Driver station coding and other

[Thomas Clark]

• Ideas we offered to the management to use three regular AP and connect each one of the three to two access point bridge and creating three different cells with the assistance of security WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) & Pre-shared key mode (PSK, also known as Personal mode) were not implemented.

Well, well, well.

[ErichKeane]

Originally Posted by Radical Pi

Oh really?



I believe this would be the same wireless that YOUR robot is operating on. Any attempts to interfere with it during one of your matches will not only knock out your bot, but it would be detected as a field fault and be a replayed match. Anyways, there is nothing interfering with the connection between the classmate and the FMS, so the auto-disable will be over-ridden by the field sending enable commands to the DS, re-activating the bot as soon as the connection is established again

Assuming your goal was to give you an advantage, and not just wreck the event. OR you weren't just trying to ruin a different team's score. Also, you can often do targeted attacks this way since they are all on a different VLAN and use different keys. The re-sync with the FMS takes a while, which would put the bot out of service for up to minutes.

First of all, un-GP

Second, most likely the FMS would catch it. The FTP connections to the cRIO would probably make it into the logs. Also, for anything to take effect a reboot is required, which I'm sure is noticed.

Very un-GP, however nefarious characters exist everywhere. You would think FTP connections to the cRIO would make the logs, however someone would have to be watching. AND your goal could be to attack for their NEXT match, so the reboot when they started next match would take effect.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by Thomas Clark

Okay, I accidentally caused another thread to get hijacked and locked, so I thought I should create a new one specifically for this topic.

After my first season, I'd like to say is that, truthfully, the FIRST tools are poorly thrown together. Although I'm not as experienced here as some people, I'd like to say a few things about them and ask if anyone agrees.

If you really think that, you should have been around even a few years ago... things were much, much worse. The system in place today is easy to use and, quite simply, works. The average student can write and download code to the robot without running into any hassles, which was NOT true about the old IFI system (there were times with that system where i would be forced to bang my head for several hours just to get code to download... then do it all over again the following week!).

The robot itself runs an unprotected FTP server. I really fear someone exploiting this, and I've already demonstrated that this is possible (no, I won't post the code). IMHO, they should either use a password, or, better yet, use encrypted SSH file transfer (SFTP).

First off, if you really fear someone exploiting this, then you haven't fully grasped one of the core concepts of FIRST - Gracious Professionalism. Trying to do something like this is, quite simply, cheating, and if it happens (and when it gets caught) you can be sure FIRST would be pretty strict.

Second, FIRST puts into place sufficient safeguards to ensure nothing accidental happens to the robots while they're on the field. Your average person in the stands, playing around on their laptop, isn't going to "accidentally" get connected to the secure field system. They aren't going to be able to "accidentally" do anything to the robots through the network. It would take a dedicated, intentional, and somewhat lengthy (at least 30 minutes if they're an expert, probably more like 2-10 hours for a good comp sci-focused student) process to be able to seriously negatively affect the robots.

The compiler doesn't support anything besides Windows, and some of us prefer Linux. The IDE I don't care about (I never use IDEs, just makefiles), but FIRST is limiting users' experiences by limiting who can program and on what operating system. IMHO, they should provide a build of the WPI library and compiler for Linux.

Welcome to the real world. Out here, a vast majority of work is done on Windows. In fact, where i work we have to do everything on Windows except for the actual deployment, which goes to some AIX boxes. As for not using IDEs and only makefiles... you really don't know what you're missing out on. makefiles are handy, I use them all the time... but you really do need an IDE once your project gets past a certain size. Imagine trying to work on a project with several thousand files and millions of lines of code... you aren't going to do that with VI. Get used to IDEs now, learn how to use them effectively. They provide shortcuts that will make you a better programmer.

Another this is the library. Although it's obvious that tremendous effort was put into it, I can tell that it was rushed to be finished before the build season started. All I can say is that I hope it's better next year.

Agree? Disagree? Another other notes?

Again, you should have seen what we had before. The library we have today works. It's not perfect, it may be missing a few things, but it's a heck of a lot better than what we had with IFI. Most importantly, it can be picked up by anyone. Someone with no code experience can pick it up, read a little documentation, and have a driving robot very quickly. You couldn't do that before.


