Building a load-balanced production infrastructure in AWS
My notes from building a scalable and production-ready infrastructure in AWS. This post covers the basics of setting up a load-balanced infrastructure using ...
Posts by Category
Articles
Accessing Complex C Data Structures from Python
Explore advanced techniques for interfacing complex C data structures with Python using ctypes and SWIG. Learn how to seamlessly pass complex data structures...
Setting up a development environment for RISCV-FreeRTOS on QEMU
In this post, we will explore how to setup a development environment for FreeRTOS on RISCV using QEMU. this includes setting up the RISCV toolchain, QEMU, an...
Bridging the Gap - Why I Share My Engineering Journey Through Blogging
I recently had a discussion about the importance of writing about what you learn. This post delves into why this practice is essential and how it has persona...
Harnessing Devicetree for Bare-Metal Embedded Systems - A Non-Linux Approach
Device trees are typically used in Linux systems to describe the hardware components of a system. However, device trees can be used in bare-metal systems, of...
Building Bespoke Debian Distros for RISC-V
In this article we will go over the steps to build a bespoke Debian distro for RISC-V. We will use QEMU to emulate the RISC-V architecture and build a Debian...
Guts of Git - A deep dive into the internals of the Git version control system
Recently, I experienced a workplace Git incident that compelled me to refresh my understanding of Git internals and learn numerous new aspects about the syst...
Demystifying Digital Signatures - A Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Using Secure Digital Signatures
We use digital signatures hundreds of times a day without realizing it. Yet its often seen as a mystery, even by developers. We’ll explore how digital signat...
A Hands-On Guide to Sharing Files and Folders between Host and RISC-V QEMU Machine
Transferring files between your host and RISC-V QEMU machine is often a daunting task. typical solutions include using the 9P FS which requires host kernel l...
Uncovering the Mysteries of Linux Boot on RISC-V QEMU Machines - A Deep Dive into the Boot Process
Get ready to dive into the intricacies of Linux boot on a RISC-V machine! This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of compiling QEMU, the L...
Understanding RISC-V semihosting
Semihosting lets embedded systems talk to a host computer through a debugger interface to perform tasks such as file I/O, and printing to the console. This a...
Setting up GitHub SSO for your website with NGINX and Vouch Proxy
This article will show you how to setup GitHub SSO for your website serving developer resources using vouch-proxy.
Creating the littlefs-tools Python package and auto-deploying it to PyPI with a CI/CD pipeline
I recently built a python script to package the contents of a folder into a LittleFS binary image. This article documents my steps to make it into a pip inst...
Deploying AWS Lambdas with Custom GitHub Actions
In this article, we look at how to create a custom Github action that can deploy AWS Lambda Code and upload it to the marketplace.
Using Jenkins with BitBucket Webhooks on AWS
Bitbucket lets you trigger webhooks for git events that are interesting to your build and test infrastructure. In the past, I have played around with it usin...
Windows subsystem for Linux - tips, tricks and notes
Some quick notes, tips and tricks to use WSL as a work environment when you are stuck with a Windows PC
Adding Custom Packages to Buildroot
This article talks about adding a custom package into buildroot for creating your own Linux distribution for embedded and emulation targets.
Docker 101 for embedded systems Dev and DevOps
I started using docker back in 2016 and ever since, I have been using it in the context of embedded systems DevOps. This article condenses the learning so th...
System Hardware Partitioning Using Device Trees in a Virtualized System
This article looks at how device trees can be leveraged to create silced systems in a virtualized, embedded system.
Building a barebones web-push server
We use push notifications from web-sites on a daily basis. This article is about building one from the ground-up in order to understand how the whole system ...
Exploring virtualization in RISC-V machines
“RISC-V is classically virtualizable” – We come across this statement very often when we read about the merits of the RISC-V ISA. This article looks at what ...
Adding a custom peripheral to QEMU RISC-V machine emulation & interacting with it using bare-metal C code
QEMU is an excellent platform to emulate hardware platforms. But, we often end up using ready-made platforms without thinking twice about how QEMU emulates t...
Linux & Python on RISC-V using QEMU from scratch
This article explores how to set up RISC-V on QEMU, boot a simple application on it using the PK kernel, and boot a cross-compiled Linux on the emulation pla...
Booting up my first RISC-V core on an FPGA.
This article comments on how I built-up my first ARM host tethered Rocket RISC-V core on a Xilinx Zynq-7000 FPGA.
A hands-on approach to measuring microcontroller performance using Coremark.
A hands-on approach to porting the Coremark benchmark to measure and compare bare-metal microcontroller performance.
Analyzing size of ELF sections and symbols to generate a modular report.
If you are working on any serious embedded systems project, you will come across the need to optimize the memory footprint of your code sooner or later. When...
Setting up a Github Actions based CI system for embedded development using PIC32
GitHub Actions is a workflow automation offering from GitHub. While there are a lot of tutorials out there talking about using GitHub Actions on your web/sof...
Decrypting embedded TLS communication
While developing cloud connected products, one of the major challenges is debugging application layer errors within a TLS connection. This article describes ...
Understanding JSON Web Tokens
JSON Web Tokens (JWT) are becoming popular even outside the traditional web authentication use-cases with the advent of IoT and connected devices. This artic...
A refresher of new C coding features for embedded system developers
A refresher of new C coding features included in C99 and C11 for embedded system developers.
Developing a smart home application for Google Assistant
Steps to create a smart home agent for Google Home / Google Assistant to control smart home devices in AWS IoT
Developing an Alexa Smart Home Skill
Quick start guide on developing smart home skills for voice based control of smart devices using Amazon Alexa.
letsencrypt+namecheap+Apache in DigitalOcean
Notes on how to setup a trustable, secure web server using free/low cost tools from namecheap, letsencrypt and digitalocean
Hijacking openssl renegotiated keys for server wiretaps
Notes on how I hijacked the re-negotiated SSL keys between Azure server and openssl s_client to decrypt TLS1.2 protected communication logs
Secure firmware upgrade for embedded systems
General principles, architecture, guidelines and good practices for secure over the air (OTA) and over the host (OTH) firmware upgrade for an embedded device
JTAG basics and usage in microcontroller debugging
JTAG is omnipresent in the microcontroller and FPGA world in the form of programmers and debuggers. Let us peek under the hood and understand how JTAG works ...
Understanding X.509 Certificate Structure
An insight into the format and technologies used to pack a X.509 certificate. This tutorial introduces the concepts and parses through a TLS certificate to b...
Introduction to digital certificates
Introduction to digital certificates and the basic concepts of hashes and cryptographic algorithms that are used to build trust based secure systems
HDLs and basics of hardware design
introduction to hardware description languages and basic hardware design principles.
Building a custom IoT dashboard
Development notes of an end-to-end IoT dashboard implementation for an embedded device.
Docker : Scratching an itch to build from ground up
Understand the innards of Docker container system by building one from scratch (including a minimal fs)
IoT: Networked embedded system caveats
Points to keep in mind when you are moving to an embedded networking stack from a fulle fledged one.
Getting started with ESP8266 WiFi Module
One of the first articles on getting started with an ESP8266 module
Building an E2E IoT system with Raspberry Pi
My experiences with building an end to end IoT system using a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino and a MPU6050. The post describes the details of how to compile and se...
Buildroot and Raspberry Pi
Steps to compile and bring up a minimalist kernel for Raspberry Pi using Buildroot
Building a RaspberryPi daughter card - warnings and pitfalls
mistakes I made while building a dauter card for Raspberry Pi
MQTT for IoT - a quick hands-on trial
Give MQTT a test drive
Writing Linux Device Drivers - Part 2
This tutorial gives a quick introduction to writing Linux device drivers. [Part 2]
Writing Linux Device Drivers - Part 1
This tutorial gives a quick introduction to writing Linux device drivers. It will not make you device driver experts, but will give you a starting point to s...
cscope + vim for code navigation
A tutorial on 8 bit PIC Microcontroller architecture and development tools
XML parser Pitfalls
Things to keep in mind while parsing XML
Adding new menu item to PuTTY
I came across a requirement to add a new easy access menu item to the putty terminal window for Windows. This article explains how I did it.
Booting your first cross-compiled Linux based embedded system
An introduction to getting started with embedded linux. This article will get you started with booting up your first cross compiled kernel
Advanced Shell Scripting
A collection of advanced tips and tricks to create wonderful shell scripts
Test coverage analysis with GCOV
A quick tutorial on using GCOV for test coverage analysis. This will get you started to run analysis on your complex test cases.
Home made single sided PCBs
an old school home made PCB fabrication technique tutorial
UPnP Device Architecture
An article that provides an in-depth understanding about the UPNP protocol and its foundational technologies like HTTP, XML, SOAP etc
USB-3.0
An introduction to the core concepts and building blocks of USB 3.0 device side protocol for those who are aware of USB 2.0
USB-2.0
An in-depth tutorial introducing the USB2.0 device side protocol with detailed illustrations on how transactions happen.
PIC microcontrollers
A tutorial on 8 bit PIC Microcontroller architecture and development tools
Device drivers
Writing Linux Device Drivers - Part 2
This tutorial gives a quick introduction to writing Linux device drivers. [Part 2]
Writing Linux Device Drivers - Part 1
This tutorial gives a quick introduction to writing Linux device drivers. It will not make you device driver experts, but will give you a starting point to s...
Tutorial
Building a load-balanced production infrastructure in AWS
My notes from building a scalable and production-ready infrastructure in AWS. This post covers the basics of setting up a load-balanced infrastructure using ...
Accessing Complex C Data Structures from Python
Explore advanced techniques for interfacing complex C data structures with Python using ctypes and SWIG. Learn how to seamlessly pass complex data structures...
Setting up a development environment for RISCV-FreeRTOS on QEMU
In this post, we will explore how to setup a development environment for FreeRTOS on RISCV using QEMU. this includes setting up the RISCV toolchain, QEMU, an...
Bridging the Gap - Why I Share My Engineering Journey Through Blogging
I recently had a discussion about the importance of writing about what you learn. This post delves into why this practice is essential and how it has persona...
Harnessing Devicetree for Bare-Metal Embedded Systems - A Non-Linux Approach
Device trees are typically used in Linux systems to describe the hardware components of a system. However, device trees can be used in bare-metal systems, of...
Building Bespoke Debian Distros for RISC-V
In this article we will go over the steps to build a bespoke Debian distro for RISC-V. We will use QEMU to emulate the RISC-V architecture and build a Debian...
Guts of Git - A deep dive into the internals of the Git version control system
Recently, I experienced a workplace Git incident that compelled me to refresh my understanding of Git internals and learn numerous new aspects about the syst...
Demystifying Digital Signatures - A Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding and Using Secure Digital Signatures
We use digital signatures hundreds of times a day without realizing it. Yet its often seen as a mystery, even by developers. We’ll explore how digital signat...
A Hands-On Guide to Sharing Files and Folders between Host and RISC-V QEMU Machine
Transferring files between your host and RISC-V QEMU machine is often a daunting task. typical solutions include using the 9P FS which requires host kernel l...
Uncovering the Mysteries of Linux Boot on RISC-V QEMU Machines - A Deep Dive into the Boot Process
Get ready to dive into the intricacies of Linux boot on a RISC-V machine! This comprehensive guide will walk you through the process of compiling QEMU, the L...
Understanding RISC-V semihosting
Semihosting lets embedded systems talk to a host computer through a debugger interface to perform tasks such as file I/O, and printing to the console. This a...
Setting up GitHub SSO for your website with NGINX and Vouch Proxy
This article will show you how to setup GitHub SSO for your website serving developer resources using vouch-proxy.
Creating the littlefs-tools Python package and auto-deploying it to PyPI with a CI/CD pipeline
I recently built a python script to package the contents of a folder into a LittleFS binary image. This article documents my steps to make it into a pip inst...
Deploying AWS Lambdas with Custom GitHub Actions
In this article, we look at how to create a custom Github action that can deploy AWS Lambda Code and upload it to the marketplace.
Using Jenkins with BitBucket Webhooks on AWS
Bitbucket lets you trigger webhooks for git events that are interesting to your build and test infrastructure. In the past, I have played around with it usin...
Windows subsystem for Linux - tips, tricks and notes
Some quick notes, tips and tricks to use WSL as a work environment when you are stuck with a Windows PC
Adding Custom Packages to Buildroot
This article talks about adding a custom package into buildroot for creating your own Linux distribution for embedded and emulation targets.
Docker 101 for embedded systems Dev and DevOps
I started using docker back in 2016 and ever since, I have been using it in the context of embedded systems DevOps. This article condenses the learning so th...
System Hardware Partitioning Using Device Trees in a Virtualized System
This article looks at how device trees can be leveraged to create silced systems in a virtualized, embedded system.
Building a barebones web-push server
We use push notifications from web-sites on a daily basis. This article is about building one from the ground-up in order to understand how the whole system ...
Exploring virtualization in RISC-V machines
“RISC-V is classically virtualizable” – We come across this statement very often when we read about the merits of the RISC-V ISA. This article looks at what ...
Adding a custom peripheral to QEMU RISC-V machine emulation & interacting with it using bare-metal C code
QEMU is an excellent platform to emulate hardware platforms. But, we often end up using ready-made platforms without thinking twice about how QEMU emulates t...
Linux & Python on RISC-V using QEMU from scratch
This article explores how to set up RISC-V on QEMU, boot a simple application on it using the PK kernel, and boot a cross-compiled Linux on the emulation pla...
Booting up my first RISC-V core on an FPGA.
This article comments on how I built-up my first ARM host tethered Rocket RISC-V core on a Xilinx Zynq-7000 FPGA.
A hands-on approach to measuring microcontroller performance using Coremark.
A hands-on approach to porting the Coremark benchmark to measure and compare bare-metal microcontroller performance.
Analyzing size of ELF sections and symbols to generate a modular report.
If you are working on any serious embedded systems project, you will come across the need to optimize the memory footprint of your code sooner or later. When...
Setting up a Github Actions based CI system for embedded development using PIC32
GitHub Actions is a workflow automation offering from GitHub. While there are a lot of tutorials out there talking about using GitHub Actions on your web/sof...
Decrypting embedded TLS communication
While developing cloud connected products, one of the major challenges is debugging application layer errors within a TLS connection. This article describes ...
Understanding JSON Web Tokens
JSON Web Tokens (JWT) are becoming popular even outside the traditional web authentication use-cases with the advent of IoT and connected devices. This artic...
A refresher of new C coding features for embedded system developers
A refresher of new C coding features included in C99 and C11 for embedded system developers.
Developing a smart home application for Google Assistant
Steps to create a smart home agent for Google Home / Google Assistant to control smart home devices in AWS IoT
Developing an Alexa Smart Home Skill
Quick start guide on developing smart home skills for voice based control of smart devices using Amazon Alexa.
letsencrypt+namecheap+Apache in DigitalOcean
Notes on how to setup a trustable, secure web server using free/low cost tools from namecheap, letsencrypt and digitalocean
Hijacking openssl renegotiated keys for server wiretaps
Notes on how I hijacked the re-negotiated SSL keys between Azure server and openssl s_client to decrypt TLS1.2 protected communication logs
Secure firmware upgrade for embedded systems
General principles, architecture, guidelines and good practices for secure over the air (OTA) and over the host (OTH) firmware upgrade for an embedded device
JTAG basics and usage in microcontroller debugging
JTAG is omnipresent in the microcontroller and FPGA world in the form of programmers and debuggers. Let us peek under the hood and understand how JTAG works ...
Understanding X.509 Certificate Structure
An insight into the format and technologies used to pack a X.509 certificate. This tutorial introduces the concepts and parses through a TLS certificate to b...
Introduction to digital certificates
Introduction to digital certificates and the basic concepts of hashes and cryptographic algorithms that are used to build trust based secure systems
HDLs and basics of hardware design
introduction to hardware description languages and basic hardware design principles.
Building a custom IoT dashboard
Development notes of an end-to-end IoT dashboard implementation for an embedded device.
Docker : Scratching an itch to build from ground up
Understand the innards of Docker container system by building one from scratch (including a minimal fs)
IoT: Networked embedded system caveats
Points to keep in mind when you are moving to an embedded networking stack from a fulle fledged one.
Getting started with ESP8266 WiFi Module
One of the first articles on getting started with an ESP8266 module
Building an E2E IoT system with Raspberry Pi
My experiences with building an end to end IoT system using a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino and a MPU6050. The post describes the details of how to compile and se...
Buildroot and Raspberry Pi
Steps to compile and bring up a minimalist kernel for Raspberry Pi using Buildroot
Building a RaspberryPi daughter card - warnings and pitfalls
mistakes I made while building a dauter card for Raspberry Pi
MQTT for IoT - a quick hands-on trial
Give MQTT a test drive
Writing Linux Device Drivers - Part 2
This tutorial gives a quick introduction to writing Linux device drivers. [Part 2]
Writing Linux Device Drivers - Part 1
This tutorial gives a quick introduction to writing Linux device drivers. It will not make you device driver experts, but will give you a starting point to s...
cscope + vim for code navigation
A tutorial on 8 bit PIC Microcontroller architecture and development tools
XML parser Pitfalls
Things to keep in mind while parsing XML
Adding new menu item to PuTTY
I came across a requirement to add a new easy access menu item to the putty terminal window for Windows. This article explains how I did it.
Booting your first cross-compiled Linux based embedded system
An introduction to getting started with embedded linux. This article will get you started with booting up your first cross compiled kernel
Advanced Shell Scripting
A collection of advanced tips and tricks to create wonderful shell scripts
Test coverage analysis with GCOV
A quick tutorial on using GCOV for test coverage analysis. This will get you started to run analysis on your complex test cases.
Home made single sided PCBs
an old school home made PCB fabrication technique tutorial
UPnP Device Architecture
An article that provides an in-depth understanding about the UPNP protocol and its foundational technologies like HTTP, XML, SOAP etc
USB-3.0
An introduction to the core concepts and building blocks of USB 3.0 device side protocol for those who are aware of USB 2.0
USB-2.0
An in-depth tutorial introducing the USB2.0 device side protocol with detailed illustrations on how transactions happen.
PIC microcontrollers
A tutorial on 8 bit PIC Microcontroller architecture and development tools
Tutorials
Setting up my blogging environment
My notes on how to setup the blogging environment for adding pages to embeddedinn