Using a DragonRadio Container

Although it is possible to install DragonRadio on any machine running Ubuntu 20.04, using a container ensures a reproducible environment and prevents components that DragonRadio installs from conflicting with other software. In fact, DragonRadio is developed using isolated containers. Containers are also necessary to run two copies of DragonRadio on the same host machine.

There are several steps that can be taken to make developing with a container as seamless as possible.

  • Expose a USRP to the container. One (or more) USRPs can be exposed to a container by adding the appropriate ethernet device. Assuming the USRP is attached to the eno2 interface on the host machine, it can be exposed to the container named dragonradio as follows:

    lxc config device add dragonradio usrp nic nictype=physical parent=eno2 name=usrp

    After exposing a USRP, you will need to set up its network interface. The easiest way to do this is through editing the /etc/rc.local file, which is run on boot. The following /etc/rc.local will assign the host side the IP address 192.168.40.1 and set the MTU to 9000.

    #!/bin/sh -e
ip addr add 192.168.40.1/30 dev usrp
ip link set usrp mtu 9000

    This is the correct setup for a standard X310 configuration. Read the full documentation for the X3x0 network configuration or the N2x0 network configuration

/etc/rc.local.

  • Expose a JTAG port.

    Use lsusb` to find JTAG devices—they will be labeled “Future Technology Devices International.” A JTAG device found at bus 001 device 002 can be exposed to teh container named dragonradio be executing the following command on the host:

    lxc config device add dragonradio bus001dev002 disk source=/dev/bus/usb/001/002 path=/dev/bus/usb/001/002

  • Mirror your local user and home directory in the container. The script lxd-mirror-user.sh, located in the bin directory of the repository, will mirror the current user’s account and home directory in the container whose name is passed as the first argument to the script. The UID of the user being mirrored in the container must not already exist in the container

    lxc exec dragonradio -- su --login USERNAME

  • Use GUI applications in the container. lxd-X.sh