rpl tutorial

Contiki RPL Quickstart using Econotags

Contiki RPL implements the IETF ROLL working group's RPL: IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks. This routing standard enables you to set up a route-over 6LowPAN network.

This tutorial will show you how to run Contiki's RPL demos on Redwire Econotags.

1. Obtain Redwire Econotags, or other mc1322x hardware.

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See the mc1322x hardware for an incomplete, but growing list of mc1322x hardware.

We recommend a few Econotags to get started. In addition to the mc13224v, the Econotag also has the FT2232H USB dual port controller. One port is connected to UART1 and all the necessary pins to load, erase, and reset the mc13224v. The other port is connected to the JTAG pins for run-time debugging. No other programming hardware is necessary. Just your computer!

2. Get a toolchain, and Contiki source.

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Everything you need is in Instant Contiki 2.5. If you are going to be working primarily with Contiki then this is the way to go.

Instant Contiki contains the mc1322x-oe [ubuntu] [mac] toolchain.

Development of the mc1322x port occurs in a different branch from the main Contiki CVS repository. The most current mc1322x contiki port can be found here: contik-mc1322x.git

3. Build the border-router and rpl-udp

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The RPL demo consists of a "Border router" and at least one other RPL enabled node. For this tutorial, the border router creates a RPL DAG and is the ROOT. The other node will be a RPL udp-client. It joins the RPL network, acts as an RPL router, and sends a UDP datagram to a hardcoded IPV6 address. This tutorial only handles a two node network, but can be extended for any number of nodes.

The general command to make a Contiki binary for the Econotag is:

make TARGET=redbee-econotag

To build the border-router:

cd contiki-2.x/examples/ipv6/rpl-border-router
make TARGET=redbee-econotag

This will produce the binary image 'border-router_redbee-econotag.bin', which you can load directly on to an mc1322x and execute.

To build the udp-client, do:

cd contiki-2.x/examples/ipv6/udp-client
make TARGET=redbee-econotag

which will build 'udp-client_redbee-econotag.bin'.

4. Load the binaries on the Econotags:

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a) Run the econotags with randomized MAC addresses (random, but persistent)

After building border-router_redbee-econotag.bin, you load the code with:

mc1322x-load.pl -f border-router_redbee-econotag.bin -t /dev/ttyUSB1 -c 'bbmc -l redbee-econotag reset'

The econotag will flash itself with a random Redwire MAC address if you haven't programmed one in:

address in flash blank, setting to defined IAB with a random extention.
flashing blank address
Rime started with address 00:50:C2:FF:FE:A8:C2:66
CSMA sicslowmac, channel check rate 100 Hz, radio channel 26
Tentative link-local IPv6 address
fe80:0000:0000:0000:0250:c2ff:fea8:c266
Tentative global IPv6 address aaaa:0000:0000:0000:0250:c2ff:fea8:c266

This mac address is used to derive its IPv6 address. In this example, it's aaaa::0250:c2ff:fea8:c266.

The border router connects to your computer over a SLIP tunnel formed by tunslip6 --- a tool included in Contiki.

To make tunslip6:

cd contiki-2.x/tools
make tunslip6

You need to run tunslip6 to create this tunnel and SLIP connection:

tunslip6 -s /dev/ttyUSB1 aaaa::1/64

b) Program the MAC addresses on the Econotag

To erase the econotag (and the MAC address), first make sure you've built BBMC:

cd contiki-2.x/cpu/mc1322x/tool/ftditools
make

If you have trouble, see the BBMC page for details. BBMC controls the FT2232H over USB through libftdi. It can reset or erase an mc13224v. To erase:

bbmc -l redbee-econotag erase

Then to flash just the MAC address you need to build flasher from libmc1322x. See:

http://mc1322x.devl.org/libmc1322x.html

Then to flash the MAC address you can do:

mc1322x-load.pl -e -f flasher_redbee-econotag.bin -z -t /dev/ttyUSB1 -c 'bbmc -l redbee-econotag reset' 0x1e000,0xABC25000,0x010000C0

• -z to indicate you are sending a zero length binary to flasher.
• -e causes mc1322x-load.pl to exit when it's done, instead of dropping to a terminal

The next time you run Contiki you'll get:

loading rime address from flash.
Rime started with address 00:50:C2:AB:C0:00:00:01
CSMA sicslowmac, channel check rate 100 Hz, radio channel 26
Tentative link-local IPv6 address
fe80:0000:0000:0000:0250:c2ab:c000:0001
Tentative global IPv6 address aaaa:0000:0000:0000:0250:c2ab:c000:0001

N.B. for all of the bbmc commands, you'll need to use -i if you have more than one econotag plugged in. On most systems the indexes are enumerated backwards from the terminals. E.g. if you have 23 nodes connected, then /dev/ttyUSB1 will be on ftdi index 22 and the load command would be:

mc1322x-load.pl -f foo.bin -t /dev/ttyUSB1 -c 'bbmc -l redbee-econotag -i 22 reset'

5. Start the udp-client

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Use mc1322x-load.pl to run udp-client_redbee-econotag.bin on the second econotag:

mc1322x-load.pl -f udp-client_redbee-econotag.bin -t /dev/ttyUSB3
'bbmc -l redbee-econotag -i 0'

6. Check the border router's webpage for status

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The RPL border-router serves a webpage that displays the known neighbors and the known routes to all the node on the DAG. In firefox, you can type in the following to go to a IPv6 address:

http://[aaaa:0000:0000:0000:0250:c2ff:fea8:c266]

Neighbors

fe80::250:c2ff:fea8:cbf4

Routes

aaaa::250:c2ff:fea8:cbf4/128 (via fe80::250:c2ff:fea8:cbf4)

7. Ping6 all the nodes

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After a short time, once the DAG forms to a node, you should see a route appear on the border-router's status page. You can ping this node from the computer running 'tunslip6'

ping6 aaaa::250:c2ff:fea8:cbf4

A successful ping shows that both a downward and upward route has formed.

8. That's it!

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Now go mesh and stuff.