nerves_runtime

nerves_runtime is a core component of Nerves. It contains applications and libraries that are expected to be useful on all Nerves devices.

Here are some of its features:

• Generic system and filesystem initialization (suitable for use with shoehorn)
• Introspection of Nerves system, firmware, and deployment metadata
• Device reboot and shutdown
• A small Linux kernel uevent application for capturing hardware change events and more
• IEx helpers to make life better when working from the IEx prompt
• More to come...

The following sections describe the features in more detail. For even more information, consult the hex docs.

System Initialization

nerves_runtime provides an OTP application (nerves_runtime) that can initialize the system when it is started. For this to be useful, nerves_runtime must be started before other OTP applications, since most will assume that the system is already initialized before they start. To set up nerves_runtime to work with shoehorn, you will need to do the following:

1. Include shoehorn in mix.exs

2. Include shoehorn in your rel/config.exs

3. Ensure that :nerves_runtime is at the beginning of the init: list in your config/config.exs:

   config :shoehorn,
     overlay_path: "",
     init: [:nerves_runtime, :other_app1, :other_app2],
     app: :your_app

Kernel Modules

nerves_runtime will attempt to auto-load kernel modules by calling modprobe using the modalias supplied by the device's uevent message. You can disable this feature by configuring autoload: false in your application configuration:

config :nerves_runtime, :kernel,
  autoload_modules: false

Filesystem Initialization

Nerves systems generally ship with one or more application filesystem partitions. These are used for persisting data that is expected to live between firmware updates. The root filesystem cannot be used since it is mounted as read-only by default.

nerves_runtime takes an unforgiving approach to managing the application partition: if it can't be mounted as read-write, it gets re-formatted. While filesystem corruption should be a rare event, even with unexpected loss of power, Nerves devices may not always be accessible for manual recovery. This default behavior provides a basic recoverability guarantee.

To verify that this recovery works, Nerves systems usually leave the application filesystems uninitialized so that the format operation happens on the first boot. This means that the first boot takes slightly longer than subsequent boots.

Note that a common implementation of "reset to factory defaults" is to purposely corrupt the application partition and reboot.

nerves_runtime uses firmware metadata to determine how to mount and initialize the application partition. The following variables are important:

• [partition].nerves_fw_application_part0_devpath - the path to the application partition (e.g. /dev/mmcblk0p3)
• [partition].nerves_fw_application_part0_fstype - the type of filesystem (e.g. ext4)
• [partition].nerves_fw_application_part0_target - where the partition should be mounted (e.g. /root or /mnt/appdata)

Nerves System and Firmware Metadata

All official Nerves systems maintain a list of key-value pairs for tracking various information about the system. This information is not intended to be written frequently. To get this information, you can call one of the following:

• Nerves.Runtime.KV.get_all_active/0 - return all key-value pairs associated with the active firmware.
• Nerves.Runtime.KV.get_all/0 - return all key-value pairs, including those from the inactive firmware, if any.
• Nerves.Runtime.KV.get_active/1 - look up the value of a key associated with the active firmware.
• Nerves.Runtime.KV.get/1 - look up the value of a key, including those from the inactive firmware, if any.

Global Nerves metadata includes the following:

Key	Build Environment Variable	Example Value	Description
nerves_fw_active	-	"a"	This key holds the prefix that identifies the active firmware metadata. In this example, all keys starting with "a." hold information about the running firmware.
nerves_fw_devpath	NERVES_FW_DEVPATH	"/dev/mmcblk0"	This is the primary storage device for the firmware.

Firmware-specific Nerves metadata includes the following:

Key	Example Value	Description
nerves_fw_application_part0_devpath	"/dev/mmcblkp3"	The block device that contains the application partition
nerves_fw_application_part0_fstype	"ext4"	The application partition's filesystem type
nerves_fw_application_part0_target	"/root"	Where to mount the application partition
nerves_fw_architecture	"arm"	The processor architecture (Not currently used)
nerves_fw_author	"John Doe"	The person or company that created this firmware
nerves_fw_description	"Stuff"	A description of the project
nerves_fw_platform	"rpi3"	A name to identify the board that this runs on. It can be checked in the fwup.conf before performing an upgrade.
nerves_fw_product	"My Product"	A product name that may show up in a firmware selection list, for example
nerves_fw_version	"1.0.0"	The project's version
nerves_fw_vcs_identifier	"bdeead38..."	A git SHA or other identifier (optional)
nerves_fw_misc	"anything..."	Any application info that doesn't fit in another field (optional)

Note that the keys are stored in the environment block prefixed by the firmware slot for which they pertain. For example, a.nerves_fw_description is the description for the firmware in the "A" slot.

