Installation on Linux
This chapter describes how to install libfranka and franka_ros, either
as binary packages or by building from source, and how to install a real-time
Linux kernel. franka_ros is only required if you want to control your robot
using ROS.
Note
While libfranka and the franka_ros packages should work on different Linux distributions,
official support is currently only provided for:
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver and ROS Melodic Morenia (requires at least
libfranka0.6.0)Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa and ROS Noetic Ninjemys (requires at least
libfranka0.8.0)
The following instructions are exemplary for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system and ROS Noetic Ninjemys. They only work in the supported environments.
Warning
We do not offer support for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus and ROS Kinetic Kame anymore, as they have reached their end-of-life.
Installing from the ROS repositories
Hint
These packages might not always be up-to-date, as they are only synced at certain intervals.
Read the changelog at https://frankaemika.github.io to find out which libfranka version is required for
a particular robot software version. If this doesn’t match the ros-noetic-libfranka version from the
repositories, you need to build from source.
Binary packages for libfranka and franka_ros are available from the ROS repositories.
After setting up ROS Noetic, execute:
sudo apt install ros-noetic-libfranka ros-noetic-franka-ros
Building from source
Refer to the README.md
Building the ROS packages
After setting up ROS Noetic, create a Catkin workspace in a directory of your choice:
cd /path/to/desired/folder
mkdir -p catkin_ws/src
cd catkin_ws
source /opt/ros/noetic/setup.sh
catkin_init_workspace src
Then clone the franka_ros repository from GitHub:
git clone --recursive https://github.com/frankaemika/franka_ros src/franka_ros
By default, this will check out the newest release of franka_ros. If you want to build a particular version of
franka_ros instead, check out the corresponding Git tag:
git checkout <version>
Install any missing dependencies and build the packages:
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro noetic -y --skip-keys libfranka
catkin_make -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DFranka_DIR:PATH=/path/to/libfranka/build
source devel/setup.sh
Warning
If you also installed ros-noetic-libfranka, libfranka might be picked up from /opt/ros/noetic
instead of from your custom libfranka build!
Setting up the real-time kernel
In order to control your robot using libfranka, the controller program on
the workstation PC must run with real-time priority under a PREEMPT_RT
kernel. This section describes the procedure of patching a kernel to support
PREEMPT_RT and creating an installation package.
Note
NVIDIA drivers are not officially supported on PREEMPT_RT kernels, but the installation might work anyway by passing the environment variable IGNORE_PREEMPT_RT_PRESENCE=1 to the installation command.
First, install the necessary dependencies:
sudo apt-get install build-essential bc curl debhelper dpkg-dev devscripts fakeroot libssl-dev libelf-dev bison flex cpio kmod rsync libncurses-dev
Then, you have to decide which kernel version to use. To find the one you are
using currently, use uname -r. Real-time patches are only available for
select kernel versions, see
https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/. We recommend choosing the
version closest to the one you currently use. If you choose a
different version, simply substitute the numbers. Having decided on a version,
use curl to download the source files:
Note
For Ubuntu 16.04 tested with the kernel version 4.14.12:
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/linux-4.14.12.tar.xz
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v4.x/linux-4.14.12.tar.sign
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/4.14/older/patch-4.14.12-rt10.patch.xz
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/4.14/older/patch-4.14.12-rt10.patch.sign
Note
For Ubuntu 18.04 tested with the kernel version 5.4.19:
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.4.19.tar.xz
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.4.19.tar.sign
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/5.4/older/patch-5.4.19-rt10.patch.xz
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/5.4/older/patch-5.4.19-rt10.patch.sign
Note
For Ubuntu 20.04 tested with the kernel version 5.9.1:
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.9.1.tar.xz
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v5.x/linux-5.9.1.tar.sign
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/5.9/patch-5.9.1-rt20.patch.xz
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/5.9/patch-5.9.1-rt20.patch.sign
Note
For Ubuntu 22.04, we recommend using the Ubuntu Pro real-time kernel. After enabling it, you can skip directly to Allow a user to set real-time permissions for its processes. In case you do not want to use Ubuntu Pro, you can proceed as for the other versions (tested with the kernel version 6.8.0):
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v6.x/linux-6.8.tar.xz
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v6.x/linux-6.8.tar.sign
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/6.8/older/patch-6.8-rt8.patch.xz
curl -LO https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/6.8/older/patch-6.8-rt8.patch.sign
And decompress them with:
xz -d *.xz
Verifying file integrity
Note
This step is optional but recommended!
The .sign files can be used to verify that the downloaded files were not
corrupted or tampered with. The steps shown here are adapted from the
Linux Kernel Archive , see the
linked page for more details about the process.
You can use gpg2 to verify the .tar archives:
gpg2 --verify linux-*.tar.sign
gpg2 --verify patch-*.patch.sign
If your output is similar to the following:
$ gpg2 --verify linux-*.tar.sign
gpg: assuming signed data in 'linux-4.14.12.tar'
gpg: Signature made Fr 05 Jan 2018 06:49:11 PST using RSA key ID 6092693E
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key
You have to first download the public key of the person who signed the above
file. As you can see from the above output, it has the ID 6092693E. You can
obtain it from the key server:
gpg2 --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 6092693E
Similarly for the patch:
gpg2 --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 2872E4CC
Note that keys for other kernel version might have different IDs, you will have to adapt accordingly.
Having downloaded the keys, you can now verify the sources. Here is an example of a correct output:
$ gpg2 --verify linux-*.tar.sign
gpg: assuming signed data in 'linux-4.14.12.tar'
gpg: Signature made Fr 05 Jan 2018 06:49:11 PST using RSA key ID 6092693E
gpg: Good signature from "Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>" [unknown]
gpg: aka "Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@kernel.org>" [unknown]
gpg: aka "Greg Kroah-Hartman (Linux kernel stable release signing key) <greg@kroah.com>" [unknown]
gpg: WARNING: This key is not certified with a trusted signature!
gpg: There is no indication that the signature belongs to the owner.
Primary key fingerprint: 647F 2865 4894 E3BD 4571 99BE 38DB BDC8 6092 693E
See Linux Kernel Archive for more information about the warning.
Compiling the kernel
Once you are sure the files were downloaded properly, you can extract the source code and apply the patch:
tar xf linux-*.tar
cd linux-*/
patch -p1 < ../patch-*.patch
Next copy your currently booted kernel configuration as the default config for the new real time kernel:
cp -v /boot/config-$(uname -r) .config
Exclude the debug information from the kernel files to save space:
scripts/config --disable DEBUG_INFO
scripts/config --disable DEBUG_INFO_DWARF_TOOLCHAIN_DEFAULT
scripts/config --disable DEBUG_KERNEL
Disable the system-wide ring of trusted keys:
scripts/config --disable SYSTEM_TRUSTED_KEYS
scripts/config --disable SYSTEM_REVOCATION_LIST
Activate the Fully Preemptible Kernel (Real-Time):
scripts/config --disable PREEMPT_NONE
scripts/config --disable PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY
scripts/config --disable PREEMPT
scripts/config --enable PREEMPT_RT
Now you can use this config as the default to configure the build:
make olddefconfig
Afterwards, you are ready to compile the kernel. As this is a lengthy process, set the
multithreading option -j to the number of your CPU cores:
make -j$(nproc) deb-pkg
Finally, you are ready to install the newly created package. The exact names
depend on your environment, but you are looking for headers and images
packages without the dbg suffix. To install:
sudo IGNORE_PREEMPT_RT_PRESENCE=1 dpkg -i ../linux-headers-*.deb ../linux-image-*.deb
Verifying the new kernel
Restart your system. The Grub boot menu should now allow you to choose your
newly installed kernel. To see which one is currently being used, see the output
of the uname -a command. It should contain the string PREEMPT RT and the
version number you chose. Additionally, /sys/kernel/realtime should exist and
contain the the number 1.
Note
If you encounter errors that you fail to boot the new kernel see Cannot boot realtime kernel because of “Invalid Signature”
Allow a user to set real-time permissions for its processes
After the PREEMPT_RT kernel is installed and running, add a group named
realtime and add the user controlling your robot to this group:
sudo addgroup realtime
sudo usermod -a -G realtime $(whoami)
Afterwards, add the following limits to the realtime group in
/etc/security/limits.conf:
@realtime soft rtprio 99
@realtime soft priority 99
@realtime soft memlock 102400
@realtime hard rtprio 99
@realtime hard priority 99
@realtime hard memlock 102400
The limits will be applied after you log out and in again.