Thread tools

The tools listed on this page can be helpful when developing your Thread application with the nRF Connect SDK.

nRF Sniffer for 802.15.4

The nRF Sniffer for 802.15.4 is a tool for learning about and debugging applications that are using protocols based on IEEE 802.15.4, like Thread or Zigbee. It provides a near real-time display of 802.15.4 packets that are sent back and forth between devices, even when the link is encrypted.

See nRF Sniffer for 802.15.4 for documentation.

nRF Thread Topology Monitor

nRF Thread Topology Monitor is a desktop application that connects to a Thread network through a serial connection to visualize the topology of Thread devices. It allows you to scan for new devices in real time, check their parameters, and inspect network processes through the log.

See nRF Thread Topology Monitor for documentation.

Thread Border Router

The Thread Border Router is a specific type of Border Router device that provides connectivity from the IEEE 802.15.4 network to adjacent networks on other physical layers (such as Wi-Fi or Ethernet). Border Routers provide services for devices within the IEEE 802.15.4 network, including routing services for off-network operations.

Typically, a Border Router solution consists of the following parts:

• An application based on the Network co-processor (NCP) design or its Radio co-processor (RCP) variant compatible with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. This application can be implemented, for example, on an nRF52 device.

• A host-side application, usually implemented on a more powerful device with an incorporated Linux-based operating system.

The nRF Connect SDK does not provide a complete Thread Border Router solution. For development purposes, you can use the OpenThread Border Router (OTBR) released by Google, an open-source Border Router implementation that you can set up either on your PC using Docker or on a Raspberry Pi.

The OpenThread Border Router is compatible with Nordic Semiconductor devices. It implements a number of features, including:

• Bidirectional IP connectivity between Thread and Wi-Fi or Ethernet networks (or both)

• Network components that allow Thread nodes to connect to IPv4 networks (NAT64, DNS64)

• Bidirectional DNS-based service discovery using mDNS (on Wi-Fi or Ethernet link, or both) and SRP (on Thread network)

• External Thread commissioning (for example, using a mobile phone) to authenticate and join a Thread device to a Thread network

You can either install the OpenThread Border Router on a Raspberry Pi or run it using a Docker container, as described in the following sections. In both cases, you must first configure a radio co-processor (RCP), which provides the required radio capability to your Linux device.

Configuring a radio co-processor

The OpenThread Border Router must have physical access to the IEEE 802.15.4 network that is used by the Thread protocol. As neither the Linux-based PC nor the Raspberry Pi have such radio capability, you must connect an external nRF device that serves as radio co-processor.

To program the nRF device with the RCP application, complete the following steps:

1. Clone the OpenThread nRF528xx platform repository into the current directory:

   git clone --recursive https://github.com/openthread/ot-nrf528xx.git
   

2. Enter the ot-nrf528xx directory:

   cd ot-nrf528xx
   

3. Install the OpenThread dependencies:

   ./script/bootstrap
   

4. Build the RCP example for the hardware platform and the transport of your choice:

   nRF52840 Dongle (USB transport)nRF52840 Development Kit (UART transport)

   rm -rf build
   script/build nrf52840 USB_trans -DOT_BOOTLOADER=USB -DOT_THREAD_VERSION=1.2
   

   This creates an RCP image at build/bin/ot-rcp.

5. Convert the RCP image to hexadecimal format:

   arm-none-eabi-objcopy -O ihex build/bin/ot-rcp build/bin/ot-rcp.hex
   

6. Depending on the hardware platform, complete the following steps:

   nRF52840 Dongle (USB transport)nRF52840 Development Kit (UART transport)

   1. Install nRF Util:

      python3 -m pip install -U nrfutil
      

      Note

      If you are using a Raspberry Pi, the nRF Util version distributed officially through PyPI is not supported. To install a compatible version on Raspbian OS, execute the following commands:

      sudo apt-get -y install libusb-1.0-0-dev sed
      pip3 install click crcmod ecdsa intelhex libusb1 piccata protobuf pyserial pyyaml tqdm pc_ble_driver_py pyspinel
      pip3 install -U --no-dependencies nrfutil==6.0.1
      export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"
      

   2. Generate the RCP firmware package:

      nrfutil pkg generate --hw-version 52 --sd-req=0x00 \
       --application build/bin/ot-rcp.hex --application-version 1 build/bin/ot-rcp.zip
      

   3. Connect the nRF52840 Dongle to the USB port.

   4. Press the RESET button on the dongle to put it into the DFU mode. The LED on the dongle starts blinking red.

   5. Install the RCP firmware package onto the dongle by running the following command, with /dev/ttyACM0 replaced with the device node name of your nRF52840 Dongle:

      nrfutil dfu usb-serial -pkg build/bin/ot-rcp.zip -p /dev/ttyACM0
      

Installing OTBR manually (Raspberry Pi)

The recommended option is to build and configure the OpenThread Border Router on a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B or newer. This option provides most of the functionalities available in the OpenThread Border Router, such as border routing capabilities needed for establishing Thread communication with a mobile phone on a Wi-Fi network. However, this approach requires you to download the OpenThread Border Router repository and install the Border Router manually on the Raspberry Pi.

