Tanmatsu: software

• 1: AppFS
• 2: BadgeLink
• 3: Meshtastic

1 - AppFS

AppFS is an ESP-IDF component that implements a method for dynamically installing and loading firmware binaries. It implements a pseudo filesystem interface for storing firmwares and a bootloader modification which allows for starting firmwares from the AppFS partition.

Originally AppFS was created by Jeroen Domburg (sprite_tm) for the PocketSprite keychain gameconsole. Since it’s creation Badge.Team has succesfully deployed, updated and extended AppFS to make it the ready to use component it is today.

The current version of AppFS supports ESP-IDF 5.3 and later and has bootloader modifications for the ESP32, ESP32-C6 and ESP32-P4 included. Other ESP32 variants are not supported yet.

Using the AppFS component in your projects

Apps do not require any changes to be started using AppFS, you only need the AppFS component to build a launcher menu.

To include the AppFS component in your launcher menu project first add the component as a requirement using idf.py:

idf.py add-dependency "badgeteam/appfs^1.0.0"

This makes the AppFS APIs available, but does not apply the required bootloader changes.

To apply the bootloader changes either create two symlinks or copy the contents of the folders.

mkdir bootloader_components
ln -s managed_components/badgeteam__appfs bootloader_components/appfs
ln -s managed_components/badgeteam__appfs/bootloader_main bootloader_components/main

The component is now ready for use.

#include "esp_err.h"
#include "esp_log.h"
#include "appfs.h"

void initialize_appfs(void) {
    esp_err_t res = appfsInit(APPFS_PART_TYPE, APPFS_PART_SUBTYPE);
    if (res != ESP_OK) {
        ESP_LOGE(TAG, "Failed to initialize AppFS: %s", esp_err_to_name(res));
        return;
    }
}

See the functions defined in appfs.h for more information on how to use the library.

Partition table

The appfs.h header defines a type and subtype for the AppFS partition:

#define APPFS_PART_TYPE    0x43 /*<! Default partition type of an appfs partition */
#define APPFS_PART_SUBTYPE 0x3  /*<! Default partition subtype of an appfs partition */

To create an AppFS partition add an entry to the partitions CSV file for your project:

# ESP-IDF Partition Table
# Name, Type, SubType, Offset,   Size,
appfs,  0x43, 3,       0x330000, 8000K,

AppFS partition tools

After ESP-IDF has downloaded the component a tools folder can be found at managed_components/badgeteam__appfs/tools. In this folder a set of Python scripts can be found for creating and managing AppFS partition data.

Creating an AppFS partition image

In the partition table above the partition is 8000 KB in size. Converted to bytes 8000 KB becomes 8000 x 1024 = 8192000 bytes.

A partition can be created using the following command:

python appfs_generate.py 8192000 example.bin

To add firmware binaries to the AppFS partition file the appfs_add_file.py tool can be used:

python appfs_add_file.py example.bin myapp.bin "myapp" "My app" 1

The name and title fields are strings. The filename (name field) of the file can be a maximum of 48 bytes long and the title of the file can be 64 bytes long. The version field is an 16 bits unsigned integer with a range of 0 - 65535.

The filename (name field) of the file is used in the AppFS API to identify files in the filesystem, filenames have to be unique. The title field is optional and may be used to include a human readable alternative to the filename. If unused the title field can be set to a blank string "". The version field is also optional and may be used to identify the installed version of an application, allowing for easier implementation of update mechanisms. If unused the version field can be set to 0.

2 - BadgeLink

BadgeLink is a protocol for communicating with Tanmatsu over USB. It allows you to manage apps, settings and files on the device via WebUSB applications in Chromium based browsers or a Python script.

Downloading the tools

You can find the Python script on the releases page of the BadgeLink repository. Download the tools.zip artifact and unzip it into a folder.

Make sure Python is installed on your computer.

Installing the tools

A bash shell script has been provided to automatically create a Python virtual environment and install the required libraries into the environment. On Linux and Mac machines you can run this script to automate the process.

On Windows you can manually create the virtual environment by running the following commands in a command window:

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

Permissions for accessing the USB device on Linux

Copy the 60-badgelink.rules file to /etc/udev/rules.d on your system. Then reload the udev rules and trigger re-detection of hardware.

sudo cp 60-badgelink.rules /etc/udev/rules.d/
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
sudo udevadm trigger

Running the BadgeLink tool

On Linux and Mac the badgelink.sh script automatically starts the badgelink.py script in the virtual environment. On Windows you have to manually enable the virtual environment as follows:

source .venv/bin/activate
python badgelink.py

Using the BadgeLink tool

Make sure your Tanmatsu is set to USB device mode, by default the USB interface is set to debugging mode and you can change the mode easily by pressing the purple diamond key (second button from the top right of the keyboard). It might take a second before the icon changes but the icon on the top right of the screen will change from the bug to an USB icon to indicate that the USB port mode has been switched.

In the next sections we assume you are using the badgelink.sh script. If you are using Windows replace badgelink.sh in the commands below with python badgelink.py and make sure the virtual envirotnment is active in the command window you are using.

AppFS

Listing installed applications

./badgelink.sh appfs list

This command will list all the application binaries currently installed into the AppFS partition of the flash chip.

Example output:

slug        | title       | version | size 
------------+-------------+---------+------
konsool64   | Konsool 64  | 1       | 833K 
synthwave   | Synthwave   | 1       | 438K 
coprocessor | Coprocessor | 1       | 1063K

In this context slug is a lowercase ascii string without spaces, formatted in such a way to ensure the name can be used as filename. The slug is used for coupling the binary in AppFS with its related files on the FAT partition of flash or the SD card in the /apps/<slug>/ folder. The slug filename needs to be unique for every file in the AppFS.

The title field is a human readable name for the application, this string is visible in the menu and you can safely use uppercase letters and spaces in this string.

The version field contains an integer number used to couple the version of the installed binary in AppFS to the version of its related files on the FAT partition.

The size field contains the size of the application binary in kilobyte.

View partition size and usage

./badgelink.sh appfs usage

This command gives you information on the size of the AppFS partition and the amount of space in use by the installed applications.

Example output:

Usage: 2432K / 8128K (29.9%)

Deleting an application

./badgelink.sh appfs delete synthwave

The last argument in this command is the slug filename of the app you want to remove from AppFS, you can find the slug filename using the list command.

Copying an app from the device to your computer

./badgelink.sh appfs download konsool64 konsool64.bin

This command transfers a file on the AppFS partition to your computer. The last two arguments are the slug filename of the app and the filename of the output file on your computer.

Copying an app from your computer to the device

./badgelink.sh appfs upload test "An example app" 123 firmware.bin

This command transfers a file on your computer to the AppFS partition. The argumens are the slug filename you want the application to have, this name has to be unique, followed by the title of the app, in the example above quotes were added around the string to allow the use of spaces. After that comes the version argument, an integer number, when testing you can use any number you want, for example 0. And the last argument is the filename of the firmware binary you want to upload to the device.

If you have just compiled the example app, take a look in the build folder to find the firmware.bin file. This file is the only file you need for installing your app.

Starting an app

To start an app on the AppFS partition you can use the start command:

./badgelink.sh start synthwave

In which the synthwave argument is the slug name of the app to start.

NVS (Non-volitile storage)

NVS is a partition on the flash which contains a key-value store for settings. Using BadgeLink you can list which keys are in use and read, write and delete the entries.

Listing keys in use

./badgelink.sh nvs list

This command lists all the keys in use. To limit the results to a specific namespace the name of the namespace can be added as an extra argument.

Example output:

namespace | key          | type  
----------+--------------+-------
wifi      | s00.ssid     | string
wifi      | s00.password | string
wifi      | s00.identity | string
wifi      | s00.username | string
wifi      | s00.authmode | u32   
wifi      | s00.phase2   | u32   
system    | ntp          | u8    
system    | timezone     | string
system    | tz           | string
wifi      | s01.ssid     | string
wifi      | s01.password | string
wifi      | s01.identity | string
wifi      | s01.username | string
wifi      | s01.authmode | u32   
wifi      | s01.phase2   | u32

Reading an entry

./badgelink.sh nvs read system timezone string

To read an entry you specify the namespace, key and type of the entry you want to read. The tool then returns you the value.

type: NvsValueString
stringval: "Europe/Amsterdam"

'Europe/Amsterdam'

Writing an entry

./badgelink.sh nvs write test example string "Hello world"

The example command above creates or overwrites an entry in the namespace test, with key example and type string. The value Hello world gets written into the entry.

Deleting an entry

./badgelink.sh nvs delete test example

The example command above deletes the entry example in the namespace test.

FAT filesystem

The internal FAT filesystem partition and the SD card contents can also be manipulated using the BadgeLink tool.

The internal FAT partition on the flash chip is mounted at /int and the SD card is mounted at the path /sd.

Listing the contents of a directory

To list the contents of the root of the internal flash chip filesystem you can run

./badgelink.sh fs list /int

This results in for example the following output:

type | path 
-----+------
dir  | icons

Type can be dir for a directory and file for a file.

