Prerequisites - FreeRTOS
Use a supported web browserDownload FreeRTOSDownload IDT for FreeRTOSCreate and configure an Amazon accountAmazon IoT Device Tester managed policy
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Prerequisites

This section describes the prerequisites for testing microcontrollers with Amazon IoT Device Tester.

Use a supported web browser

The IDT-FreeRTOS UI supports the following web browsers.

Browser Version
Google Chrome Latest three major versions
Mozilla Firefox Latest three major versions
Microsoft Edge Latest three major versions
Apple Safari for macOS Latest three major versions

We recommend that you use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox for a better experience.

Note

The IDT-FreeRTOS UI doesn't support Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Download FreeRTOS

You can download a release of FreeRTOS from GitHub with the following command:

git clone --branch <FREERTOS_RELEASE_VERSION> --recurse-submodules https://github.com/aws/amazon-freertos.git
cd amazon-freertos
git submodule update --checkout --init --recursive

where <FREERTOS_RELEASE_VERSION> is a version of FreeRTOS (for example, 202007.00) corresponding to an IDT version listed in Supported versions of Amazon IoT Device Tester for FreeRTOS. This ensures you have the full source code, including submodules, and are using the correct version of IDT for your version of FreeRTOS, and vice versa.

Windows has a path length limitation of 260 characters. The path structure of FreeRTOS is many levels deep, so if you're using Windows, keep your file paths under the 260-character limit. For example, clone FreeRTOS to C:\FreeRTOS rather than C:\Users\username\programs\projects\myproj\FreeRTOS\.

Considerations for LTS qualification (qualification for FreeRTOS that uses LTS libraries)

  • In order for your microcontroller to be designated as supporting long-term support (LTS) based versions of FreeRTOS in the Amazon Partner Device Catalog, you must provide a manifest file. For more information, see the FreeRTOS Qualification Checklist in the FreeRTOS Qualification Guide.

  • In order to validate that your microcontroller supports LTS based versions of FreeRTOS and qualify it for submission to the Amazon Partner Device Catalog, you must use Amazon IoT Device Tester (IDT) with FreeRTOS Qualification (FRQ) test suite version v1.4.x.

  • Support for LTS based versions of FreeRTOS is limited to the 202012.xx version of FreeRTOS.

Download IDT for FreeRTOS

Every version of FreeRTOS has a corresponding version of IDT for FreeRTOS for performing qualification tests. Download the appropriate version of IDT for FreeRTOS from Supported versions of Amazon IoT Device Tester for FreeRTOS.

Extract IDT for FreeRTOS to a location on the file system where you have read and write permissions. Because Microsoft Windows has a character limit for the path length, extract IDT for FreeRTOS into a root directory such as C:\ or D:\.

Note

We recommend that you extract the IDT package to a local drive.Allowing multiple users to run IDT from a shared location, such as an NFS directory or a Windows network shared folder, might result in the system not responding or data corruption.

Create and configure an Amazon account

Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account

If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

To sign up for Amazon Web Services

  1. Open http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choose Sign Up.

  2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Amazon sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choosing My Account.

Secure IAM users

After you sign up for an Amazon Web Services account, safeguard your administrative user by turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA). For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for an IAM user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

To give other users access to your Amazon Web Services account resources, create IAM users. To secure your IAM users, turn on MFA and only give the IAM users the permissions needed to perform their tasks.

For more information about creating and securing IAM users, see the following topics in the IAM User Guide:

Amazon IoT Device Tester managed policy

To enable device tester to run and to collect metrics, the AWSIoTDeviceTesterForFreeRTOSFullAccess managed policy contains the following permissions:

  • iot-device-tester:SupportedVersion

    Grants permission to get the list of FreeRTOS versions and test suite versions supported by IDT, so that they're available from the Amazon CLI.

  • iot-device-tester:LatestIdt

    Grants permission to get the latest Amazon IoT Device Tester version that is available for download.

  • iot-device-tester:CheckVersion

    Grants permission to check that a combination of product, test suite, and Amazon IoT Device Tester versions are compatible.

  • iot-device-tester:DownloadTestSuite

    Grants permission to Amazon IoT Device Tester to download test suites.

  • iot-device-tester:SendMetrics

    Grants permission to publish Amazon IoT Device Tester usage metrics data.