Several of the keys can be set in the mix.exs file of your main Nerves project. This is the preferred way to set them because it requires the least amount of effort.

Assuming that your fwup.conf respects the fwup variable names listed in the table, the keys can also be overridden by setting environment variables at build time. Depending on your project, you may prefer to set them using a customized fwup.conf configuration file instead.

The fwup -m value shows the key that you'll see if you run fwup -m -i <project.fw> to extract the firmware metadata from the .fw file.

Key in Nerves.Runtime	Key in mix.exs	Build Environment Variable	Key in fwup -m
nerves_fw_application_part0_devpath	N/A	NERVES_FW_APPLICATION_PART0_DEVPATH	N/A
nerves_fw_application_part0_fstype	N/A	NERVES_FW_APPLICATION_PART0_FSTYPE	N/A
nerves_fw_application_part0_target	N/A	NERVES_FW_APPLICATION_PART0_TARGET	N/A
nerves_fw_architecture	N/A	NERVES_FW_ARCHITECTURE	meta-architecture
nerves_fw_author	:author	NERVES_FW_AUTHOR	meta-author
nerves_fw_description	:description	NERVES_FW_DESCRIPTION	meta-description
nerves_fw_platform	N/A	NERVES_FW_PLATFORM	meta-platform
nerves_fw_product	:name	NERVES_FW_PRODUCT	meta-product
nerves_fw_version	:version	NERVES_FW_VERSION	meta-version
nerves_fw_vcs_identifier	N/A	NERVES_FW_VCS_IDENTIFIER	meta-vcs-identifier
nerves_fw_misc	N/A	NERVES_FW_MISC	meta-misc

Device Reboot and Shutdown

Rebooting, powering-off, and halting a device work by signaling to erlinit an intention to shutdown and then exiting the Erlang VM by calling :init.stop/0. The Nerves.Runtime.reboot/0 and related utilities are helper methods for this. Once they return, the Erlang VM will likely only be available momentarily before shutdown. If the OTP applications cannot be stopped within a timeout as specified in the erlinit.config, erlinit will ungracefully terminate the Erlang VM.

Reverting firmware

If you'd like to go back to the previous version of firmware running on a device, you can do that if the Nerves system supports it. At the IEx prompt, run:

iex> Nerves.Runtime.revert

Going back to previous versions of firmware is an important topic for building devices that can survive buggy firmware updates without manual intervention. Making this work well involves non-Elixir components like bootloaders. This feature isn't intended to be bulletproof, but it certainly can get you out of bad situations.

One important use case is to be able to remotely update a device and have it automatically revert its firmware after a timeout or if it can't reach the network. A common requirement is to handle crashes and hangs. The noraml strategy for implementing this to have the device allow one boot of new firmware and then to mark it "valid" if code gets to a good point (like connect to a server). If something goes wrong, then the next reboot reverts back to the original firmware. If you're running a scriptable bootloader like U-boot, it's best to have the logic implemented there to minimize the code that must work. Here's a simple alternative:

1. After upgrading firmware, save that the next boot is the first one.
2. On the reboot, if this is the first boot, record that the boot happened and revert the firmware with reboot: false. If this is not the first boot, carry on.
3. When you're happy with the new firmware, revert the firmware again with reboot: false. I.e., revert the revert. It is critical that revert is only called once.

To make this handle issues that result in hangs, you'll want to enable a hardware watchdog.

Note that this simple mechanism doesn't help with any failure that happens before the tentative revert step.

IEx helpers

The Nerves.Runtime.Helpers module provides a number of functions that are useful when working at the IEx prompt on a target. They include:

• cmd/1 - runs a shell command and prints the output
• dmesg/0 - dump kernel messages
• hex/1 - inspects a value in hexadecimal mode
• reboot/0 - reboots gracefully
• reboot!/0 - reboots immediately

More information is available in the module docs for Nerves.Runtime.Helpers and through h/1.

Prior to Nerves 1.0.0, the IEx helpers weren't loaded by default in the new project generator. To use them, run the following:

iex> use Nerves.Runtime.Helpers

If you expect to use them frequently, add them to your .iex.exs on the target by running:

iex> Nerves.Runtime.Helpers.install

Operating system log collection

Operating system-level messages from /dev/log and /proc/kmsg, forwarding them to Logger with an appropriate level to match the syslog priority parsed out of the message.

You can disable this feature (e.g. when running in CI) by configuring the following option:

# config.exs
config :nerves_runtime, enable_syslog: false

Installation

The package can be installed by adding nerves_runtime to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [{:nerves_runtime, "~> 0.5.0"}]
end

More detailed documentation can be found at https://hexdocs.pm/nerves_runtime.