Beaglebone USB TestDrive Guide
Belcarra has created Beagle TestDrive, an edition of Belcarra’s USB Testdrive for the BeagleBone Black to allow rapid prototyping of networking over USB protocols. Testdrive uses the Beaglebone as a proxy for an OEM device on the device side of the USB link. Matching demo editions of Belcarra USBLAN for Windows are automatically installed from Windows Update as necessary.
The Beaglebone Black (summarized by beagleboard.org:)
... are low-cost, fan-less single-board computers based on low-power Texas Instruments processors featuring the ARM Cortex-A series core with all of the expandability of today's desktop machines, but without the bulk, expense, or noise.
Beagle TestDrive is provided as a MicroSD SDHC image. The Beaglebone Black can boot TestDrive without modifying the onboard firmware.
Features of Beagle Testdrive
- The modern iperf and iperf3 network test tools are available. These allow flexible network tests using either IPv4 or IPv6, UDP or TCP, various TCP options, and multiple streams. The tester should install iperf3 on the PC
- Traditional web testing tools, either client or server are also available
- Simple commands change the USB network configuration (protocol, hardware ID) dynamically until the next reboot, or select one of several USB configurations which take effect at the next boot.
Parts List
- Beaglebone Black board
- Power supply. The recommended Testdrive procedure is: first configure USB, connect the USB cable, and then conduct network tests. This requires an independent power source, instead of relying on the USB cable to supply power.
- Case (not needed but useful)
- 4GB MicroSD cards. TestDrive is designed to be booted from the SDHC slot..
- SDHC adapter or slot for PC.
Supplementary Tools
The following supplementary tools are needed to write an SD image under Windows.
- Win32 Disk Imager at SourceForge
- 7ZIP home page -- decompression tool for TestDrive SD image
- An SSH client, such as PUTTY.
- Cygwin (optional) the above tools or equivalents are contained in Cygwin packages as follows:
- ssh -- part of openssh
- dd -- part of the base install can be used to write raw disk images. The Windows lettered drives are found in the /cygdrive virtual directory
- 7zip -- same as the Windows tool, but not graphical
- iperf -- this is iperf version 2, not iperf3 (see below)
- wget -- a command-line web retrieval tool, ideal for web-based performance testing
- curl -- another command-line web retrieval tool.
The following tool is useful to find the Testdrive device over an Ethernet segment from a control PC, which may be a different PC from the test PC
- Apple Bonjour Printer Services (provides mDNS services for Microsoft Windows, optional)
For run-time testing, the following tool is recommended (but not essential since other standard tools are supported by Testdrive):
Running the Beagleboard
Built-in firmware and SD firmware
The Beagleboard by default boots Debian from the built-in (on board) firmware. The SD slot can be used to boot an alternate environment, such as TestDrive.
