BlackBerry QNX Training Modules

Learn how to use the QNX® Adaptive Partitioning Scheduler, or APS, to group threads and/or processes into partitions according to their CPU requirements and/or to protect them from CPU starvation. APS is useful for safety and/or hypervisor related products or any product where partitioning the CPU may be needed. We will discuss the architecture of APS, how to add APS to an image, define and understand partitions, critical priorities and bankruptcy. There are hands-on exercises to explore administering APS from both the command line and with the APS API.

Learn how to use the application profiler in the QNX® Momentics® Tool Suite to profile a single process. Using the profiler, you can pinpoint which parts of your code are consuming the most CPU, at both the function level and the source-line level. You can then use that information to make your code more efficient. Both live and post-mortem profiling are covered.

A detailed look at building boot images, which contain the binaries that run just after the reset vector. Boot images typically include components such as startup code, the process manager, the kernel, drivers, and a startup script. We also explore various ways to load a boot image onto your target.

Determining the effectiveness of a test suite takes work. In this section well see the IDE tools determining how much of your code has actually been executed, broken down to the source line, by your testing.

A quick look at the relative advantages and disadvantages of the various IPC methods supported by QNX with a view to choosing which method(s) to use in your system.

This section provides a quick introduction to editing, compiling, running, and debugging your application from the QNX Momentics IDE, giving the minimum needed to do the programming exercises in the programming sections.
Note: This module is a light replacement for the Editing and Compiling and Running and Debugging modules. If you take one of those modules, it isn‘t necessary to take this one.

Memory problems, such as memory corruption, can often be subtle and uncaught by testing. In this section, we explore the powerful Momentics IDE tools for finding memory corruption, leaks, and excessive memory consumption.

This section will focus on the code editor in the Momentics IDE, including the many powerful, time-saving features. In addition, we look at how to build code and how the IDE identifies problems with the build.

A discussion on how to write file system resource managers, which are processes that represent data in the form of files or file systems. You will learn to write a resource manager that presents a tar file as a file system.

Explores the various ways to return from handlers, manage access and modification times, leave clients blocked, use multi-threaded resource managers, implement combine messages, perform unblock handling, receive pulses, and make poll() (or select()) and ionotify() work. Resource manager concepts are reinforced through a variety of hands-on exercises.

We start with how QNX architecture lends itself to high availability, then look at how to design applications that take advantage of that architecture. Next, we explore the high availability toolkit in detail, starting with how to use the high availability manager for doing process restart and multistage restart. We then cover the client recovery library, also included in the toolkit, which helps clients to restore broken connections.

Focusing on Eclipse fundamentals, this section provides necessary background for anyone working with the IDE in the QNX® Momentics® Tool Suite. Starting with the central concepts of the IDE, you‘ll become adept at navigation in the IDE and configuring it to suit your personal needs and likes. We then talk about projects, workspaces and the host-target model, introducing various ways to interface to your target. We end with pointing out several preference settings that can make your work easier.

Explores the various methods that the QNX OS provides for allowing two or more processes to exchange information and control. We focus on the QNX message passing that is fundamental to how the QNX OS works, but also examine pulses and shared memory.

Explores how the QNX OS makes it relatively easy to handle hardware interrupts. We present several approaches to handling interrupts.

An introduction to hardware access methods including IO-mapped and memory-mapped IO, allocating DMA-safe memory, and interrupt handling.

A short introduction to the use of security policies in securing a QNX system.

Any process can be a resource manager, and drivers usually are. This section looks at the capabilities of resource managers, including pathname-space resolution, IPC message formats, and general structure. Through a set of exercises we‘ll look at the initialization of a simple resource manager and the handling of read() and write() operations.

Covers in detail the I/O aspects of a driver, including how to do port I/O and memory-mapped I/O, how to perform DMA memory configuration, and how to use the PCI API.

A collection of challenging exercises that are a must for anyone learning to write device drivers. The exercises used depend on the hardware available. You can choose from:
- VGA Text Mode driver exercise (2.5 hours) You‘ll write an I/O manager that does read()s from, write()s to, and devctl()s for changing the configuration of VGA text mode memory.
- Keyboard driver exercise (1.5 hours) You will write a simple driver that handles x86 keyboard input.

The basic container for code in the IDE is a project. We cover the two types of projects for C/C++ code: a project where the entire contents and build structure are up to you, and a project with a predefined structure that supports multiple platforms. We cover both header file and project dependencies and discuss how to get code from elsewhere and place it into your projects.

This section will examine the changes between QNX Neutrino 7.x RTOS and QNX 8.0 OS. We will look at the core design changes to the QNX Neutrino microkernel including multi-threading the kernel, and the changes to time and interrupt handling, and what this means for the developer. We will also examine application programming and system integration level changes, and discuss ways of maintaining common code. Several hands-on porting exercises are included.

