ykush-control

YKUSH Command Application

Control application for Yepkit YKUSH Switchable USB Hub board.

Description

Console application developed to illustrate the programmatic control of YKUSH capabilities. It executes one command per run, being appropriate to be executed as a console command. But it can be easily adapted to execute a work-flow with multiple commands and we encourage you to alter it to best fit your needs.

The core of the application is consolidated in two source code files, the commandParser.cpp and the usbcom.cpp. The first contains the work-flow control and the second the communication functions.

The implementation makes use of hidapi open-source library which is portable across several operating systems. We include a Visual Studio solution file for building on Windows. For Linux we include a build and installation script, build.sh and install.sh respectively, for building and installing the application.

Note that hidapi is not included in the source code package and has to be obtained beforehand. For Linux, if the build.sh script is used, to build the application, it will take care of downloading and building the hidapi library for you. In Windows this step has to be manually performed by the user.

Licensing

The source code is licensed under MIT license. Refer to LICENSE file.

Building

The steps for building on Windows and Linux are detailed bellow.

Windows

Before building the application from source on Windows you need to get the hidapi library and build it. Follow the instructions in the hidapi documentation for building the library in the several systems.

After building the hidapi library you need to include the relevant hidapi files to ykushcmd project.

Copy to ykush\ykushcmd\windows\ the following hidapi library files:

• hidapi.dll
• hidapi.exp
• hidapi.lib

Open the ykush\ykush.sln with Microsoft Visual Studio and build the solution. After a successful build process the executable file will be created in theykush\bin\ folder.

The next step is to make the dynamically linked library accessible to executable. We can install the hidapi.dll in the system or ensure that a copy of the file is in the same folder than the ykush.exe.

Linux

The easiest way to build the application on Linux is to use the build.sh script which is in the ykush/ folder. Nonetheless the application can be built running make and using the provided Makefile directly, but it will require some prior manual configuration detailed ahead.

To build the application using the scripts run the following inside the ykush/ folder.

./build.sh

Note that the script requires Internet connectivity to fetch the latest version of hidapi library.

Some dependencies may not have been satisfied and some additional systems components and utilities may be required. If that was the case please install them and re-run the script.

After a successful build process you can install the ykush command in the system. To do so, in ykush/ folder run:

sudo ./install.sh

After install, the ykush command is ready for use.

On the other hand, if you want to build running make directly with the provided Makefile do the following.

First get the hidapi library and build it. Please follow the instructions in the hidapi documentation for building the library in the several systems.

After building the hidapi library include the relevant hidapi files to ykushcmd project.

Copy to ykush/ykushcmd/linux/ the libhidapi-hidraw.so and the libhidapi-libusb.so files from hidapi library you just built.

Now add the following lines to the platformdefs.h file which is in the ykush/ykushcmd/ folder.

#ifndef PLATFORMDEFS_H
#define PLATFORMDEFS_H
#define LINUX
#endif

Next, in the ykush/ folder run make to build the application. If the build process is successful the ykush executable will be created in the ykush/bin/ folder.

The next step is to make the shared library accessible to the executable. Do this by installing the libhidapi-hidraw.so or the libhidapi-libusb.so, depending if the hidraw or the libusb back-end is to be used (in doubt install both), in a system folder (e.g., /usr/lib/) or set the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH with the path to the library files. Alternatively you can run the script install.sh which is located in the ykush/ folder.

Using it

Windows

Navigate to the ykush\bin\ folder and run ykush.exe -h to print all the available command options a syntax.

Let's look at some command examples.

Assuming that just one YKUSH board is connected to our host, if we wanted to turn OFF the downstream port 1 we would issue the following command.

ykushcmd.exe -d 1

Similarly, if we wanted to turn the downstream 1 back ON we would issue the following command.

ykushcmd.exe -u 1

Assuming that two YKUSH boards are connected to our host and we wanted to turn OFF the downstream port 1 of one specific board. To accomplish this we need to address the command by the YKUSH board serial number. To find out the boards serial number we can issue the following command.

ykushcmd.exe -l

This will print the serial number of all YKUSH boards attached to the host. Assuming the our board had the serial number YK1234567, we would issue the following command.

ykushcmd.exe -s YK1234567 -d 1

This would turn OFF the downstream port 1 of the board with the serial number YK12345.

Linux

For Linux the command options and syntax are the same with the slight difference that the executable file does not have the .exe extension. Also depending of your user permissions you may need to precede the command with the sudo directive (e.g, sudo ykushcmd -d 1).

For more information and resources for the YKUSH board please visit the yepkit website ykush page.