DESCRIPTION

This directory contain files that are needed to build a debian package of the IgH EtherCAT-Master. In contrast to IgH's method to start the master via an init script (and unloading existing standard ethernet drivers before statup), the config file (/etc/default/ethercat) is used by a script named update-ethercat-config that should be called after config changes. The script updates /etc/modules-load.d/ethercat.conf and /etc/modprobe.d/ethercat.conf to reflect the configuration so that unneeded/unwanted standard drivers get blacklisted and the EtherCAT drivers and master are automatically loaded at system startup with the right parameters.

BUILD PROCESS

The build process was testet unter Debian 9 (stretch) with RT-Kernel.

to build the packages:

./get_source.sh (checkout source from IGH's HG repos and build source tar)

cd etherlabmaster

dpkg-checkbuilddeps (and install missing deps)

dpkg-buildpackage

INSTALLATION

Just do a 'sudo dpkg -i ethercat__.deb' to install the diver. After the required config settings in /etc/default/ethercat (please take a look to the documentation) you should run 'sudo update-ethercat-config'. Then do a reboot or load the ec*-modules manually (see /etc/modules), the master should now be functional.

To build the LinuxCNC EtherCAT HAL driver you also need to install the development package with 'sudo dpkg -i ethercat-dev__.deb'

ABOUT RTAI

I've decided to drop support for RTAI to be able to move quickly to recent Debian versions and because the master code is not heavily tested against RTAI anymore. Latency seems to be OK (at least for me) with linux-rt and the generic driver. On the other hand you'll get a cleaner build process with DKMS support.