Installation and configuration of Raspberry Pi

This page consists an installation guide to use if you have a Linux laptop, and a separate guide to use with a Windows laptop.

The p-net stack and sample application has been tested with:

  • Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+

To avoid problems it is recommended to start with a fresh Raspberry Pi OS image.

When running the Raspberry Pi as a Profinet IO-device using p-net, the network settings of the Raspberry Pi will be changed by Profinet. Therefore it is highly recommended to use a keyboard, mouse and monitor or a serial cable.

If you use ssh you may end up in a situation were you have difficulties connecting to, or recovering your device. If you currently do not have a suitable USB-to-serial cable you can still build and run p-net with the sample application but you might run into problem when a PLC is used for configuration.

Installation using a Linux laptop

Burn a SD-card with Raspberry Pi OS, by using the “Raspberry Pi imager” software and a SD card reader. A card size of 16 - 32 GByte is recommended. Follow the instructions on the page https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/ Select the standard “Raspberry Pi OS” operating system.

Unplug, and reinsert your SD-card to mount it. To enable SSH logging in on the Raspberry Pi, create an empty file on the named ssh in the boot partition:

touch ssh

To enable the serial port console add this line to the file config.txt in the boot partition:

enable_uart=1

The DHCP client daemon will adjust the network interface settings automatically. This interferes with the p-net control of the Ethernet interface. So if you run your Raspberry Pi as a Profinet IO-Device (NOT if you use it as a PLC) and have a serial cable, you need to add this line to /etc/dhcpcd.conf in the root file system:

denyinterfaces eth*

If you would like to change hostname from raspberrypi to pndevice-pi, change the texts in the files etc/hostname and etc/hosts in the rootfs partition.

To make sure that you subsequently are logging in to the correct Raspberry Pi, you can create a file in the home directory in the rootfs partition. Change name to something informative, for example:

touch home/pi/IAmAProfinetDevice

Unmount the SD-card, and plug it in into your Raspberry Pi. Power up the Raspberry Pi. Log in to it via a serial cable (see below). Use the username pi and the default password raspberry.

If you do not have any serial cable (and not have disabled DHCP), connect the Raspberry Pi to your local network. Find the IP address of it by running this on a Linux machine on the network (replace the hostname if you have changed it):

ping raspberrypi.local

Verify that it is the correct machine by checking that is disappears when the power is disconnected.

Log in to it:

ssh pi@<IP>

Enter the password mentioned just above.

If you would connect your Raspberry Pi to a WiFi network, follow the guide in https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html

You might also want to disable the splash screen and to expand the file system, by using the raspi-config utility.

Note

If you are following the tutorial and are setting up the IO-device, you should head back now. See Tutorial.

Installation using a Windows laptop

This section describes how to install the Raspberry Pi OS and how to enable ssh and serial console so that the Raspberry Pi can be used in headless mode without a display and keyboard connected.

Step 1. Write Raspberry Pi OS image to SD card using Raspberry Pi Imager.

Step 2. Initial configuration of Raspberry Pi OS.

  • Eject SD-card

  • Reinsert SD-card in windows PC. The SD-card will be shown as external drive named boot.

  • Enable ssh by creating an empty file named ssh in the root folder of boot. The windows file explorer can be used for this. Note that the file ssh shall not have a txt file extension.

  • Enable serial port console. Open config.txt in root folder of boot using Notepad. Add the line enable_uart=1 to the end of the file. Save file and close Notepad.

  • Eject SD-card

Step 3. Start Raspberry Pi

  • Insert SD-card and power on Raspberry Pi.

  • Login (preferably using serial console) with default user pi and password raspberry.

Step 4. Network configuration.

Use the nano editor to edit the configuration files as described below. For example to edit the /etc/dhcpcd.conf:

sudo nano /etc/dhcpcd.conf

Save the file in nano by pressing CTRL-X, then Y and Enter.

The DHCP client daemon will adjust the network interface settings automatically. This interferes with the p-net control of the Ethernet interface. So if you run your Raspberry Pi as a Profinet IO-Device (NOT if you use it as a PLC) and have a serial cable, you should add the line below to /etc/dhcpcd.conf:

denyinterfaces eth*

Optionally, to change hostname from raspberrypi to pndevice-pi, change the configuration in the files /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts.

To make sure that you subsequently are logging in to the correct Raspberry Pi, you can create a file in the home directory in the rootfs partition. Change name to something informative, for example:

touch /home/pi/IAmAProfinetDevice

Reboot and the Raspberry Pi is now ready to run the p-net sample application:

sudo reboot

If you would connect your Raspberry Pi to a WiFi network, follow the guide in https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/configuration.html

You might also want to disable the splash screen and to expand the file system, by using the raspi-config utility.

Note

If you are following the tutorial and are setting up the IO-device, you should head back now. See Tutorial.

Optionally connect a serial cable to Raspberry Pi

The p-net Profinet stack will change the IP-address of the Raspberry Pi when running it as an IO-Device (as requested by the PLC), why it can be inconvenient to connect to it via ssh. You can use a keyboard, mouse and a monitor to connect to the Raspberry Pi. Using a serial cable to connect it to your laptop can then be helpful if a keyboard etc not is available.

Use a USB-to-serial adapter cable with 3.3 V logic levels. For example Adafruit sells a popular version of those cables. Connect the USB end to your laptop and the other end to the header connector on the Raspberry Pi.

If not already done, enable the serial port console by writing the line enable_uart=1 in the file /boot/config.txt.

