CHANGELOG.rst

Renode changelog

This document describes notable changes to the Renode framework.

1.11.0 - 2020.10.22

Added:

• support for generating execution metrics, covering information like executed instructions count, memory and peripheral accesses, and interrupt handling
• infrastructure for reporting supported CPU features to GDB
• tests for Icicle Kit with PolarFire SoC
• --debug-on-error option for renode-test allowing interactive debugging of failed Robot tests
• lastLog Monitor command displaying n last log messages
• currentTime monitor command with information about elapsed host and virtual time
• WriteLine UART helper method to feed strings from the Monitor or scripts
• support for non-base RISC-V instruction sets disassembly
• support for custom Robot test results listeners
• support for Python-based implementation of (stateful) custom CSRs and custom instructions in RISC-V
• option to control RISC-V CSR access validation level interactively
• dummy support for data cache flush instruction in VexRiscv
• 64-bit decrementer support in PowerPC
• nRF82540 RTC model
• STM32F4 RTC model
• STM32F4 RCC stub model
• unified timer model for STM32F4 and STM32L1 platforms
• support for ATAPI CD-ROM
• burst read support in OpenCores I2C

Changed:

• time flow settings in Icicle Kit script now ensure full determinism
• all testers (for UART, LED, network, sysbus accesses and log messages) now rely on virtual time instead of host time and accept floating point timeouts
• portable package now includes requirements.txt file
• skipped tests do not generate save files anymore
• Clear Monitor command does not remove current working directory from searched paths
• WFI handling in RISC-V is simplified, improving performance on sleepy systems
• translation block fetch logger messages are now logged with Info instead of Debug level
• Cortex-M CPUs now reports their registers to GDB
• several infrastructural changes in the PCI subsystem
• STM32L1 oscillators are now all reported as ready

Fixed:

• Renode logo appearing in UART analyzer windows when running without Monitor
• logs not being fully written out when terminating Renode
• keyboard event detection in framebuffer window when no pointer device is attached
• crash when the logger console reports width equal to 0
• crash of ad-hoc compilation on Renode portable. Note that this still requires a C# compiler to be available on the host system
• crash when connecting GDB with the first core not being connected
• occasional crash when providing incorrect CLI arguments
• invalid disassembly of 64-bit RISC-V instructions
• crash on machine reset when using custom CSRs in RISC-V
• handling of multi-byte reads in LiteX I2C model
• handling of images with unaligned size in USB pen drive
• invalid LED connections in STM32F4

1.10.1 - 2020.07.30

This is a hotfix release overriding 1.10.0.

Fixed:

• crash on Windows when accessing high memory addresses
• installation instructions in README

1.10.0 - 2020.07.28

Added:

• support for the PolarFire SoC-based Icicle Kit platform, with a demo running Linux
• experimental support for OpenPOWER ISA
• support for NXP K64F with UART, Ethernet and RNG
• basic support for Nordic nRF52840
• Microwatt platform, with Potato UART, running MicroPython or Zephyr
• LiteX platform with a 4-core VexRiscv in SMP
• LiteX demo running Microwatt as a CPU
• LiteX demo with VexRiscv booting Linux from the SD card
• LiteX demo with VexRiscv showing how to handle input and output via I2S
• LiteX MMCM model, I2S model and SD card controller model
• several peripheral models for QuickLogic EOS S3: ADC, SPI DMA, Packet FIFO, FFE etc
• ADXL345 accelerometer model
• PAC1934 power monitor model
• PCM encoder/decoder infrastructure for providing audio data to I2S devices
• modular network server allowing to easily add server components to the emulation without a host-to-guest connection
• built-in TFTP server module
• file backend for UARTs, allowing to send output directly to a file (uart CreateFileBackend)
• alias Monitor command
• console_log Monitor command to simply print to the log window without level filtering
• --no-gui build option to build without graphical dependencies
• option to define an average cycles count per instruction, to be used by CPU counters
• code formatting rules for translation libraries, to be used with Uncrustify

Changed:

