward.
wfantund is a user-space network interface driver/daemon that
provides a native IPv6 network interface to TI Wi-SUN FAN Border Router
operating in Network Processor (NWP) mode.
TI Wi-SUN FAN Solution are supported over TI CC13xx platforms. Refer to https://www.ti.com/wireless-connectivity/wi-sun/overview.html for more details.
TI Wi-SUN FAN embedded software running on TI CC13xx platform can be downloaded from TI CC13xx_26xx SDK (https://www.ti.com/tool/download/SIMPLELINK-CC13X2-26X2-SDK)
Software provided in this repository provides Linux Application Examples that can run over TI Wi-SUN FAN Border Router NWP software (to be obtained from TI CC13xx_26xx SDK) connected via UART to a Linux Platform.
These examples are meant to be serve as sample application examples to aid in development of a Linux OS based Wi-SUN Border Router custom applications and provide back-end connectivity.
Software can be ported to other embedded Linux platforms to develop WI-SUN FAN based Border router solution. Reference cross compilation support has been provided for TI AM64x SK Platform (https://www.ti.com/tool/SK-AM64).
wfantund is designed to marshall all access to the NCP, ensuring
that it always remains in a consistent and well-defined state.
wfantund is based on wpantund.
wfantund is open-source software released under the Apache License,
Version 2.0. See the file LICENSE for more information.
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the [License][4] for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
Refer to Install.md for compiling and installing wfantund and wfanctl
in Ubuntu Linux OS.
Refer to Install_AM64x_sk.md for cross-compiling and installing wfantund and wfanctl
for TI AM64x SK (https://www.ti.com/tool/SK-AM64).
The behavior of wfantund is determined by its configuration
parameters, which may be specified in a configuration file (typically
/etc/wpantund.conf) or at the command line. A typical configuration
file might look like that shown below. For a more thorough explanation
of available configuration parameters, see the included example.
# Try to name the network interface `wpan0`.
# If not possible, a different name will be used.
Config:TUN:InterfaceName "wfan0"
# The pathname of the socket used to communicate
# with the NCP.
Config:NCP:SocketPath "/dev/ttyUSB0"
# The name of the driver plugin to use. The chosen
# plugin must support the NCP you are trying to use.
Config:NCP:DriverName "spinel"
TI's webserver application has been provided in the /ti-wisun-webapp folder. This application allows the user to easily configure the border router, monitor the health of the network, and build other applications on top of it.
Note: Make sure to follow the installation instructions in the ti-wisun-webapp README.md for the correct npm/node versions
This application automatically starts wfantund on detecting the border router device.
For more information, go to /ti-wisun-webapp/README.md
- Start the webserver found in
/ti-wisun-webapp/ - Connect one TI CC13x2R7 with TI Wi-SUN BR Image to Linux PC
- Power on one (or few) Wi-SUN FAN Router devices
- Wi-SUN FAN Router devices will start blinking their Green LED to show that they are trying to join network
- Rate at which they blink will go down as they connect to network
- Wi-SUN Router devices will stop blinking after they join the network (Note: It may take around 3-5 min for a node to join)
- The webserver application can be visualized using any standard webbrowser to display the Wi-SUN FAN network as a graph
- The webserver is designed to be a foundation that higher level applications can be developed on top of
To use wfanctl, first start wfantund:
sudo /usr/local/sbin/wfantund -o Config:NCP:SocketPath `<Serial Port>`
example: sudo /usr/local/sbin/wfantund -o Config:NCP:SocketPath /dev/ttyACM0
When up and running, you can use wfanctl to get or set TI Wi-SUN FAN Parameters
To start wfanctl use
$ sudo /usr/local/bin/wfanctl
You can also pass in the specific interface name using the -I option when connecting to an interface with a non-default name
$ sudo /usr/local/bin/wfanctl -I wfan0
To get/set properties use the get/set command.
example:
wfanctl:wfan0> get panid
0xABCD
The status of TI Wi-SUN Border Router along with some other related information like the daemon version can be obtained using the status command
wfanctl:wfan0> status
wfan0 => [
"NCP:State" => "offline"
"Daemon:Enabled" => true
"NCP:Version" => "TIWISUNFAN/1.0.2; RELEASE; Dec 19 2024 21:44:28"
"Daemon:Version" => "1.00.07 (0.07.01-397-g1f99dae-dirty; Dec 30 2024 19:47:08)"
"Config:NCP:DriverName" => "spinel"
"NCP:HardwareAddress" => [00124B0014F7D160]
"Network:NodeType" => "0 : Border Router"
"Network:PANID" => 0xABCD
]
For detailed list of all supported TI Wi-SUN FAN Command, please refer to ti_wisun_commands.md
The interface and stack can be started using the following command:
wfanctl:wfan0> set interface:up true
This brings up the stack interface and starts the NCP network stack.
