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RDK-V Emulator Users Guide

Copyright 2023 RDK Management, LLC. All rights reserved.

The contents of this document are RDK Management, LLC Proprietary and Confidential and may not be distributed or otherwise disclosed without prior written permission of RDK Management, LLC.

Document Status 


Document Control Number

D10-20141105

Document Title

RDK Emulator Users Guide

Version

D05

Date

2022/12/10

Status

Issued (I)

Distribution

RDK licensees & ASP Members

Document Status Codes


Work in Progress (WIP)

An incomplete document designed to guide discussion and generate feedback that may include several alternative requirements for consideration.

Draft (D)

A document in specification format considered largely complete, but lacking review. Drafts are susceptible to substantial change during the review process.

Pre-Issued (Pre I)

A revision of a document circulated for review or approval prior to release, but not approved for distribution

Issued (I)

A stable document, which has undergone rigorous review and is suitable for product design and development 
It will serve as a basis for testing requirements.

Legal Notices

This document is provided under the terms and conditions of the RDK License Agreement, License Agreement for Software Integration Kit, License Agreement for Set-top Box Software Integration Kit.

RDK Management LLC is not responsible for any liability of any nature whatsoever resulting from or arising out of any use or reliance upon this specification. This document is furnished on an "AS IS" basis, and RDK Management, LLC does not provide any representation or warranty, express or implied, regarding its accuracy, completeness, or fitness for a particular purpose."

Table of Contents

Introduction

RDK (Reference Design Kit) is an integrated set of software components, tools and documentation that help in the development of the software stack for set-top box based on the standard Linux operating system which is designed to meet the requirements of the latest generation media servers and clients.

The RDK emulator is an x86 based implementation of the RDK software stack. It is primarily targeted towards the RDK development community (integrators, component developers and application developers) that attempts to simplify the process of working with the RDK software stack without the need for a reference hardware platform.  As RDK emulator runs on desktop computers, applications can be tested and debugged before trying to deploy them to real devices.

Purpose of this Document

The purpose of this document is to enable RDK users and developers to be able to bring up the RDK stack and emulator on the PC platform. The document also includes step-by-step procedures to setup & build RDK Emulator

Audience

The intended audience includes the MSO teams, developers and external vendors responsible for the development of firmware and applications for RDK-based Set Top Boxes 

Scope

Scope of this document includes understanding RDK Emulator and  functionalities, supported build types and to run and test in Virtual Box environment.

Limitations

RDK Emulator does not support all components of RDK 4.0 stack. Currently there is no startup UI, system boots up in console mode.

Known Issues

  • High bitrate streams played using aamp-cli utility freezes during playback.
  • Screen goes blank after sometime 

Abbreviations and Acronyms

The following table describes the acronyms and abbreviations used in this document

Abbreviation/Acronym

Description

RDK

Reference Development Kit

VM

Virtual Machine

VBox

Virtual Box

STB

Set Top Box

XRE

Cross-Platform Runtime Environment

HDD

Hard Disk Drive

SPTS

Single Program Transport Stream

UPNP

Universal Plug and Play

Overview of RDK Emulator

  • Executes on x86-based platforms including virtualization environments such as Virtual Box and QEMU.
  • Multiple build types - media client
  • Up to date with the RDK generic trunk and any x86-specific platform code.
  • Built using Yocto and RDK build frameworks

Key Features

  • ResidentApp startup UI
  • Video/Audio playback using westerossink gstreamer element.
  • IP video streaming playback using aamp-cli utility

Supported Build Types


Build Types

RDK Components Involved

Features/Applications Supported

Final Image Name

Startup Application

 RDKV Mediaclient

  1. wpeframework
  2. webkitbrowser
  3. westeros
  4. gstreamer
  1. ResidentApp

rdk-generic-mediaclient-image-qemux86.vmdk

ResidentApp

Build Setup Instructions

Setting up the Host Environment

How to Build#SettinguptheHostEnvironment

Downloading Source Code & Building

RDK-V Emulator Build Guide

Bringing up the Emulator on Virtual Box

Host Requirements

RequirementRemarks
Linux                           64 bit Ubuntu 18.04 operating system
Free HDD SpaceMinimum 100GB Free Memory
Oracle Virtual Box6.1 or higher

Install Virtual Box and follow the following steps to bring up RDK Emulator on Virtual Box:

In the following steps, it is recommended to review the description and screenshot completely before proceeding with steps.

