Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

BenFT — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:43:04 GMT

I think you are right. We have now made a build which removes MPSL but with NCS back in and we can now debug. OpenThread is still working.

Thanks for your help.

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

Sigurd Hellesvik — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:01:43 GMT

[quote user="BenFT"]Do you know why this would be different?[/quote]

The main difference I can think of is that in the nRF Connect SDK, we use MPSL for OpenThread, which may be more sensitive to debugging than the zephyr library.

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

BenFT — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 09:23:37 GMT

We are not using Bluetooth at the moment, but would like to add in the future.

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

Sigurd Hellesvik — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 09:21:42 GMT

Do you use Bluetooth alongside Thread in any of the applications (NCS or zephyr)?

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

BenFT — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 09:11:15 GMT

One of our team has recompiled the project for Zephyr with OpenThread excluding NCS and is able to set breakpoints and continue, or single step. It's not perfect as expected, there will be timeouts, but it will certainly make system debugging a lot easier.

Do you know why this would be different?

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

Sigurd Hellesvik — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 13:19:39 GMT

I see that you created a new case for the OpenThread and TLS issue.
Good idea, as this case is originally about debugging and not TLS.

Let's continue in the new case: TLS in OT CLI example

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

BenFT — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:57:39 GMT

Thanks for the reply.
The TCP works, driving it from the CLI in our project build.
The TLS, using the CLI does not.

I have compared our CLI example/project with the Net Sockets TCP Client/Server examples and their config to come up with the options above. I have reduced the MBEDTLS_HEAP_SIZE as it was massive before and doesn't fit the DK with the other code.

There is detail on driving the TCP tests in the samples documentation, all good. But nothing on adding TLS so any info on adding that would be appreciated.

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

Sigurd Hellesvik — Thu, 23 Nov 2023 14:53:53 GMT

[quote user="BenFT"]TCP works fine using the OT CLI.[/quote]

After some headscratching, I think I got an idea here.

If it works for the OT Cli sample, but not your project, I suggest that you compare build/zephyr/.config for both of these projects, and see if you can find which difference seems to matter for the mbedtls TLS here.

Does that work for you?

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

BenFT — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 15:12:29 GMT

OK. I can see it might be tricky.

Currently I am trying to get the TLS comms over TCP over OpenThread to work in the CLI example (which we have combined with our own app). TCP works fine using the OT CLI.
The TLS handshake fails with error -27136 or -0x6a00 which is MBEDTLS_ERR_SSL_BUFFER_TOO_SMALL.

I was trying to step through to see if the test/dummy credentials have been setup correctly to allow the example to work and find out if either the buffer is too small or the credentials are too large (or are not defined).

My setting for this are:

CONFIG_OT_CLI_ENABLED=y

# Network shell

CONFIG_SHELL=y

CONFIG_OPENTHREAD_SHELL=y

CONFIG_OPENTHREAD_NORDIC_LIBRARY_MASTER=y

CONFIG_NET_L2_OPENTHREAD=y

CONFIG_NETWORKING=y

CONFIG_MQTT_LIB=y

CONFIG_MQTT_LIB_TLS=y

CONFIG_NET_SOCKETS_SOCKOPT_TLS=y

CONFIG_TLS_CREDENTIALS=y

CONFIG_OPENTHREAD_TCP_ENABLE=y

CONFIG_NET_BUF_RX_COUNT=100

CONFIG_NET_BUF_TX_COUNT=100

CONFIG_MBEDTLS=y

CONFIG_MBEDTLS_BUILTIN=y

CONFIG_MBEDTLS_ENABLE_HEAP=y

CONFIG_MBEDTLS_HEAP_SIZE=10240

CONFIG_MBEDTLS_SSL_MAX_CONTENT_LEN=2048

CONFIG_NET_LOG=y

CONFIG_NET_SOCKETS_LOG_LEVEL_DBG=y

CONFIG_MBEDTLS_LOG_LEVEL_DBG=y

CONFIG_TLS_CREDENTIALS_LOG_LEVEL_DBG=y

RE: Single step debugging of OpenThread with nRF and Zephyr. Is it possible?

Sigurd Hellesvik — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 14:23:09 GMT

Hi Ben,

See Thread aware debugging with nRF Connect SDK .

In general, debugging can be tricky with wireless protocols due to their realtime nature.

As an alternative, you can try to use logging to debug your OpenThread application.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik