Linux

Articles on this page:

• Static external controller API library for Linux
• Dongle not visible in licence manager
• Upgrading Sentinel licence runtime for dtbladed Linux 4.16.0

Problem

Is there a static version of the external controller API library for Linux (i.e. a "libExternalControllerApi.a" file)?

Solution

We do not produce a static version of the external controller API library for Linux (i.e. a "libExternalControllerApi.a" file).

When creating external controller DLL files for the Windows version of Bladed, the equivalent "ExternalControllerApi.lib" file is used to enforce compile-time checks against the delay-loaded controller DLL interface (i.e. ExternalControllerApi.dll - see the External Controller User Manual in the Bladed application folder for further details). However, on Linux, there is no direct equivalent of the delay-loading mechanism that gets used, so a static library file is not required. The "libExternalControllerApi.so" file will remain a dynamic dependency of your controller .so file and will be found from the Linux Bladed installation when you try to use it.

Keywords

Linux; External controller; Static library

Problem

A situation sometimes occurs when a dongle is visible and updatable on Windows but when plugged into a Linux machine does not show in the Licence Manager (i.e. there is nothing on the Sentinel Key screen).

Solution

Restarting the Sentinel service (or even the machine) can often resolve the problem (the same is true after changing / updating the licence manager runtime).

Other options:

• The red LED on the dongle lights up, but the licence can’t be seen in localhost.
  This could happen if the USB ports have not been mounted properly on the Linux machine. You can run the Linux lsusb command to list all USB devices that are attached to the system - check if the dongle appears in this list. To help identify if the problem may be related to the dongle, the USB port, or the machine, you can also try the following:
  • Plug the same dongle into a different USB port on the machine.
  • Plug a different dongle into the Linux machine, and check if the licence features are displayed in the Sentinel website - note that for this test the other dongle does not necessarily need to contain a Processor-only licence, you can plug in any dongle containing a "Standard", "Processor-only" or "Hybrid" Bladed licence, as the licence features should be visible on the Sentinel website.
  • Plug the dongle into the other Linux machine - is the licence also not visible on that machine?
  • Plug another device, such as a mouse, into the same USB port, and see if the device works (and is listed when your run the lsusb command).

Keywords

Linux; Licence

Problem

Running the dtbladed 4.16.0 build for Linux requires the host machine to have an installation of the Sentinel runtime version 9.15.

Solution

Steps below detail the process of downloading and installing this pre-requisite package:

1. Download the latest runtime installation package from the Thales customer support website. Note: You will need to accept the end user licence agreement prior to the download.
2. Copy the downloaded installation package (Sentinel_LDK_Ubuntu_DEB_Run-time_Installer.tar.gz) to the machine where you wish to install it.
3. Unpack the installation package using the following command:
   tar -zxvf Sentinel_LDK_Ubuntu_DEB_Run-time_Installer.tar.gz
   This will unpack the contents of the archive to a folder named “Sentinel_LDK_Ubuntu_DEB_Run-time_Installer” within the current working directory.
4. Install the runtime library appropriate for your machine from the unpacked content.
   e.g. for a machine with an amd64 processor architecture, the runtime package file is called aksusbd_9.15-1_amd64.deb, and can be found directly within the Sentinel_LDK_Ubuntu_DEB_Run-time_Installer folder.
   Installation command:
   sudo dpkg -i Sentinel_LDK_Ubuntu_DEB_Run-time_Installer/aksusbd_9.15-1_amd64.deb

Keywords

Bladed Linux; Sentinel runtime