vxWorks version

[Patrik Nyblom]

"Eric P. Melbardis" wrote:

> greetings, the erlang documentation alludes to a vxWorks port,
> alsowind river mentions it on their web site how can one obtain this
> version? regards, eric melbardis.

The VxWorks things are included in the open source package, it is
however not obvious
how to build it (or run it).

Before you start, remember that erlang on VxWorks is not as user
friendly as on Unix/NT. Especially the user interface
is primitive.

The PowerPC 603, the PowerQuicc 860 and Cpu32 (M68360) are supported,
their respective target names are
vxworks_ppc603, vxworks_ppc860 and vxworks_cpu32

The makefiles assume a Unix Box with tornado installed. I've not tried
VxWorks 5.4 (or tornado for that, whatever that version number is), only
5.2/1.1 but I suppose it will work to compile with later versions.


This is a step by step instruction (assuming your gnu make program is
named gmake and the target is vxworks_ppc603)

1) Build and install the open source erlang and put it in your path.
2) Unpack a fresh source tree. say into /src/vx/otp_src_R6B-0
3) cd /src/vx/otp_src_R6B-0; ./configure --prefix=<where to install,
*not* where your host based erlang is installed>
4) Setup the tornado environment variables (like WIND_BASE etc)
5) setup the ERL_TOP environment variable (to /src/vx/otp_src_R6B-0)
6) mkdir $ERL_TOP/lib/erl_interface/bin; mkdir
$ERL_TOP/lib/erl_interface/obj (sorry about this...)
7) cd $ERL_TOP/erts/autoconf; gmake TARGET=vxworks_ppc603
8) cd $ERL_TOP; gmake TARGET=vxworks_ppc603 emulator libs
9) gmake TARGET=vxworks_ppc603 install (ignore the error './Install -
not found', there is no Install script for VxWorks)
10) cd <installation prefix>/lib/erlang
11) mkdir bin; cp releases/R6B/*.boot ./bin/
12) Examine the file <installation prefix>/lib/erlang/README.VxWorks and

 <installation prefix>/lib/erlang/erts-4.9.1/bin/erl_script.sam which is
an example of the commands needed to set up
 the VxWorks node to start erlang. Especially note that the command line
option -oldshell NEED to be present. Use the NFS file system to mount
the place where erlang is installed from the VxWorks card. Do NOT use
the rcp file sysntem, it's simply to slow. You can of course copy erlang
to a local file system (flash/disk/whatever) on the target, but most
people find it simpler to use the host's file system during development.

13) When erlang is started on the VxWorks host (the erlang prompt shows
up on the console), log into the VxWorks card and run the command
'to_erl' to be able to type into the erlang shell. If you are using a
host based shell, be sure to sychronize the symbol tablers and the file
systems on the target and the host. A target based symbol table IS
needed, you can not have only a host based. Preferrably log into the
card with telnet or rlogin instead of using the host based thing.This is
the old erlang shell with no editing possibilities and no prompt on
continuing lines, type a '.' (full stop) followed by a return to get the
prompt. You can use the distribution to access the node from another
machine too (of course). Exit the erlang shell (or actually the to_erl
program) with Ctrl-D.

Good luck
/Patrik