• Renode is now able to be compiled with mcs. This means that you can use your distribution's Mono package instead of the one provided by mono-project.com, as long as it satisfies the minimum version requirement (currently Mono 5.2)
• the default log level is now set to INFO instead of DEBUG
• all PolarFire SoC peripherals are now renamed from PSE_* to MPFS_*, to follow Microchip's naming pattern
• major rework of the SD card model, along with the added SPI interface
• RI5CY core can now be created with or without FPU support
• STM32 and SAM E70 platforms now have verified priorityMask in NVIC
• Cortex-M based platforms can now be reset by writing to NVIC
• easy way to update timer values between synchronization phases, significantly improving the performance of polling on timers
• tests are now able to run in parallel, using the -j switch in the testing script execution
• the pattern for download links in scripts for binaries hosted by Antmicro has been changed
• portable package now includes testing infrastructure and sample tests
• the LLVM-based disassembly library is now rebuilt, using less space and being able to support more architectures on all host OSes
• the C++ symbol demangling now relies on a CxxDemangler library, instead of libstdc++
• failed Robot tests will now produce snapshots allowing users to debug more easily
• SVD-based log messages on reads and writes are now more verbose
• Terminal Tester API has changed slightly, allowing for easier prompt detection, timeout control etc.

Fixed:

• crash when running tests with empty tests.yaml file
• crash when Renode is unable to find the root directory
• crash when loading broken or incompatible state snapshot with Load
• several issues in the PPC architecture
• mstatus CSR behaviour when accessing FP registers in RISC-V
• PMP napot decoding in RISC-V
• evaluation of the IT-state related status codes in ARM CPUs
• invalid setting of CPUID fields in x86 guests
• PolarFire SoC platform description and various models: CAN, SPI, SD controller, etc.
• ODR register behavior in STM32F1 GPIO port
• State changed event handling in LED model
• invalid disposal of the SD card model, possibly leading to filesystem sharing violations
• some cursor manipulation commands in TermSharp
• performance issues when hitting breakpoints with GDB
• on the fly compilation of “*.cs” files in the portable Renode package
• Mono Framework version detection
• upgrading Renode version on Windows when installed using the msi package
• error message when quitting Renode on Windows
• running tests from binary packages
• support for testing in Conda Renode package
• other various fixes in Conda package building

1.9.0 - 2020.03.10

Breaking changes:

• the Renode configuration directory was moved to another location.

  The directory is moved from ~/.renode on Unix-like systems and Documents on Windows to ~/.config/renode and AppData\Roaming\renode respectively. To use your previous settings and Monitor history, please start Renode 1.9 and copy your old config folder over the new one.

Added:

• support for RISC-V Privileged Architecture 1.11
• EOS S3 platform, with QuickFeather and Qomu boards support
• EFR32MG13 platform support
• Zolertia Firefly dual radio (CC2538/CC1200) platform support
• Kendryte K210 platform support
• NeTV2 with LiteX and VexRiscv platform support
• EFR32 timer and gpcrc models
• CC2538 GPIO controller and SSI models
• CC1200 radio model
• MAX3421E USB controller model
• LiteX SoC controller model
• support for Wishbone bus in verilated peripherals, exemplified with the riscv_verilated_liteuart.resc sample
• one-shot mode in AutoRepaintingVideo allowing display models to control when they are refreshed
• GetItState for ARM Cortex-M cores allowing to verify the current status of the IT block
• scripts to create Conda packages for Linux, Windows and macOS
• requirements.txt with Python dependencies to simplify the compilation process
• configuration option to collapse repeated lines in the log - turn it to false if you observe strange behavior of the log output

Changed:

• VexRiscv now supports Supervisor level interrupts, following latest changes to this core
• PolarFire SoC script now has a sample binary, running FreeRTOS with LwIP stack
• the output of Robot test is now upgraded to clearly indicate time of execution
• NetworkInterfaceKeywords now support wireless communication
• exposed several RISC-V registers to the Monitor
• VerilatedUART now supports interrupts
• tests file format was changed to yaml, thus changing tests.txt to tests.yaml
• test.sh can now run NUnit tests in parallel
• ./build.sh -p will no longer build the portable Linux package as it requires a very specific Mono version
• path to ar can now be specified in the properties file before building
• MinGW libraries are now compiled in statically, significantly reducing the Windows package size

