[Hackrf-dev] HackRF-dev Digest, Vol 21, Issue 5
Sohil Shah
magicianss64 at gmail.com
Thu Sep 4 06:42:33 EDT 2014
Hi Rich,
All the best for your finals. As far as the platform is concerned. I have
tried using Kali and Ubuntu for SDR. I would suggest using either Pentoo
(Zero will be releasing a new build with all the required tools etc.) as it
is preferred by the HackRF community, at least Mike prefers it or Kali
which has good support for SDR and other similar tools.
I just checked out the PyBOMBS wiki
http://gnuradio.org/redmine/projects/pybombs/wiki it looks interesting. Not
sure though if that is better than the upcoming release of Pentoo (Zero).
Basically I'd like to see this tested on a live distro so that all you have
to do is chose the iso to boot the VM from, it makes life easy for the
masses and helps others replicate or validate your results easily without
having to deal with other complications of different versions of software.
The idea is to basically be able to have multiple people test it across
different hardware platforms and come up with differences in performance
between running it in a virtualized environment as opposed to bare metal
and then figure out an ideal practical MSPS that the HackRF can work on in
a virtualized environment.
As far as the virtualization platform is concerned. I gave up on VirtualBox
after 3 excruciating years. It's USB passthrough is not as good as VmWare
and because that is the most crucial feature it makes sense to use VmWare
over VirtualBox with the HackRF even though the hackrf project has been
truly opensource everything. You can get VmWare Player for free. I think
you can also get VmWare Sphere or in some cases VmWare Workstation for free
if you are a student. I don't think there should be a big difference
between the USB handling capability of WorkStation vs Player, though the
difference between Vmware and VirtualBox can be substantial. The one
difference you will face between Workstation and Player(free) is the
ability to make snapshots. I like the flexibility of snapshots which is
also one of the reasons to want to try to use HackRF in the Virtualized
environment.
On Thu, Sep 4, 2014 at 5:54 AM, <hackrf-dev-request at greatscottgadgets.com>
wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. HackRF in a Virtualized Environment
> (Windows7>VmWare>Pentoo\Kali\Ubuntu) (Sohil Shah)
> 2. Re: HackRF in a Virtualized Environment
> (Windows7>VmWare>Pentoo\Kali\Ubuntu) (Rich S)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2014 05:35:53 -0400
> From: Sohil Shah <magicianss64 at gmail.com>
> To: hackrf-dev at greatscottgadgets.com
> Subject: [Hackrf-dev] HackRF in a Virtualized Environment
> (Windows7>VmWare>Pentoo\Kali\Ubuntu)
> Message-ID:
> <CAPU_qrNf=
> Vr8T5u97yxxga_-uCZaKB_97z7wSrKbHCFzyFSkpw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Background:
>
> I received my HackRF this Tuesday and tried running it under Pentoo, Kali
> and Windows. It did not work on either. I installed the latest Zadiag
> drivers on Windows and got the latest version of SDR#. As far as Kali and
> Pentoo go I followed the guide online except that I was running it from
> within a VM using VmWare. I have not dared to update my firmware. I will
> wait till Zero releases the Pentoo build with all the necessary tools and
> Mike posts his lesson on firmware flashing.
>
> My question today is has anyone tried using the HackRF in a Virtualized
> environment [Windows7>VmWare_WorkStation10>Pentoo/Kali/Ubuntu]
>
> I am aware of there being limits over USB in a virtualized environment, but
> for a lot of reasons I would like to use the HackRF on my Windows box using
> VmWare Workstation 10 as the virtualized environment on either Kali/Ubuntu
> or Pentoo (Zero?s latest build when its released).
>
>
>
> I can understand that there may be a lot of people who will say, use it on
> bare metal and that is fine, but I really want to see if it is possible to
> use the HackRF in a virtualized environment. I have used the RTLSDR in a
> virtualized environment for over a year now and it seems to be doing just
> fine with a lot of applications. I am not sure what the limitations of
> using the HackRF in a virtualized environment are. I do not intend to use
> it at its maximum sample rate as I am sure a lot of applications don?t
> require that high a samp_rate, E.G everything running on the RTLSDR is
> running at under 3.2MSPS.