File statistics

To query statistics for a specific file you can use the stat command:

./badgelink.sh fs stat /int/icons/menu/wifi_0.png

This gives you information about the size of the file and the timestamps for creation, modification and last access. Note that the timestamps have a high chance of not being accurate. If the timestamp is unavailable you will most likely see 1970-01-01 as the date.

Type:     file
Size:     539
Created:  1970-01-01 01:00:00
Modified: 1980-01-01 00:00:00
Accessed: 1970-01-01 01:00:00

Creating a directory

./badgelink.sh fs mkdir /int/example

Creates a directory called example in the root of the internal flash FAT filesystem.

Removing a directory

./badgelink.sh fs rmdir /int/example

Removes a directory called example from the root of the internal flash FAT filesystem.

Uploading a file from your computer to the device

To send a file to the device you can use the upload command.

echo "Hello world" > example.txt
./badgelink.sh fs upload /int/example.txt example.txt

Downloading a file from the device to your computer

To retrieve a file from the device you can use the download command.

./badgelink.sh fs download /int/example.txt downloaded_file.txt

3 - Meshtastic

This document describes how to install Meshtastic compatible firmware onto your Tanmatsu. The Meshtastic firmware for Tanmatsu is in active development and not yet fully stable. You might experience crashes and bugs.

Tanmatsu uses two ESP32 chips, one as application processor and one as radio. The GUI app for Meshtastic, running on the application processor can be installed as an app using BadgeLink. Support for installing applications in a similar fashion on the radio is still being worked on. Because of this it is currently required to replace the radio firmware which provides the launcher and apps on the application processor with WiFi and BLE access when installing Meshtastic onto the radio.

A tool for flashing Meshtastic or the default “ESP-HOSTED” firmware to the radio will soon be provided as a web application making use of Webserial to connect to your Tanmatsu. It is also possible to flash firmware to the radio using esptool.py, the flashing script provided by Espressif. This guide explains how to flash Meshtastic using esptool.py, which is assumed to be installed and available on your system.

Requirements

• Package containing builds of the Meshtastic radio firmware and GUI application
• BadgeLink tools
• Esptool

Download the two archives linked to above and extract them to a folder. Then open a command prompt in that same folder.

Installing the radio firmware

The first step is to replace the ESP-HOSTED radio firmware normally running on the ESP32-C6 with the Meshtastic firmware.

Controlling the state of the radio using the launcher firmware

If the launcher is unable to communicate with the radio via the protocol implemented by ESP-HOSTED the launcher will automatically power off the radio. You can see the state of the radio by looking at the color of the radio LED, which is the middle LED on the left side of the front of Tanmatsu. If the LED is green the radio is powered on and working, if the LED is blue the radio is in bootloader mode and if the LED is off then the radio is powered off.

While on the homescreen of the launcher firmware you can press a key combination to force the radio into either of the three states (off, bootloader and on).

The radio can be flashed using the online recovery tool or using esptool.py via the USB interface exposed by the radio when the radio is in either bootloader or on state. Sometimes the firmware on the radio can cause issues when trying to flash, in such a situation it is useful to try flashing while in bootloader mode. The bootloader is located in read-only memory and will always work, regardless of the state of the installed firmware.

Flashing firmware to the radio using esptool.py

Both the application processor and the radio expose a serial port for debugging and flashing when enabled. The first serial port to appear is the ESP32-P4 application processor and the second serial port is the ESP32-C6 radio.

You can install the Meshtastic firmware by first erasing and then overwriting the firmware on the ESP32-C6 radio using the following commands:

esptool.py --chip esp32c6 erase_flash
esptool.py --chip esp32c6 write_flash 0x0 radio/bootloader.bin 0x10000 radio/firmware.bin 0x8000 radio/partitions.bin

Installing the GUI app

Now that the radio is running Meshtastic the GUI app can be used to interact with the Meshtastic firmware running on the radio.

Switching the USB mode of the ESP32-P4 to BadgeLink mode

Press the purple diamond button while on the homescreen of the launcher firmware. The bug icon in the top right corner of the screen should now be replaced with an USB icon. In BadgeLink mode the application processor exposes an interface which allows for installing applications. You can use this interface using the BadgeLink tools.

Installing the Meshtastic app

Installing the Meshtastic GUI is done using BadgeLink.

Run the following command to install the Meshtastic GUI application:

./badgelink.sh appfs upload meshtastic "Meshtastic" 0 meshtastic-gui.bin