node.js running on a Phidgets SBC2 board!

Posted: 16 Jan 2012
Categories: node.js software engineering

After almost 15 hours or compile-try-fail-repeat, I've figured out the formula for compiling nodeJS on a Phidget SBC2 board!

This combination of Node and Phidgets creates what is, in my opinion, the best sensor prototyping platform for under $250. This makes use of my previously mentioned NPM package for connecting node.js to phidgets.

This was possible only with the help of the friendly people at Phidget, Github, and numerous sites stumbled upon via Google. Get Hacking!!!

I made a small nodeJS app which reads in the temperature of my house every minute and Tweets it... Because I can.

• One of the harder steps of this process was cross-compiling V8. I’ve saved off my v8 compiled for Phidget SBC2 (armv4tl compatible) for you to skip a few steps in the process (and so you don’t need to also install Debian somewhere) (no longer works :( )
• Detailed steps of this process are copied below, but also here on a GitHub gist
• A lot of people helped me out, specifically these folks I am linking here.

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Install Node.js on a Phidget Board (SBC2)

http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=0&product_id=1072_0

Node is awesome, Phidgets are awesome. Syngergy. All I wanted to do was tweet the temperature of my house automatically…

What you will need:

• A computer (or a virtual machine) running a full version of the Debian operating system
  • I used Debian 6.0.3, 64bit
• A 1GB (or more) USB memory stick
  • The phidgetsbc2 doesn't have enough ram to compile node, so we will be using this memory stick as swap space… which is likely to destroy the memory stick
• Internet connectivity for both your Debian computer and the Phidget board

Cross-Compile V8 Locally

The v8 stack simply won't compile on the fidget board. I think that it has to do with floating point precision, but I can't be sure. Either way, we are going to compile an ARM binary on our "big" Debian computer and copy it over:

Get codesourcery

SSH to your Debian machine, and su root

sudo mkdir /opt/codesourcery
cd /opt/codesourcery
wget http://www.codesourcery.com/sgpp/lite/arm/portal/package4571/public/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/arm-2009q1-203-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2
tar -xvf arm-2009q1-203-arm-none-linux-gnueabi-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.bz2

Get Node and build it for the Phidget board

wget http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.6.7/node-v0.6.7.tar.gz
tar -xvf node-v0.6.7.tar.gz
cd node-v0.6.7/deps/v8
export TOOL_PREFIX=/opt/codesourcery/arm-2009q1/bin/arm-none-linux-gnueabi
export CXX=$TOOL_PREFIX-g++
export AR=$TOOL_PREFIX-ar
export RANLIB=$TOOL_PREFIX-ranlib
export CC=$TOOL_PREFIX-gcc
export LD=$TOOL_PREFIX-ld
export CCFLAGS="-march=armv4 -mno-thumb-interwork"
OR>> export CCFLAGS="-march=armv4 -mno-thumb-interwork -mtune=xscale -mno-thumb -mfloat-abi=soft -mfpu=maverick"
export ARM_TARGET_LIB=/opt/codesourcery/arm-2009q1/arm-none-linux-gnueabi/libc

scons armeabi=soft wordsize=32 snapshot=off arch=arm library=shared mode=release
scons armeabi=soft wordsize=32 snapshot=off arch=arm library=shared mode=release sample=shell

Copy the entire v8 directory to the memory stick I was running Debian in a virtual machine on my OSX machine, so I rSync'ed it

• rsync -avz root@{remote_host_ip}:/root/node-v0.6.7/deps/v8 /Volumes/{memory_stick}/node

Update the Phidget Board

New Firmware

• http://www.phidgets.com/drivers.php (USB Key needed)
• Copy to the USB stick and follow the instructions in the web console

Config (via web interface)

• turn on ssh { http://phidgetsbc.local./cgi-bin/network-settings.sh }
• Install C++ Develeper Headers { http://phidgetsbc.local./cgi-bin/system-packages.sh }
• Include full Debian Package Repository { http://phidgetsbc.local./cgi-bin/system-packages.sh }

Local Configuration (via SSH) on the Phidget board

ssh root@phidgetsbc.local
apt-get update
apt-get -u upgrade
apt-get install gcc wget python openssl make scons libssl-dev libax25 libfile-copy-recursive-perl openbsd-inetd tcpd update-inetd python-software-properties pkg-config htop git subversion

Copy over and configure V8

Plug in the USB drive. I kept the now-compiled V8 source in /node/v8 on the memory stick

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/bin
echo "/opt/lib" >> /etc/ld.so.conf
ldconfig
mkdir /opt/share/v8
cp -a /media/{usb_stick_usb_path}/node/v8 /opt/share/.
echo "/opt/share/v8" >> /etc/ld.so.conf
ldconfig

Add more RAM

This is likely to destroy the memory stick after a lot of use (USB hates random I/O). Create a swap file and configure it (will take ~10 min)

dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/usb0/swapfile bs=1M count=256
mkswap /media/usb0/swapfile
swapon /media/usb0/swapfile

Node.js

export JOBS=1
export CC='gcc -march=armv4 -mfloat-abi=soft'
export CCFLAGS='-march=armv4 -mfloat-abi=soft'
export CXX='g++ -march=armv4 -mfloat-abi=soft'
export GCC='-march=armv4 -mfloat-abi=soft'
wget http://nodejs.org/dist/v0.6.7/node-v0.6.7.tar.gz
tar -xvf node-v0.6.7.tar.gz
rm node-v0.6.7.tar.gz
cd node-v0.6.7
./configure --shared-v8 --shared-v8-libpath=/opt/share/v8 --shared-v8-includes=/opt/share/v8/include --without-snapshot
    ## If the configuration isn't all green, something is wrong
make
make install

Note: For me, a few times various parts of the 35 steps make preforms will crash with a segmentation fault. I guess this has to do with ram? Make will resume where you left off last, so just run it again

NPM

• curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh

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Contributors to this guide:

• https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/2131
• http://code.google.com/p/v8/wiki/CrossCompilingForARM
• http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?p=242405
• https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/2131#issuecomment-3499634

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