>
>
>
> My crude understanding is that more the MSPS more the I/O demand or
> bandwidth required on the USB bus and the driver that shuttles the samples
> between Windows through VMware to the Virtual Machine. I don?t know what
> the max_limit for such a setup is in terms of MSPS but I?d like to know if
> someone has been able to do a calculation of the amount of lost USB packets
> when going from 0MSPS to 22MSPS in a virtualized environment or if someone
> is willing to give me an idea as to how one would go about doing that as I
> am not sure if there is any existing way to calculate that. My goal is to
> figure out an ideal MSPS at which the HackRF is ideally useable in a
> Virtaul Machine running on Windows7 inside VmWare Workstation 10. As far as
> hardware goes I have the Lenovo ThinkPad T430 (Intel Chipset) which based
> on what I have read is one of the good performers on the hardware side,
> hence any losses or limitations would really be a software/virtualization
> issue as opposed to a hardware issue.
>
>
> If someone still can?t wrap their head around the fact that why I would
> want to use Virtualization let me explain.
>
> 1) 1) I only have one computer (laptop).
>
> 2) 2) I really need to have windows installed on it and can?t have dual
> boot on it with any Linux flavor.
>
> 3) 3) This limits me to using a live CD/USB
>
> 4) 4) I would like to watch Mike?s videos and refer to online guides
> while doing the exercises in GRC.
>
> 5) 5) All Live CD?s may not have all the required tools, codecs etc. to
> watch video files and or video content online. (I know this is a lame
> argument but there are certain limitations and not everything will run
> straight out of the box on all platforms, plus it adds noise on the link in
> the next point)
>
> 6) 6) Coming to the most important point. I want to simulate an
> environment where I have one host (think drone or remote computer) to which
> the HackRF is physically connected and another host that is actually
> commanding and getting responses from the first host. All Signal processing
> etc. is happening on the drone/remote machine. Only basic periodic updates
> (command and control) are being transmitted between the two hosts. To
> simulate this I need to use virtualization on my laptop.
>
>
>
> If you had the patience to get so far in my post, I thank you. I would
> really appreciate if someone can shed some light on running the HackRF in a
> virtualized environment, maybe Mike can do a follow up to the Mysteries
> Video to see what kind of anomalies we see while using the HackRF in a
> virtual environment as opposed to running on bare metal. I am sure others
> may also have specific needs to run the HackRF in a virtualized
> environment. If not for anything else just to be able to say it?s not
> impossible is the simple motivation for my quest.
>
>
>
> Thank you for your time.
>
> --
>
> Sohil Shah.
>
> Nothing is Impossible, Never Undermine the Potential of the Human Spirit =
> My Life's Motto!!
> Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish - Steve Jobs
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 05:48:31 -0400
> From: Rich S <richnsanders at gmail.com>
> To: hackrf-dev at greatscottgadgets.com
> Subject: Re: [Hackrf-dev] HackRF in a Virtualized Environment
> (Windows7>VmWare>Pentoo\Kali\Ubuntu)
> Message-ID: <5408356F.6020004 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; Format="flowed"
>
> Sohil,
>
> I'm in finals week of my Masters program, but will be relatively free in
> one week. I will build a virtual machine in VirtualBox based on
> Ubuntu14 and pybombs. I'll test it it with my HackRF to see if it
> works, then try to find a way to put it on Git, dropbox or something
> similar.
>
> I have not used VMware in at least 10 years, is there a free way to
> make/play virtual machines?
>
> Rich
>
>
> On 9/4/2014 5:35 AM, Sohil Shah wrote:
> >
> > Background:
> >
> > I received my HackRF this Tuesday and tried running it under Pentoo,
> > Kali and Windows. It did not work on either. I installed the latest
> > Zadiag drivers on Windows and got the latest version of SDR#. As far
> > as Kali and Pentoo go I followed the guide online except that I was
> > running it from within a VM using VmWare. I have not dared to update
> > my firmware. I will wait till Zero releases the Pentoo build with all
> > the necessary tools and Mike posts his lesson on firmware flashing.
