CAN integration¶

Renode can connect to a virtual CAN interface on the host machine by using an internal SocketCAN bridge. This integration relies on SocketCAN for the communication between the host and internal CAN networks.

Using this standardized communication method allows Renode to transfer Classical and FD CAN frames. XL CAN frames are handled by the bridge, but they won’t be forwarded to the internal network, as this frame type is not yet supported in Renode.

To see CAN host-integration in action, you can try the SocketCAN bridge demo.

Host requirements¶

The bridge relies on SocketCAN to connect to a CAN interface, which includes native, virtual and SLCAN based interfaces. The examples below assume use of a virtual CAN interface, for which drivers are implemented in the vcan kernel module. To ensure that the module is present in the host, load it with:

$ sudo modprobe vcan

To create and set up a virtual network interface named vcan0, run:

$ sudo ip link add dev vcan0 type vcan
$ sudo ip link set up vcan0

Creating a SocketCAN bridge¶

A SocketCAN bridge connects to an already existing CAN interface whose name can be provided as a canInterfaceName argument. If not provided, Renode will try to connect to the interface named vcan0.

In the simulation the bridge can be connected to internal networks as described in CAN-based connections.

By default, Renode will try to enable handling of FD and XL CAN frames, but it won’t require them. To force the use of a specified type, set the optional arguments ensureFdFrames and ensureXlFrames to true. By setting those, regardless of the creation method, the command or a platform construction will fail if the ensured frame type cannot be enabled.

In the Monitor¶

As mentioned above, there are two ways of creating a SocketCANBridge. The first option is to use the CreateSocketCANBridge command.

For example, the following command will create a SocketCANBridge named socketcan, that connects to the vcan1 interface and will fail if handling FD frames is not possible.

(machine-0) machine CreateSocketCANBridge "socketcan" "vcan1" ensureFdFrames=true

The bridge can be connected to CAN bus as described in CAN-based connections.

In the platform description¶

Another option is to add a SocketCAN bridge declaration to a repl file. The following example presents a snippet that sets all the arguments of a socketcan instance of the SocketCANBridge with default values.

socketcan: CAN.SocketCANBridge @ sysbus
    canInterfaceName: "vcan0"
    ensureFdFrames: false
    ensureXlFrames: false

The bridge can be connected to CAN bus as described in CAN-based connections.