The serial port within the Raspberry Pi will be named /dev/ttyS0.

Pin

Name

Terminal on cable

Adafruit cable color

6

GND

GND

Black

8

UART0_TXD

RX

White

10

UART0_RXD

TX

Green

Use a communication program with a baud rate of 115200.

Before connecting the serial cable to your Raspberry Pi you can verify the functionality of the cable by connecting the USB connector to your Laptop, and connect the RX-terminal to the TX terminal of the cable. Use a communication program to verify that text that you enter is echoed back. When removing the RX-to-TX connection the echo should stop.

Optionally connect LEDs and buttons to Raspberry Pi

You need these components:

Component

Number required

LED

2

Button switch

2

Resistor 220 Ohm

4

Connect them like:

Pin

Name

Description

9

GND

11

GPIO17

Connect LED1 (application data) to GND via 220 Ohm

13

GPIO27

Connect Button1 to 3.3V via 220 Ohm

15

GPIO22

Connect Button2 to 3.3V via 220 Ohm

16

GPIO23

Connect LED2 (Profinet signal) to GND via 220 Ohm

17

3.3V

The resistors for the buttons are to limit the consequences of connecting the wires to wrong pins.

Set up the GPIO pins for the buttons:

echo 22 > /sys/class/gpio/export
echo 27 > /sys/class/gpio/export

and for the LEDs:

echo 17 > /sys/class/gpio/export
echo 23 > /sys/class/gpio/export
echo out > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/direction
echo out > /sys/class/gpio/gpio23/direction

Turn on and off a LED:

echo 1 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value
echo 0 > /sys/class/gpio/gpio17/value

Show state of buttons:

cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio22/value
cat /sys/class/gpio/gpio27/value
_images/RaspberryPiLedButtons.jpg

Adjust IP address if using the Raspberry Pi as a PLC

If running your Raspberry Pi as a PLC (Profinet IO-Controller). you would like to have a static IP address (it will not work if running as a Profinet IO-Device). Instead modify the file /etc/dhcpcd.conf to include these lines:

interface eth0
static ip_address=192.168.0.100/24

You can still ping the <hostname>.local address to find it on the network. To re-enable DHCP, remove the lines again from /etc/dhcpcd.conf.

Once you have prepared the IP address etc on the Raspberry Pi intended for use as a PLC, it is time to install the Codesys runtime on it. See Using Codesys soft PLC.

Advanced users only: Automatic start of sample application

Use systemd to automatically start the p-net sample application at boot on a Raspberry Pi. Place a systemd unit file here: /lib/systemd/system/pnet-sampleapp.service

An example file is available in the sample_app/ directory of this repository. It assumes that the code is checked out into /home/pi/profinet/p-net/ on your Raspberry Pi. Install the files:

sudo cp /home/pi/profinet/p-net/src/ports/linux/pnet-sampleapp.service /lib/systemd/system/
sudo cp /home/pi/profinet/p-net/src/ports/linux/enable-rpi-gpio-pins.sh /usr/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/enable-rpi-gpio-pins.sh

Adapt the contents to your paths and hardware.

Enable automatic startup:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable pnet-sampleapp.service

Start service:

sudo systemctl start pnet-sampleapp.service

To see the status of the process, and the log output:

systemctl status pnet-sampleapp.service

journalctl -u pnet-sampleapp -f

If using a serial cable, you might need to adjust the number of visible columns:

stty cols 150 rows 40

You can for example add it to your .bashrc file on the Raspberry Pi.

In order to speed up the boot time, you might want to disable some functionality not necessary for Profinet applications. For example:

sudo systemctl disable cups-browsed.service
sudo systemctl disable cups.service

See the section “Boot time optimization” elsewhere in this documentation.

Advanced users only: Control of built-in LEDs

The Raspberry Pi board has LEDs on the board, typically a red PWR LED and a green ACT (activity) LED.

Manually control the green LED (ACT = led0) on Raspberry Pi 3:

echo none > /sys/class/leds/led0/trigger
echo 1 > /sys/class/leds/led0/brightness

And to turn it off:

echo 0 > /sys/class/leds/led0/brightness

Note that you need root privileges to control the LEDs.

Similarly for the red (power) LED, which is called led1.

Advanced users only: Control Linux real-time properties

See the page on Linux timing in this documentation for an introduction to the subject.

Add this to the first (and only) line in /boot/cmdline.txt:

isolcpus=2

Run the sample application on a specific CPU core, by modifying the autostart file /lib/systemd/system/pnet-sampleapp.service (if installed):

ExecStart=taskset -c 2 /home/pi/profinet/build/pn_dev -v -b /sys/class/gpio/gpio27/value -d /sys/class/gpio/gpio22/value

SD-card problems

If you have problems with the CPU freezing for a few seconds now and then, the SD-card might be damaged. There is a SD-card test program available for Raspberry Pi:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install agnostics

Start the test program:

pi@raspberrypi:~$ sh /usr/share/agnostics/sdtest.sh

Example output for a damaged SD-card:

Run 1
prepare-file;0;0;2029;3
seq-write;0;0;2944;5
rand-4k-write;0;0;705;176
rand-4k-read;7444;1861;0;0
Sequential write speed 2944 KB/sec (target 10000) - FAIL
Note that sequential write speed declines over time as a card is used - your card may require reformatting
Random write speed 176 IOPS (target 500) - FAIL
Random read speed 1861 IOPS (target 1500) - PASS