Fixed:

• crash when trying to set the underlying model for verilated peripheral in REPL
• crash when copying data from the terminal to clipboard on Windows
• crash on loading missing FDT file
• crash when starting the GDB server before loading the platform
• handling of very long commands via GDB
• improper window positioning when running on Windows with a display scaling enabled
• exception reporting from running CPUs
• flushing of closing LoggingUartAnalyzer
• icon installation on Fedora
• rebuilding translation libraries when only a header is changed
• macOS run scripts bundled in packages
• priority level handling in NVIC
• COUNTFLAG handling in NVIC
• several improvements in Cadence GEM frame handling
• FastRead operations in Micron MT25Q flash
• PolarFire SoC Watchdog forbidden range handling
• offset calculation on byte accesses in NS16550 model
• interrupt handling in PolarFire SoC QSPI model
• connected pins state readout in PolarFire SoC GPIO model
• several fixes in HiFive SPI model
• page latch alignment in PolarFire SoC

1.8.2 - 2019.11.12

Added:

• a sample running HiFive Unleashed with Fomu running Foboot, connected via USB
• a sample running MicroPython on LiteX with VexRiscv
• vectored interrupts support in RISC-V
• pythonEngine variable is now availalbe in Python scripting

Changed:

• Renode now requires Mono 5.20 on Linux and macOS
• USB setup packets are now handled asynchronously, allowing more advanced processing on the USB device side
• additional flash sizes for Micron MT25Q
• LiteX_Ethernet has a constant size now

Fixed:

• problem with halting cores in GDB support layer when hitting a breakpoint - GDB works in a proper all-stop mode now

1.8.1 - 2019.10.09

Added:

• LiteX with VexRiscv configuration running Zephyr
• USB/IP Server for attaching Renode peripherals as a USB device to host
• optional NMI support in RISC-V
• flash controller for EFR32
• I2C controller for LiteX
• SPI controller for PicoRV
• framebuffer controller for LiteX
• USB keyboard model

Changed:

• -e parameter for commands executed at startup can be provided multiple times
• polarfire platform is now renamed to polarfire-soc
• style of Robot Framework result files
• MT25Q flash backend has changed from file to memory, allowing software to execute directly from it
• improved LiteX on Fomu platform
• terminals based on sockets now accept reconnections from clients

Fixed:

• Bad IL exceptions when running on Mono 6.4

1.8.0 - 2019.09.02

Added:

• support for RI5CY core and the VEGA board
• UART and timer models for RI5CY
• support for Minerva, a 32-bit RISC-V soft CPU
• LiteX with Minerva platform
• LiteX with VexRiscv on Arty platform
• SPI, Control and Status, SPI Flash and GPIO port peripheral models for LiteX
• PSE_PDMA peripheral model for the PolarFire SoC platform
• basic slave mode support in PSE_I2C
• EtherBone bridge model to connect Renode with FPGA via EtherBone
• EtherBone bridge demo on Fomu
• RTCC and GPCRC peripheral models for EFR32
• support for deep sleep on Cortex-M cores
• option of bundling Renode as an ELF executable on Linux

Changed:

• GDB server is now started from the machine level instead of cpu and is able to handle multiple cores at once
• renamed SetLossRangeWirelessFunction to SetRangeLossWirelessFunction
• LiteX Ethernet now supports the MDIO interface
• updated memory map for several EFR32 platforms
• changed the interrupt handling of EFR32_USART
• several changes in Ethernet PHY
• switch is now started immediately after creation
• the Monitor (and other mechanisms) now uses caching, increasing its performance
• Robot tests are now part of packages
• Robot tests no longer cause the Monitor telnet server to start automatically
• REPL files now accept multiline strings delimited with triple apostrophe
• UART analyzers are writing to the Renode log when running from Robot
• simplified command line switches for running Robot tests
• some Robot keywords (e.g. LogToFile) are not saved between related tests

Fixed:

