Software and Firmware Upgrades

Upgrading the lxa-iobus-server

Upgrading the LXA iobus-server is done by installing a new version of the Python package.

Before installing a new version of the server stop the currently running lxa-iobus-server. If you are using the provided systemd-service run:

$ sudo systemctl stop lxa-iobus.service

Afterwards you can build a new env:

$ cd /path/to/the/lxa-iobus/repository
$ git pull
$ make clean
$ make env

Now you can start your service again:

$ sudo systemctl start lxa-iobus.service

Bundled Firmware Upgrades

The lxa-iobus-server software comes bundled with the latest firmware binaries for the IOBus devices. The availability of new firmware upgrades for devices is indicated in the Web-Interface by a red Update text in the node list:

List of nodes. Devices “00003.00020” has a pending firmware upgrade.

A firmware upgrade is performed by selecting the corresponding entry in the node list and clicking the Update to … button at the top:

Pressing the “Update to …” button initiates a firmware upgrade.

Clicking the button takes you to the “ISP” tab of the web interface where a log of the flashing progress is shown:

A successful firmware flashing process terminates with the log message “Flashing done”.

Once the flashing is compled you can return to the node information by selecting the “Nodes” tab at the top.

Firmware Upgrades using the danger-zone button

The lxa-iobus-server allows you to flash arbitrary files into the firmware section of any node. As it is generally a bad idea to flash arbitrary firmware into a device this feature is disabled by default.

Warning

With this option you can damage your IOBus devices.

If you intend to use this feature (e.g. to flash a beta-firmware or if you want to deploy your own firmware) you have to use the --allow-custom-firmware switch on the command line, e.g.:

$ lxa-iobus-server --allow-custom-firmware --firmware-directory firmware/ can0

The additional command line switch --firmware directory <dir> allows to specify the directory in which uploaded firmware files are stored. If you omit this switch the default directory firmware/ in the project root is used.

With the --allow-custom-firmware switch enabled two new features are available:

• The Firmware Files view now contains the option to upload and delete custom firmware files.

• Every node view now has the option to select an arbitrary file to flash.

To flash an arbitrary file first upload the binary using the Firmware Files view:

The Firmware Files view. The files listed under Upstream Firmware files have been shipped with the server. The files listed under Local Firmware Files have been uploaded by the user.

New files can be uploaded using the Browse and Upload -buttons. Here a file called candleLight_fw.bin has been uploaded by the user.

Afterwards this file can be flashed to an arbitrary node in the Nodes view:

The section Flash for this nodes lists all firmware files available.

Select the correct file and start the transfer using the Flash -button.