Covers additional issues for anyone who wants to know a lot about threads, including reader/writer locks, once control, and thread local storage.

Discusses how to configure your application for Multicore, how scheduling works, where ISRs run, and processor affinity. Also examines how to perform synchronization among threads and between threads and ISRs.

QNX supplies a rich set of POSIX IPC methods. This section looks at signals, shared memory, pipes, POSIX message queues, and TCP/IP.

Unlike many common legacy RTOSs, the QNX OS executes programs in separate, memory protected, processes. This section touches on how a system design problem can be broken down into separate processes, and how processes are started and terminated. In addition, in this section we‘ll discuss what a thread is, how to start and stop a thread, and how to synchronize resource access via QNX OS and POSIX function calls. Several hands-on lab exercises form a significant component of this section.

An overview of the QNX Hypervisor and of how your applications make use of it. We cover the types of devices available to your guest OSes, where your guests run, their virtual CPUs, privileges and priorities. We then touch on how guests communicate with each other and/or with the QNX Hypervisor host, and how they can share devices. Next, we introduce how time and interrupts work. Thick and thin designs are then compared, and we finish with safety issues and an overview of the QNX Hypervisor for Safety.

Gives an overview of the QNX OS architecture, covering what the microkernel and the process manager do. We talk about standards, protected address spaces, process/thread model, timing, and scheduling. We also introduce various types of IPC, synchronization, what a resource manager is and where shared objects fit in.

A review of basic programming topics for the QNX OS, such as threads, mutexes, message passing, pulses, and timing. This module provides a refresher course to students familiar with QNX programming and offers a good background for other course material. Note: You shouldn’t select this module if you‘re taking other modules that cover the same topics in more detail.

We discuss a variety of security topics for the QNXOS, starting with the basics of a microkernel architecture and Unix file permissions. We look at how QNX breaks down root abilities using procmgr abilities, discovering needed abilities, and using security policy to specify these. We delve into specific security features of the QNX OS, including Pathspace Control. And we look at various new optional subsystems such as hashed and encrypted filesystems, and Pathtrust. Several hands-on exercises are included.

A look at launching programs with either "run" or from the debugger. We explain the fundamental debugging features, including stepping through code; setting breakpoints; performing post-mortem debugging; attaching to a running process; debugging shared libraries; and examining data.

With system profiling, you can examine your system as a whole to see what‘s going on. Detail is available down to the kernel level. We start by covering what is happening on the kernel side and how to do the necessary setup. Next, we look at how to log the activity through the QNX Momentics IDE, from the command line, or under program control. Then, we look at how to use the IDE‘s system profiling perspective to analyze the resulting data. We finish off with how to insert your own data into logs.

An explanation of how to meet deterministic timing requirements. We discuss timing architecture and how to handle periodic timing, one-shot timing, time-stamping, benchmarking, and timeouts.

We‘ll look at using the QNX io-char library to write a driver for character devices such as serial chipsets that support the RS-232 protocol.

A look at the capabilities of resource managers, including pathname-space resolution, IPC message formats, and general structure. We provide several exercises, from a very simple resource manager that implements /dev/null to more complex examples that support multiple devices. This module is a superset of Introduction to Resource Managers, and both modules should not be selected together.

QNX® OS Architecture, Building a Boot Image

IDE Basics or Momentics Development Basics

IDE Basics or Momentics Development Basics

IDE Basics or Momentics Development Basics

Inter-Process Communication

None

IDE Basics or Momentics Development Basics

IDE Basics or Momentics Development Basics

Writing a Resource Manager

Processes, Threads and Synchronization, Introduction to Resource Managers or Writing a Resource Manager

QNX OS Architecture

None

Processes, Threads and Synchronization

Inter-Process Communication (recommended)

None

QNX OS Architecture

Inter-Process Communication

None

I/O, Introduction to Resource Managers or Writing a Resource Manager

None

Real-Time Programming for QNX OS course

Processes, Threads and Synchronization

QNX OS Architecture

None

QNX OS Architecture

QNX OS Architecture

None

None

QNX OS Architecture

IDE Basics or Momentics Development Basics

QNX Neutrino OS Architecture,
Inter-Process Communication

Inter-Process Communication (recommended)

Introduction to Resource Managers

QNX OS Architecture, Inter-Process Communication

3.5 hours

1 hour

1 hour

1 hour

0.5 hour

2 hours

2 hours

1.5 hours

3.5 hours

6 hours

3.5 hours

2 hours

9 hours

2.5 hours

1.5 hours

0.5 hours

3 hours

1.5 hours

1.5 to 4 hours (depends on depth of exercises, to be agreed with instructor)

2 hours

4 hours

1.5 hours

1 hour

2 hours

4 hours

5 hours

4.5 hours

3 hours

8 hours

2.5 hours

3.5 to 6 hours (depends on depth of exercises, to be agreed with instructor)

3 hours

1 hour

7 hours