• compilation of verilated peripheral classes in Windows (backported to 1.7.1 package)
• determinism of SAM E70 tests
• crash when using logLevel command with --hide-log switch
• ad-hoc compiler behavior in Windows
• crash on too short Ethernet packets
• byte read behavior in NS16550
• auto update behavior of PSE_Timer
• connection mode when running the Monitor via telnet
• deserialization of SerializableStreamView
• crash when completing interrupts in PLIC when no interrupt is pending
• Renode startup position on Windows with desktop scaling enabled
• fence.* operation decoding in RISC-V
• invalid size reported by SD card
• crash when trying to set the same log file twice
• compilation issues on GCC 9

1.7.1 - 2019.05.15

Added:

• integration layer for Verilator
• base infrastructure for verilated peripherals
• base class for verilated UARTs, with analyzer support
• Linux on LiteX with VexRiscv demo

Changed:

• RISC-V CPUs now don't need CLINT in their constructor, but will accept any abstract time provider
• updated LiteX with PicoRV32 and LiteX with VexRiscv platform

Fixed:

• sharing violation when trying to run downloaded files

1.7.0 - 2019.05.02

Added:

• PicoRV32 CPU
• LiteX platform with PicoRV32
• LiteX timer and ethernet (LiteEth) model
• Murax SoC with UART, timer and GPIO controller models
• Fomu target support with LiteX and VexRiscv
• SAM E70 Xplained platform with USART, TRNG and ethernet controller models
• STM32F4 Random Number Generator model
• PSE watchdog model
• PTP support in Cadence GEM ethernet model, along with several fixes
• option to execute CPUs in serial instead of parallel
• support for custom instructions in RISC-V
• empty keyword in REPL
• graphical display analyzer support on Windows
• multi-target GPIO support, along with the new REPL syntax
• local interrupts in PolarFire SoC platform
• option to pass variables to Robot tests via test.sh
• some SiFive FU540 tests
• network interface tester for Robot tests
• tests for PTP implementation in Zephyr

Changed:

• Micron MT25Q is now able to use file as a backend and does not need to have a separate memory provided in REPL
• Micron MT25Q now has selectable endianess
• logFile command will now create a copy of the previous log before overwriting it
• sysbus LogPeripheralAccess will now add the active CPU name and current PC to log messages
• single-stepping of a CPU is now easier, it requires only a single call to cpu Step on a paused CPU
• NVIC reload value is now 24-bit
• reimplemented the STM32_UART model
• updated the PolarFire SoC memory map
• updated the SiFive FU540 memory map
• GetClockSourceInfo will now display the name of the timer
• Termsharp will no longer print the NULL character
• RISC-V cores will now abort when trying to run a disabled F/D instruction

Fixed:

• handling of divider in ComparingTimer
• reporting of download progress on some Mono versions
• running Robot tests on Windows
• generation of TAP helper on newest Mono releases
• Renode crashing after opening a socket on the same port twice
• serialization of data storage structures
• architecture name reported on GDB connection for Cortex-M CPUs
• highlighting of wrapped lines in the terminal on Windows
• TAB completion in the Monitor on Windows
• RNG determinism and serialization for multicore/multi-node systems
• SiFive FE310 interrupt connection
• instruction counting in RISC-V on MMU faults
• time progress in multicore systems
• fixes in MiV GPIO controller model
• several fixes and improvements in file backend storage layer
• several fixes in testing scripts
• several fixes in various LiteX peripherals
• several fixes in PSE QSPI and Micron MT25Q model

1.6.2 - 2019.01.10

Added:

• instructions on running in Docker
• --pid-file option to save Renode's process ID to a file

Changed:

• RISC-V X0 register is now protected from being written from the Monitor
• Renode will now close when it receives a signal from the environment (e.g. Ctrl+C from the console window)
• invalid instructions in RISC-V will no longer lead to CPU abort - an exception will be issued instead, to be handled by the guest software
• Robot tests will now log more

Fixed:

• formatting of symbol logging
• error reporting in Robot tests using the Requires keyword
• Microsemi's Mi-V CPU description

1.6.1 - 2019.01.02

Added:

• CC2538 Flash Controller
• ECB mode for CC2538 Cryptoprocessor

Changed:

• unhandled read/write logs are now decorated with the CPU name instead of the number
• message acknowledge logic on PolarFire CAN controller

Fixed:

• race condition in PromptTerminal used by the Robot Framework
• Monitor socket not opening in certain situations
• unaligned accesses in RISC-V not setting the proper badaddr value
• handling of data exceeding the maximum packet size of USB endpoint
• memory map and CPU definition for SiFive FE310
• out of bounds access when using Ctrl+R with wrapped lines in the Monitor

1.6.0 - 2018.11.21

Added:

• new USB infrastructure
• new PCI infrastructure
• PolarFire SoC platform support
• atomic instructions on RISC-V
• basic PicoSoC support - the picorv32 CPU and UART
• block-finished event infrastructure - verified on RISC-V and ARM cores
• more PSE peripherals: RTC, PCIe controller, USB controller, QSPI, CAN, etc
• Micron MT25Q flash model
• watch command to run Monitor commands periodically
• a message on the Monitor when quitting Renode
• qXfer support for GDB, allowing the client to autodetect the architecture
• log tester for Robot Framework

Changed:

• added error handling for uninitialized IRQ objects in REPL loading
• RISC-V CSR registers are now accessible in relevant privilege architecture version only
• RISC-V CPUs no longer require CLINT provided as a constructor parameter
• added second timer interrupt to PSE_Timer
• machine.GetClockSourceInfo now prints the current value for each clock entry
• REPL loading tests are now in Robot
• value provider callbacks on write-only fields will generate exceptions
• watchpoint handling infrastructure
• reworked single stepping
• Monitor errors are forwarded to the GDB client when issuing qRcmd
• LoadELF command initializes PC on all cores by default
• reduced the default synchronization quantum
• CPU abort now halts the emulation
• --disable-xwt no longer requires opening a port
• RISC-V atomic instructions now fail if the A instruction set is not enabled

Fixed:

• pausing and halting the CPU from hooks
• error when trying to TAB-complete nonexisting paths
• packaging script on Windows
• crash on extremely narrow Terminal on Windows
• inconsistent cursor position when erasing in Termsharp
• selection of multibyte UTF characters on Linux
• scrollbar behavior on Windows
• error reporting from executed commands in Robot
• RISC-V cores reset
• several fixes in time framework
• output pin handling and interrupt clearing in PSE_GPIO
• minor fixes in PSE_SPI
• throwing invalid instruction exception on wrong CSR access in RISC-V
• CPU abort will now stop the failing CPU

1.5.0 - 2018.10.03

Added:

• custom CSR registers in RISC-V
• VexRiscv CPU
• basic LiteX platform with VexRiscv
• LiteX VexRiscv demo with Zephyr
• single and multinode CC2538 demos with Contiki-NG
• PSE peripherals
• several tests for demos and internal mechanisms
• base classes for bus peripherals, allowing for easier definition of registers

Changed:

• installation instructions in README
• the target .NET version changed to 4.5 reducing the number of dependencies
• forced mono64 on macOS
• renamed the multinode demos directory
• RISC-V CPUs now generate an exception on unaligned memory reads and writes
• CLINT is now optional for RISC-V CPUs
• reimplemented FileStreamLimitWrapper

Fixed:

• first line blinking in terminal on Windows
• performance fixes in function logging
• handling of broken CSI codes in Termsharp
• completely removed the GTK dependency on Windows
• handling of CheckIfUartIsIdle Robot keyword
• resetting of RISC-V-based platforms
• prevented a rare crash on disposing multicore platforms when using hooks
• handling of unsupported characters in Robot protocol
• Windows installer correctly finds the previous Renode installation (may require manual deinstallation of the previous version)
• compilation of translation libraries on Windows is no longer forced on every Renode recompilation

1.4.2 - 2018.07.27

Added:

• debug mode in RISC-V, masking interrupts and ignoring WFI when connected via GDB
• installer file for Windows
• GPIO controller for STM32F103, with other improvements to the platform file
• PWM, I2C and SPI peripherals for HiFive Unleashed
• tests for HiFive Unleashed
• configuration option to always add machine name in logs
• test scripts when installing Renode from a package on Linux