Status of Interface can be checked by using the status command.
wfanctl:wfan0> status
wfan0 => [
"NCP:State" => "associated"
"Daemon:Enabled" => true
"NCP:Version" => "TIWISUNFAN/1.0.1; RELEASE; Oct 28 2021 14:02:58"
"Daemon:Version" => "1.00.07 (0.07.01-397-g1f99dae-dirty; Dec 30 2024 19:47:08)"
"Config:NCP:DriverName" => "spinel"
"NCP:HardwareAddress" => [00124B0014F7D160]
"Network:NodeType" => "0 : Border Router"
"Network:PANID" => 0xABCD
]
Note: associated in TI WI-SUN FAN Context implies that the TI Wi-SUN FAN Border Router has started.
To check the version of wfantund currently installed, run wfantund --version.
> wfantund --version
wfantund 1.00.07 (0.07.01-397-g1f99dae-dirty; Dec 30 2024 19:47:08)
When wfantund is already running, you can also check the daemon version in wfanctl using the status command.
By default, wfantund will assign the created interface the same IP address as the device it
is connected to. This means that traffic from the host destined to this address will be routed
to the loopback interface instead of physically going out to the device. Wfantund can instead
be configured to use its own unique IP address for the interface, allowing traffic to go freely to
and from the embedded device. To enable this option, uncomment the IPv6:WfantundGlobalAddress option
from wpandtund.conf or pass in the option on the command line when starting wfantund.
The default IPv6:WfantundGlobalAddress is 2020:ABCD::/64, which will create a route for any packets
destined to an address prefixed with 2020:ABCD:0000:0000 out via the wfantund interface. When using default
settings on the internal DHCP server on the border router or the external DHCP server detailed below, addresses
given out will match this pattern. If you change away from this default prefix, keep in mind you may need to either
update the addresses given out to nodes in the Wi-SUN network to use your new prefix, or manually create routes out
through the interface. Prefix sizes other than /64 are not currently supported.
The embedded border router project can be configured to route authentication and DHCP traffic up through wfantund.
To actually handle this traffic, two example servers are provided via Docker under the external-serversfolder.
Refer to the readme there to see how to configure and start the containers.
The iperf bandwidth measurement tool can be used to calculate network throughput via the TUN interfaces created by wfantund. It is recommended to use two separate Linux instances to host the border router and router node interfaces to prevent loopback issues and ensure packets are routed through to the embedded devices.
For data rates higher than 50kbps, it is recommended to increase the embedded NCP buffer sizes and UART baud rates to support higher traffic through the spinel interface. The following adjustments should be made on src builds of embedded router and border router devices (from TI CC13XX_CC26XX SimpleLink SDK):
- In wisun_ncp/src/ncp_config.h: Increase CONFIG_NCP_TX_BUFFER_SIZE to 2048
- In wisun_ncp/src/ncp_config.h: Increase CONFIG_NCP_UART_TX_CHUNK_SIZE to 2048
- In wisun_ncp/src/ncp_config.h: Increase CONFIG_NCP_UART_RX_BUFFER_SIZE to 2048
- In wisun_ncp/platform/uart.c: In the function otPlatUartEnable, increase params.baudRate to 460800
The following adjustment should be made to wfantund builds:
- In src/util/socket-utils: Increase gSocketWrapperBaud value to 460800;
While the Linux webserver can only be used with Wi-SUN border routers, wfantund and wfanctl can also be used with Wi-SUN router nodes. Coap nodes cannot be used, only border routers and router nodes, as they are NCP-enabled examples while coap node examples are embedded-only.
The steps to using wfantund and wfanctl for router nodes are the same. The only difference is, once the interface
is brought up using set interface:up true, the device will remain in the offline state, only transistioning
to the associated state once the device has joined the network.