All that said, if you don't like the current state of things, you have two options. You can sit here and complain about it, hoping that someone fixes it for you, or you can go out there and fix it yourself.

You want to be able to code, compile, and download on linux? Make it happen! start up the project, get the basic outline, and get it up on sourceforge. Post here about your efforts, and you'll find people willing to help. Before long, you'll have something working. It may remain as a community supported project for the rest of time, or FIRST/WPI/NI may pick it up and integrate it into their offerings, but either way you will have had a material impact on the program.

You think the security FIRST has for its network on the field isn't sufficient? Do the research, create a well-written white paper on robot security, and make some suggestions for improvements. Work with your own robot to implement some of these suggestions. Create youtube videos demonstrating the exploit and how your suggestions make it impossible.

In short, be productive about this. Its clear you're passionate about the subject. Use that passion to improve things for everyone, instead of sitting behind a keyboard whining about what FIRST should do for you. I can promise you - if you take some of these "problems" your posting about here and lead efforts to fix them, you'll be better for it. It will change the way you look at problems in the future. It will give you something great to talk about when interviewing for college or jobs.

[Dave Flowerday]

Originally Posted by eagle33199

The average student can write and download code to the robot without running into any hassles, which was NOT true about the old IFI system (there were times with that system where i would be forced to bang my head for several hours just to get code to download... then do it all over again the following week!).

There's a lot of people around here that will disagree with you on this statement, including me. The IFI system is alive and well in the VEX world (the VEX microcontroller is very similar to the IFI RC used by FRC in the past), and thousands of students all over the world use it successfully. So, I'd say that "the average student" is able to work with the IFI stuff just fine.

Originally Posted by eagle33199

As for not using IDEs and only makefiles... you really don't know what you're missing out on. makefiles are handy, I use them all the time... but you really do need an IDE once your project gets past a certain size. Imagine trying to work on a project with several thousand files and millions of lines of code... you aren't going to do that with VI.

I do that every day at Motorola, along with hundreds or thousands of other engineers here. I've worked with several different groups here, and all the products I've worked on have been built from a command line with make (and they've all had 1000s of files and millions of lines of code). Makefiles are very stable - we can build code that's 20 years old here without issue. If we did everything in an IDE, we'd have very little chance of being able to build our current projects 20 years in the future, when whatever IDE of choice today is long gone. Makefiles also make it easy to parallelize builds, which is important if it takes 6-8 hours to compile your code. Oh, and I do indeed do all my coding here with Vim, as do many others.

[codedr]

Originally Posted by Thomas Clark

The compiler doesn't support anything besides Windows, and some of us prefer Linux. The IDE I don't care about (I never use IDEs, just makefiles), but FIRST is limiting users' experiences by limiting who can program and on what operating system. IMHO, they should provide a build of the WPI library and compiler for Linux.

The WPI library would be the same if built on linux because the target is still the robot.

Building a cross environment on Linux would require
- build a ppc cross compiler for x86 linux
- integrate and test compiler in eclipse
- test the method for downloading the code to robot
- support all of the above for all the users

versus
- taking the existing wind river environment and deploy

When you consider that supporting the environment on windows is taking
all of the current volunteer time, you can see why adding another platform of
limited utility to a small number of users is not a priority.

If you can convince a small group of robo linux enthusiasts to build the
environment, you could grow support for this endeavor.

[Thomas Clark]

Originally Posted by codedr

Building a cross environment on Linux would require
- build a ppc cross compiler for x86 linux

GCC was ported to Linux almost twenty years ago. It can be easily targeted to vxWorks PPC.

Originally Posted by codedr

- integrate and test compiler in eclipse

Not really. Eclipse already runs on Linux as well.

Originally Posted by codedr

- test the method for downloading the code to robot

FTP on a normal non-VPN connection. (or non-VLAN or whatever)

Originally Posted by codedr

versus
- taking the existing wind river environment and deploy

Which required Windows. As I said, not everyone uses Windows.

Originally Posted by codedr

If you can convince a small group of robo linux enthusiasts to build the
environment, you could grow support for this endeavor.

Good idea. This would be easier, of course, if there were some sort of open specifications on how the virtual terminal monitor thing works. Is it SSH? Telnet? RSH?