Changed:

• changed gksu dependency to pkexec, as Ubuntu does not provide gksu anymore
• virtual time of machines created after some time is synchronized with other machines
• improved Vector Table Offset guessing when loading ELF files on ARM Cortex-M CPUs
• extended capabilities of some Robot keywords
• changed the way peripheral names are resolved in logs, so that they don't disappear when removing the emulation

Fixed:

• support for writing 64-bit registers from GDB
• crash when trying to connect to a nonexisting interrupt
• GDB access to Cortex-M registers
• some fixes in EFR32_USART

1.4.1 - 2018.06.28

Added:

• AXI UART Lite model

Changed:

• event dispatching on WPF on Windows

Fixed:

• an error in handling of generated code on Windows, causing the emulated application to misbehave
• font loading and default font size on Windows

1.4.0 - 2018.06.22

Added:

• support for RISC-V Privileged Architecture 1.10
• 64-bit RISC-V target emulation
• support for HiFive Unleashed platform
• support for SiFive Freedom E310 platform
• new way of handling time progression and synchronization in the whole framework
• support for 64-bit registers
• basic support for a range of SiLabs EFM32, EFR32 and EZR32 MCUs
• several new Robot keywords
• Wireshark support for macOS

Changed:

• Windows runs a 64-bit version of Renode
• 32-bit host OSes are no longer supported
• Robot tests can now be marked as OS-specific or ignored
• improvements in CC2538 radio model
• enum values in REPL files can now be provided as integers
• updated interrupt model in RISC-V
• MaximumBlockSize is no longer forced to 1 when starting GDB server

Fixed:

• several fixes in REPL grammar
• fixes in Robot test handling
• fixes in GDB watchpoints and breakpoints
• few other fixes in GDB integration layer
• floating point operations in RISC-V
• atomic operations in RISC-V
• high CPU usage when loading many nodes at the same time
• deserialization of the UART windows
• symbol names caching when loading new symbol files
• several minor fixes in different platform files

1.3.0 - 2018.01.26

Added:

• EmulationEnvironment - a mechanism to handle sensor data in a centralized way
• test for loading REPL files
• several registers and commands in CC2538RF
• SCSS device for QuarkC1000 platform
• sample scripts with two nodes running a Zephyr demo

Changed:

• ComparingTimer and LimitTimer are now more similar in terms of API
• macOS runs a 64-bit version of Renode
• changed Arduino 101 with CC2520 board to Quark C1000 devkit
• improvements in RISC-V interrupt handling
• current working directory is now always a part of Monitor's default path

Fixed:

• crash when closing Renode with Wireshark enabled but not yet started
• handling of timer events for a specific timer configuration
• implementation of LED tester
• starting Robot on Windows without administrative privileges
• terminal state after running Robot tests
• improper timer initialization in RISC-V's CoreLevelInterruptor
• text highlighting in wrapped lines in terminal windows

1.2.0 - 2017.11.15

Added:

• support for RISC-V architecture
• support for Microsemi Mi-V platform
• thin OpenOCD layer in GDB remote protocol support

Changed:

• timers can now hold values up to 64 bits
• Button peripheral can now have inverted logic
• GDB server can be configured to autostart after the first "monitor halt" received

Fixed:

• translation cache invalidation on manual writes to memory
• reset of LimitTimer peripheral, which is the base for most of the supported timers

1.1.0 - 2017.11.14

Added:

• sample scripts for different platforms
• support for running Renode on Windows
• EFR32MG cpu support. For the list of peripherals, see efr32mg.repl
• more robust support for SVD files
• support for 'n -> rn' patching in Termsharp console windows
• support for font configuration in Termsharp
• support for CRC in Ethernet
• packaging scripts

Changed:

• API for UART-related keywords in Robot Framework integration layer
• the project infrastructure now supports C# 7.0
• directory organization

Fixed:

• several minor fixes in platform description format (.repl)
• bug where Renode hanged after issuing the "help" command in the Monitor

1.0.0 - 2017.06.13

This is the initial release of Renode. Renode is a virtual development and testing tool for multinode embedded networks. For more information please visit https://www.renode.io.