To set up and configure the OpenThread Border Router, follow the official OpenThread Border Router Codelab tutorial on the OpenThread documentation portal. Omit the Build and flash RCP firmware section, because this section duplicates the steps performed in the previous section.

Running OTBR using Docker

For development purposes, you can run the OpenThread Border Router on any Linux-based system using a Docker container that already has the Border Router installed. This solution can be used when you are only interested in direct communication between your Border Router and the Thread network. For example, you can use the Docker container when you want to establish IP communication between an application running on Linux (such as the Python Controller for Matter) and an application running on a Thread node.

To install and configure the OpenThread Border Router using the Docker container on an Ubuntu operating system, complete the following steps:

1. Install the Docker daemon:

   sudo apt update && sudo apt install docker.io
   

2. Start the Docker daemon:

   sudo systemctl start docker
   

3. Create an IPv6 network for the OpenThread Border Router container in Docker:

   sudo docker network create --ipv6 --subnet fd11:db8:1::/64 -o com.docker.network.bridge.name=otbr0 otbr
   

4. Download the latest version of the OpenThread Border Router Docker image by running the following command:

   docker pull openthread/otbr
   

5. Connect the radio co-processor that you configured in Configuring a radio co-processor to the Border Router device.

6. Start the OpenThread Border Router container using the following command (in the last line, replace /dev/ttyACM0 with the device node name of the OpenThread radio co-processor):

   sudo docker run -it --rm --privileged --name otbr --network otbr -p 8080:80 \
   --sysctl "net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6=0 net.ipv4.conf.all.forwarding=1 net.ipv6.conf.all.forwarding=1" \
   --volume /dev/ttyACM0:/dev/radio openthread/otbr --radio-url spinel+hdlc+uart:///dev/radio
   

7. Form the Thread network using one of the following options:

   • Follow the instruction in the OpenThread Border Router Codelab tutorial step 3.

   • Open the http://localhost:8080/ address in a web browser and choose Form from the menu.

     Note

     If you are using a Raspberry Pi without a screen, but you have a different device in the same network, you can start a web browser on that device and use the address of the Raspberry Pi instead of localhost.

8. Note down the selected On-Mesh Prefix value. For example, fd11:22::/64.

9. Make sure that packets addressed to devices in the Thread network are routed through the OpenThread Border Router container in Docker. To do this, run the following command that uses the On-Mesh Prefix that you configured in the previous step (in this case, fd11:22::/64):

   sudo ip -6 route add fd11:22::/64 dev otbr0 via fd11:db8:1::2
   

10. Check the status of the OpenThread Border Router by executing the following command:

    sudo docker exec -it otbr sh -c "sudo service otbr-agent status"
    

11. Check the status of the Thread node running inside the Docker:

    sudo docker exec -it otbr sh -c "sudo ot-ctl state"
    

wpantund

wpantund is a utility for providing a native IPv6 interface to a network co-processor. When working with Thread, it is used for interacting with the application by the following samples:

• Thread: Co-processor

The interaction is possible using commands proper to wpanctl, a module installed with wpantund.

Note

The tool is available for Linux and macOS and is not supported on Windows.

Installing wpantund

To ensure that the interaction with the samples works as expected, install the version of wpantund that has been used for testing the nRF Connect SDK.

See the wpantund Installation Guide for general installation instructions. To install the verified version, replace the git checkout full/latest-release command with the following command:

git checkout 87c90eedce0c75cb68a1cbc34ff36223400862f1

When installing on macOS, follow the instructions for the manual installation and replace the above command to ensure that the correct version is installed.

Configuring wpantund

When working with samples that support wpantund, complete the following steps to start the wpantund processes:

1. Open a shell and run the wpantund process. The required command depends on whether you want to connect to a network co-processor (NCP) node or a radio co-processor (RCP) node.

   Replace the following parameters:

   • network_interface_name - Specifies the name of the network interface, for example, leader_if.

   • ncp_uart_device - Specifies the location of the device, for example, /dev/ttyACM0.

   • baud_rate - Specifies the baud rate to use. The Thread samples support baud rate 1000000.