In the meantime, I'll try getting GCC and WPIlib to work together on Linux and maybe write a small IDE in PyGTK.

[Robototes2412]

Yes! Pygtk FTW!

I have made some mockups in the past of a tabbed toolbar IDE, would you like me to post them here?

[Thomas Clark]

Originally Posted by Robototes2412

Yes! Pygtk FTW!

I have made some mockups in the past of a tabbed toolbar IDE, would you like me to post them here?

Sure.

Although not my preferred language/toolkit combo, PyGTK would be portable to both Linux, Mac, and almost anything else with Python and GTK.

And now GCC is slowly downloading, configuring, compiling, etc...

[Ken Streeter]

Originally Posted by codedr

The WPI library would be the same if built on linux because the target is still the robot.

This is absolutely true -- the limiting factor is the development environments in use, not the WPI library.

Originally Posted by codedr

Building a cross environment on Linux would require...

If you can convince a small group of robo linux enthusiasts to build the
environment, you could grow support for this endeavor.

With respect to Java development using NetBeans, I believe that after the initial imaging of the cRIO, you would be able to use NetBeans on a Linux machine to write your robot code without any troubles.

With respect to C++ development using Wind River Workbench, I believe that after the initial cRIO imaging, you could use Wind River Workbench for Linux (see http://www.windriver.com/products/pr...PO_WB_0109.pdf ) without any troubles. The only issue here is that you would need your own license for Wind River Workbench, as the one that is provided for FIRST is only for Windows development systems.

I confess to not knowing what options exist for running LabView on Linux hosts.

[Greg McKaskle]

LabVIEW for linux and Mac target local execution. For FRC, they will work for editing VIs, but the RT cross-targetting was dropped several releases back.

A quick comment on makefiles and IDEs -- don't be afraid of either one. Good IDEs are great at organizing workflow and integrating different tools into a somewhat cohesive experience. Bad or mediocre IDEs are a waste of launch time.

Make and other script oriented build environments are still with us, and in fact at least a few of the NI internal VxWorks developers choose to work from command line and text editor. If you poke around a bit, I suspect you can do FRC without the IDE.

Internally, LV development has been multi-platform for over twenty years. One of the cool things about that is exposure to many different development tools. We've always had at least one IDE and at least one non-IDE platform. It ebbs and flows.

Greg McKaskle

[LukeS]

Originally Posted by Thomas Clark

The robot itself runs an unprotected FTP server. I really fear someone exploiting this, and I've already demonstrated that this is possible (no, I won't post the code).

Yes, but an attacker can only get to the robot through the WPA encryption

Originally Posted by Thomas Clark

IMHO, they should either use a password, or, better yet, use encrypted SSH file transfer (SFTP).

1) FTP transmits passwords clear-text, so adding a password to normal FTP is pretty pointless.
2) SFTP isn't very common, FTPS (SSL) would be a better option.

Originally Posted by Thomas Clark

The compiler doesn't support anything besides Windows, and some of us prefer Linux. The IDE I don't care about (I never use IDEs, just makefiles), but FIRST is limiting users' experiences by limiting who can program and on what operating system. IMHO, they should provide a build of the WPI library and compiler for Linux.

1) the build of WPIlib would be the same, as it will be built for the target system
2) Java is already supported for ``Linux''
3) C++ is not out-of-the-box supported on *NIX systems, people have gotten it working. Notable posts I've found are here, and here. I haven't tinkered with this, as we used Java this year, and have been pretty busy. Now that we've been knocked out of the competition, I think I'll get this working, and throw together a .deb package.*
4) LabVIEW can be developed on ``Linux'', but you must specially request the Linux version of LabVIEW (no cost for FRC teams). Though the RTM needed to deploy is Windows only.
5) Just be glad that the whole thing is open-source, and not a black-box system like 2008 and earlier.

Originally Posted by Thomas Clark

Another this is the library. Although it's obvious that tremendous effort was put into it, I can tell that it was rushed to be finished before the build season started. All I can say is that I hope it's better next year.

All I can say is that I hope you file some patches before next year. It's fully BSD-3 licensed, on a public SCM. When free-software sucks, you don't get to gripe about it, you find what you don't like, write a patch, and fix it.

*If anyone has any pointers on getting this working, or has experience with other package formats, PM me.