STEP 1: Create your new VM Instance:

  • Open Virtualbox

  • Select New [A popup will come up]

  • Select Type as ‘Linux’

  • Select Version as ‘Other Linux (32 Bit)’

  • Click on “Next”

  • Choose a Memory Size of at least 4GB


  • Use an existing virtual hard drive file which would be your newly built image in *.vmdk format and create your VM:

STEP 2: Configure your new VM Instance:

  • Click on “Settings” tab to configure your new VM instance

  • Set video memory to at least 64 MB in Display tab, and don't select the 3D acceleration
  • Configure your VMs network settings
  • Choose “Bridged Adapter” mode as shown in the screenshot below

STEP 3: Create an external hard drive:

Your VM has been built with very limited hard drive space. In order to run emulator and play video files, you need to copy your video files into the file system for playback. For this, you will need to setup a virtual external hard drive.

  • Select the vm instance on the main menu of Virtual Box
  • Click Settings -> Storage -> Add Hard disk [icon]
  • Click ‘Create new disk’ (Note: In the screenshot below, "Choose existing disk" may seem highlighted. Please select "Create new disk")


  • Select VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) as your Hard Drive file type:

  • Select "Dynamically allocated" storage: 

STEP 4: Formatting and partitioning your new external hard drive:

  • Boot up the image and and get IP address from ResidentApp Network info screen
  • Once you have the IP address you may SSH into your VM from your linux shell console. Use root as the ssh user.
$ ssh root@x.x.x.x
  • Use the “mount” command to see the current status of connected hard disks
$ mount

  • Use fdisk command to list out connected hard drives. You may note that in the screenshot below, there are two hard drives listed. hda and hdb. hdb is the external hard drive that we have created in the previous step.
$ fdisk -l

  • Use fdisk to create your new hard disk partition
$ fdisk /dev/hdb

Review the description of the steps during fdisk operation below and the following screenshot for reference before proceeding.

  • Use fdisk to create your new hard disk partition
    • Use the command "n" to add a new partition
$ Command (m for help): n
    • Select partition type as the suggested default "p" for primary partition

$ Partition type:

p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)

e extended

Select (default p): p

    • Set your partition number as the suggested default. In the example case: 1
$ Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
    • Press "Enter" key for First sector & Last sector prompts
    • Select the command "p" to print the partition table on screen for review
$ Command (m for help): p
    • Select the command "w" to write the partition table to disk and exit fdisk
$ Command (m for help): w



  • Format your newly created partition with ext3 file system
$ mkfs.ext3 /dev/hdb1

  • Create a folder for mounting your new partition at /ext_hdd
  • Mount your newly created hard disk partition to /ext_hdd

$ mkdir /ext_hdd

$ mount /dev/hdb1 /ext_hdd

STEP 5: Copy a video file to your file system to be used for emulator video playback.

  • Pre-requisite to the step is assumed that /ext_hdd is already mounted with the external hard disk partition on your emulator VM
  • Copy your video file from your host machine to /ext_hdd folder on the emulator VM 
  • Note: The following command is performed from your Host Machine
$ scp <file_name> root@<your_emulator_vm_ip>:/ext_hdd


Usage Instructions

Logging into your VM

As described in the previous section, you can log in to your emulator VM from your Host Machine using the ssh command.

$ ssh root@x.x.x.x

Testing animation using westeros compositor test application

RDK emulator supports westeros compositor and renderer module as westeros-renderer-gl. Do the following to check westeros animation using westeros_test command line utility.

  • After logging in to the Emulator via ssh, kill the already running compositor application via below command and comment the last line in westeros-init.sh so that compositor is not started automatically on bootup
$ killall westeros

Comment the last line in /usr/bin/westeros-init.sh so that compositor is not started automatically on bootup
#westeros --renderer /usr/lib/libwesteros_render_gl.so.0.0.0 --display WPE
  • Restart the Emulator VM
  • Run following commands in terminal for manual starting the westeros compositor application
$ mkdir -p /run/user/0
$ export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/0/
$ export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libwesteros_gl.so.0.0.0
$ westeros --renderer /usr/lib/libwesteros_render_gl.so.0.0.0 --display WPE
  • Run westeros_test application in another window as given below
$ westeros_test


Testing video playback using Gstreamer command line utility

  • Start the westeros compositor application as mentioned before if its not already running.
  • Copy video files to the VM at /hdd path
  • Execute below command(s) to play video
$ gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file:///hdd/<filename>

Testing video streaming using aamp-cli utility

  • Start the westeros compositor application as mentioned before if its not already running.
  • Execute the below command to play clear-stream videos
$ aamp-cli <url>
e.g.
$ aamp-cli http://devimages.apple.com/iphone/samples/bipbop/bipbopall.m3u8
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