nRF52 Tools

VS Code

Windows: Go to https://code.visualstudio.com and run the installer.

Linux: Follow the instructions for your distribution on https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/setup/linux.

macOS: Go to https://code.visualstudio.com and click on "Download for Mac"

OS specific dependencies

Linux only: USB

Some of our tools depend on pkg-config and libudev.pc. Ensure you have the proper packages installed; on Debian based distributions you can use:

sudo apt-get install libudev-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev

To access the USB devices as a non-root user, follow these steps:

(Optional) Connect the dongle and check its permissions with these commands:

$ lsusb -d 1915:521f
Bus 001 Device 016: ID 1915:521f Nordic Semiconductor ASA USB Billboard
$ #   ^         ^^

$ # take note of the bus and device numbers that appear for you when run the next command
$ ls -l /dev/bus/usb/001/016
crw-rw-r-- 1 root root 189, 15 May 20 12:00 /dev/bus/usb/001/016

The root root part in crw-rw-r-- 1 root root indicates the device can only be accessed by the root user.

Create the following file with the displayed contents. You'll need root permissions to create the file.

$ cat /etc/udev/rules.d/50-ferrous-training.rules
# udev rules to allow access to USB devices as a non-root user

# nRF52840 Dongle in bootloader mode
ATTRS{idVendor}=="1915", ATTRS{idProduct}=="521f", TAG+="uaccess"

# nRF52840 Dongle applications
ATTRS{idVendor}=="1209", TAG+="uaccess"

# nRF52840 Development Kit
ATTRS{idVendor}=="1366", ENV{ID_MM_DEVICE_IGNORE}="1", TAG+="uaccess"

Run the following command to make the new udev rules effective
```
sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
```

(Optional) Disconnect and reconnect the dongle. Then check its permissions again.

$ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 017: ID 1915:521f Nordic Semiconductor ASA 4-Port USB 2.0 Hub

$ ls -l /dev/bus/usb/001/017
crw-rw-r--+ 1 root root 189, 16 May 20 12:11 /dev/bus/usb/001/017

The + part in crw-rw-r--+ indicates the device can be accessed without root permissions.

Windows only: Zadig JLink driver

On Windows you'll need to associate the nRF52840 Development Kit's USB device to the WinUSB driver.

To do that connect the nRF52840 DK to your PC using micro-USB port J2 (as done before) then download and run the Zadig tool.

In Zadig's graphical user interface,

Select the 'List all devices' option from the Options menu at the top.
From the device (top) drop down menu select "BULK interface (Interface nnn)"
Once that device is selected, 1366 1051 should be displayed in the USB ID field. That's the Vendor ID - Product ID pair.
Select 'WinUSB' as the target driver (right side)
Click "Install Driver". The process may take a few minutes to complete and might not appear to do anything right away. Click it once and wait.

You do not need to do anything for the nRF52840 Dongle device.

Rust and tooling

Base Rust installation

Go to https://rustup.rs and follow the instructions.

Windows: Be sure to select the optional "Desktop development with C++" part of the C++ build tools package. The installation size may take up to 5.7 GB of disk space.

Rust Analyzer

All: Open VS Code and look for Rust Analyzer in the marketplace (bottom icon in the left panel). Then install it.

Windows: It's OK to ignore the message about git not being installed, if you get one!

Rust Cross compilation support

All: Run this command in a terminal:

rustup +stable target add thumbv7em-none-eabihf

ELF analysis tools

All: Run these commands in a terminal:

cargo install cargo-binutils
rustup +stable component add llvm-tools

Third-party tools written in Rust

Install the flip-link, nrf-dfu and cyme tools from source using the following Cargo commands:

cargo install flip-link
cargo install nrfdfu
cargo install cyme

Install probe-rs 0.24 pre-compiled binaries on Linux or macOS with:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -LsSf https://github.com/probe-rs/probe-rs/releases/download/v0.24.0/probe-rs-tools-installer.sh | sh

Install probe-rs 0.24 pre-compiled binaries on Windows with:

powershell -c "irm https://github.com/probe-rs/probe-rs/releases/download/v0.24.0/probe-rs-tools-installer.ps1 | iex"

Setup check

✅ Let's check that you have installed all the tools listed in the previous section.

$ cargo size --version
cargo-size 0.3.6

✅ Connect the nRF52840-DK with your computer by plugging the usb-cable into the J2 connector on the DK (the usb connector on the short side of the board).

✅ Use cyme to list the USB devices on your computer.

$ cyme
(..)
  2  15  0x1366 0x1051 J-Link                   001050255503      12.0 Mb/s
(..)

Your nRF52840-DK should appear as "J-Link" with USB Vendor ID (VID) of 0x1366 and a USB Product ID (PID) 0x1051.

🔎 If cyme doesn't work for any reason, you can use cargo xtask usb-list, which does the same thing but is much more basic. Run it from the root of the extracted tarball / git checkout:

$ cargo xtask usb-list
    Finished `dev` profile [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.04s
     Running `xtask/target/debug/xtask usb-list`
Bus 002 Device 015: ID 1366:1051 <- J-Link on the nRF52840 Development Kit
(...) random other USB devices will be listed

✅ In the terminal run the following command from the nrf52-code/radio-app folder. This will build and run a simple program on the DK to test the set-up.

cargo run --bin hello

Rust Exercises