> >
> > My question today is has anyone tried using the HackRF in a
> > Virtualized environment
> [Windows7>VmWare_WorkStation10>Pentoo/Kali/Ubuntu]
> >
> > I am aware of there being limits over USB in a virtualized
> > environment, but for a lot of reasons I would like to use the HackRF
> > on my Windows box using VmWare Workstation 10 as the virtualized
> > environment on either Kali/Ubuntu or Pentoo (Zero's latest build when
> > its released).
> >
> > I can understand that there may be a lot of people who will say, use
> > it on bare metal and that is fine, but I really want to see if it is
> > possible to use the HackRF in a virtualized environment. I have used
> > the RTLSDR in a virtualized environment for over a year now and it
> > seems to be doing just fine with a lot of applications. I am not sure
> > what the limitations of using the HackRF in a virtualized environment
> > are. I do not intend to use it at its maximum sample rate as I am sure
> > a lot of applications don't require that high a samp_rate, E.G
> > everything running on the RTLSDR is running at under 3.2MSPS.
> >
> > My crude understanding is that more the MSPS more the I/O demand or
> > bandwidth required on the USB bus and the driver that shuttles the
> > samples between Windows through VMware to the Virtual Machine. I don't
> > know what the max_limit for such a setup is in terms of MSPS but I'd
> > like to know if someone has been able to do a calculation of the
> > amount of lost USB packets when going from 0MSPS to 22MSPS in a
> > virtualized environment or if someone is willing to give me an idea as
> > to how one would go about doing that as I am not sure if there is any
> > existing way to calculate that. My goal is to figure out an ideal MSPS
> > at which the HackRF is ideally useable in a Virtaul Machine running on
> > Windows7 inside VmWare Workstation 10. As far as hardware goes I have
> > the Lenovo ThinkPad T430 (Intel Chipset) which based on what I have
> > read is one of the good performers on the hardware side, hence any
> > losses or limitations would really be a software/virtualization issue
> > as opposed to a hardware issue.
> >
> >
> > If someone still can't wrap their head around the fact that why I
> > would want to use Virtualization let me explain.
> >
> > 1) 1) I only have one computer (laptop).
> >
> > 2) 2) I really need to have windows installed on it and can't have
> > dual boot on it with any Linux flavor.
> >
> > 3) 3) This limits me to using a live CD/USB
> >
> > 4) 4) I would like to watch Mike's videos and refer to online
> > guides while doing the exercises in GRC.
> >
> > 5) 5) All Live CD's may not have all the required tools, codecs
> > etc. to watch video files and or video content online. (I know this is
> > a lame argument but there are certain limitations and not everything
> > will run straight out of the box on all platforms, plus it adds noise
> > on the link in the next point)
> >
> > 6) 6) Coming to the most important point. I want to simulate an
> > environment where I have one host (think drone or remote computer) to
> > which the HackRF is physically connected and another host that is
> > actually commanding and getting responses from the first host. All
> > Signal processing etc. is happening on the drone/remote machine. Only
> > basic periodic updates (command and control) are being transmitted
> > between the two hosts. To simulate this I need to use virtualization
> > on my laptop.
> >
> > If you had the patience to get so far in my post, I thank you. I would
> > really appreciate if someone can shed some light on running the HackRF
> > in a virtualized environment, maybe Mike can do a follow up to the
> > Mysteries Video to see what kind of anomalies we see while using the
> > HackRF in a virtual environment as opposed to running on bare metal. I
> > am sure others may also have specific needs to run the HackRF in a
> > virtualized environment. If not for anything else just to be able to
> > say it's not impossible is the simple motivation for my quest.
> >
> > Thank you for your time.
> >
> >
> > --
> >
> > Sohil Shah.
> >
> > Nothing is Impossible, Never Undermine the Potential of the Human
> > Spirit = My Life's Motto!!
> > Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish - Steve Jobs
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > HackRF-dev mailing list
> > HackRF-dev at greatscottgadgets.com
> > http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/hackrf-dev
>
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> End of HackRF-dev Digest, Vol 21, Issue 5
> *****************************************
>
--
Sohil Shah.
Nothing is Impossible, Never Undermine the Potential of the Human Spirit =
My Life's Motto!!
Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish - Steve Jobs
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