When the stack is up, the TUN interface will be enabled. It can be verified by checking
$ ifconfig wfan0
wfan0: flags=4305<UP,POINTOPOINT,RUNNING,NOARP,MULTICAST> mtu 1280 metric 1
inet6 fe80::212:4b00:14f7:d160 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link>
inet6 2020:abcd::212:4b00:14f7:d160 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x0<global>
inet6 fe80::31b1:1233:76ab:d3e5 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link>
User can check for connected devices using the connecteddevices property
wfanctl:wfan0> get connecteddevices
connecteddevices = "
List of connected devices currently in routing table:
2020:abcd:0000:0000:0212:4b00:14f7:d102
2020:abcd:0000:0000:0212:4b00:14f7:d2e8`
Using the TUN interface, users can directly communicate to devices over IPv6.
Users can ping devices using linux ping6 application and wfan0 interface
ping6 -I wfan0 <ip address>
- Download TI CC13xx_26Xx SDK from https://www.ti.com/tool/download/SIMPLELINK-CC13XX-CC26XX-SDK
- Compile default project Binaries for
- BR NWP Image on CC13x2R7 (ns_br)
- Node CoAP image on CC13x2R7 (ns_node_coap) Refer to http://dev.ti.com/wisunsla for information on compiling out of box images and flashing to TI Launch Pads
wfantund based on wpantund provides:
- ... a native IPv6 interface to an NCP.
- ... a command line interface (
wfanctl) for managing and configuring the NCP. - ... a DBus API for managing and configuring the NCP.
- ... a way to reliably manage the power state of the NCP.
- ... a uniform mechanism for handling NCP firmware updates.
The architecture and design of wfantund is based on wpantund which
has been motivated by the following design goals (in no specific order):
- Portability across Unix-like operating systems (currently supports Linux. BSD support should be fairly trivial to add)
- Require few runtime dependencies (DBus, with boost needed when building)
- Single-threaded architecture, with heavy use of asynchronous I/O
- Power efficiency (0% CPU usage when idle)
- Allow management interface to be used by multiple independent applications simultaneously
- Allow multiple instances of
wfantundto gracefully co-exist on a single machine - Modular, plugin-based architecture (all details for communicating with a specific NCP stack are implemented as plugins)
Note that Windows is not currently supported, but patches are welcome.
The following NCP plugins are provided:
src/ncp-spinel: Modified from those provided bywpantundto support TI Wi-SUN FAN Border Router.src/ncp-dummy: A dummy NCP plug-in implementation meant to be the starting point for implementing new NCP plug-ins
wfantund is based on wpantund and is conceptually similar in purpose to the point-to-point
daemon (pppd, commonly used on Unix platforms to provide network
connectivity via a dial-up modems) except that instead of communicating
with a dial-up modem, wfantund is communicating with an NCP.
wfantund communicates with the NCP via an abstraction of a
asynchronous stream socket, which could be any of the following:
- A real serial port (UART) connected to the NCP (preferably with hardware flow control)
- The stdin and stdout from a subprocess (for supporting SPI interfaces using a translator program or debugging virtual stacks)
- A TCP socket (for debugging, not recommended for production)
Unlike a dial-up modem, NCPs often have a rich management interface
for performing operations, such as forming a network, joining a
network, scanning for nearby networks, etc. To perform these operations,
wfantund includes a command line utility called wfanctl.
Applications that need to directly configure the network interface can
also communicate directly with wfantund using its DBus API.
To expose a native IPv6 network interface to the host operating
system, wfantund uses the tun driver on Linux. On Linux, the
default name for the interface is wfan0.
If compiled with libreadline or libedit, wfanctl supports an
convenient interactive console. All commands support online help: type
help to get a list of supported commands, or add -h to a command to get
help with that specific command.
Submit bugs and feature requests to https://e2e.ti.com/support/wireless-connectivity/sub-1-ghz-group/sub-1-ghz/f/sub-1-ghz-forum
The following people have significantly contributed to the design
and development of wfantund:
Texas Instruments Inc
wpantund Authors
- Robert Quattlebaum
- Marcin Szczodrak
- Vaas Krishnamurthy
- Arjuna Siva
- Abtin Keshavarzian