   Network co-processor (NCP)

   When connecting to an NCP node, use the following command:

   wpantund -I network_interface_name -s ncp_uart_device -b baud_rate

   For example:

   sudo wpantund -I leader_if -s /dev/ttyACM0 -b 1000000
   

   Radio co-processor (RCP)

   When connecting to an RCP node, you must use the ot-ncp tool to establish the connection. See OpenThread POSIX applications for more information. Use the following command:

   wpantund -I network_interface_name -s 'system:./output/posix/bin/ot-ncp spinel+hdlc+uart://ncp_uart_device?uart-baudrate=baud_rate

   For example:

   sudo wpantund -I leader_if -s 'system:./output/posix/bin/ot-ncp spinel+hdlc+uart:///dev/ttyACM0?uart-baudrate=1000000'
   

2. Open another shell and run the wpanctl process by using the following command:

   wpanctl -I network_interface_name

   This process can be used to control the connected NCP kit.

Once wpantund and wpanctl are started, you can start running wpanctl commands to interact with the development kit.

Using wpanctl commands

To issue a wpanctl command, run it in the wpanctl shell. For example, the following command checks the kit state:

wpanctl:leader_if> status

The output will be different depending on the kit and the sample.

The most common wpanctl commands are the following:

• status - Checks the kit state.

• form "*My_OpenThread_network*" - Sets up a Thread network with the name My_OpenThread_network.

• get - Gets the values of all properties.

• get *property* - Gets the value of the requested property. For example, get NCP:SleepyPollInterval lists the value of the NCP:SleepyPollInterval property.

• set *property* *value* - Sets the value of the requested property to the required value. For example, set NCP:SleepyPollInterval 1000 sets the value of the NCP:SleepyPollInterval property to 1000.

For the full list of commands, run the help command in wpanctl.

Pyspinel

Pyspinel is a tool for controlling OpenThread co-processor instances through a command-line interface.

Note

The tool is available for Linux and macOS and is not supported on Windows.

Installing Pyspinel

See the Pyspinel documentation for general installation instructions.

Configuring Pyspinel

When working with samples that support Pyspinel, complete the following steps to communicate with the device:

1. Open a shell in a Pyspinel root directory.

2. Run Pyspinel to connect to the node. The required command depends on whether you want to connect to a network co-processor (NCP) node or a radio co-processor (RCP) node.

   Replace the following parameters:

   • debug_level - Specifies the debug level, range: 0-5.

   • ncp_uart_device - Specifies the location of the device, for example, /dev/ttyACM0.

   • baud_rate - Specifies the baud rate to use. The Thread samples support baud rate 1000000.

   Network co-processor (NCP)

   When connecting to an NCP node, use the following command:

   sudo python3 spinel-cli.py -d debug_level -u ncp_uart_device -b baud_rate

   For example:

   sudo python3 spinel-cli.py -d 4 -u /dev/ttyACM0 -b 1000000
   

   Radio co-processor (RCP)

   When connecting to an RCP node, you must use the ot-ncp tool to establish the connection. See OpenThread POSIX applications for more information. To enable logs from the RCP Spinel backend, you must build the ot-ncp tool with option LOG_OUTPUT=APP. See Building the OpenThread POSIX applications for information on how to build the tool.

   Use the following command to connect to an RCP node:

   sudo python3 spinel-cli.py -d debug_level -p './output/posix/bin/ot-ncp spinel+hdlc+uart://ncp_uart_device?uart-baudrate=baud_rate

   For example:

   sudo python3 spinel-cli.py -d 4 -p './output/posix/bin/ot-ncp spinel+hdlc+uart:///dev/ttyACM0?uart-baudrate=1000000'
   

OpenThread POSIX applications

OpenThread POSIX applications allow to communicate with a radio co-processor in a comfortable way.

OpenThread provides the following applications:

• ot-ncp - Supports wpantund for the RCP architecture.

• ot-cli - Works like the Thread: CLI sample for the RCP architecture.

• ot-daemon and ot-ctl - Provides the same functionality as ot-cli, but keeps the daemon running in the background all the time. See OpenThread Daemon for more information.

When working with Thread, you can use these tools to interact with the following sample:

• Thread: Co-processor

See OpenThread POSIX app for more information.

Building the OpenThread POSIX applications

Build the OpenThread POSIX applications by performing the following steps:

1. Open a shell in the OpenThread source code directory ncs/modules/lib/openthread.

2. Initialize the build and clean previous artifacts by running the following commands:

   # initialize GNU Autotools
   ./bootstrap
   
   # clean previous artifacts
   make -f src/posix/Makefile-posix clean
   

3. Build the applications with the required options. For example, to build POSIX applications like ot-cli or ot-ncp with log output being redirected to the application, run the following command:

   # build core for POSIX (ot-cli, ot-ncp)
   make -f src/posix/Makefile-posix LOG_OUTPUT=APP
   

   Alternatively, to build POSIX applications like ot-daemon or ot-ctl, run the following command:

   # build daemon mode core stack for POSIX (ot-daemon, ot-ctl)
   make -f src/posix/Makefile-posix DAEMON=1
   

You can find the generated applications in ./output/posix/bin/.