2. Windows installation from sources

The instructions for installing the DDS Router application from sources and its required dependencies are provided in this page. It is organized as follows:

2.1. Dependencies installation

DDS Router depends on eProsima Fast DDS library and certain Debian packages. This section describes the instructions for installing DDS Router dependencies and requirements in a Windows environment from sources. The following packages will be installed:

  • foonathan_memory_vendor, an STL compatible C++ memory allocation library.

  • fastcdr, a C++ library that serializes according to the standard CDR serialization mechanism.

  • fastdds, the core library of eProsima Fast DDS library.

  • cmake_utils, an eProsima utils library for CMake.

  • cpp_utils, an eProsima utils library for C++.

First of all, the Requirements and Dependencies detailed below need to be met. Afterwards, the user can choose whether to follow either the colcon or the CMake installation instructions.

2.1.1. Requirements

The installation of eProsima Fast DDS in a Windows environment from sources requires the following tools to be installed in the system:

2.1.1.1. Visual Studio

Visual Studio is required to have a C++ compiler in the system. For this purpose, make sure to check the Desktop development with C++ option during the Visual Studio installation process.

If Visual Studio is already installed but the Visual C++ Redistributable packages are not, open Visual Studio and go to Tools -> Get Tools and Features and in the Workloads tab enable Desktop development with C++. Finally, click Modify at the bottom right.

2.1.1.2. Chocolatey

Chocolatey is a Windows package manager. It is needed to install some of eProsima Fast DDS’s dependencies. Download and install it directly from the website.

2.1.1.3. CMake, pip3, wget and git

These packages provide the tools required to install eProsima Fast DDS and its dependencies from command line. Download and install CMake, pip3, wget and git by following the instructions detailed in the respective websites. Once installed, add the path to the executables to the PATH from the Edit the system environment variables control panel.

2.1.1.4. Colcon

colcon is a command line tool based on CMake aimed at building sets of software packages. Install the ROS 2 development tools (colcon and vcstool) by executing the following command:

pip3 install -U colcon-common-extensions vcstool

Note

If this fails due to an Environment Error, add the --user flag to the pip3 installation command.

2.1.1.5. Gtest

Gtest is a unit testing library for C++. By default, DDS Router does not compile tests. It is possible to activate them with the opportune CMake options when calling colcon or CMake. For more details, please refer to the CMake options section.

Run the following commands on your workspace to install Gtest.

git clone https://github.com/google/googletest.git
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX='C:\Program Files\gtest' -Dgtest_force_shared_crt=ON -DBUILD_GMOCK=ON ^
    -B build\gtest -A x64 -T host=x64 googletest
cmake --build build\gtest --config Release --target install

or refer to the Gtest Installation Guide for a detailed description of the Gtest installation process.

2.1.1.6. PyYAML

PyYAML is a YAML parser and emitter for Python.

It is used by the DDS-Router YAML Validator for loading the content of configuration files.

Install pyyaml by executing the following command:

pip3 install -U pyyaml

2.1.1.7. jsonschema

jsonschema is an implementation of the JSON Schema specification for Python.

It is used by the DDS-Router YAML Validator for performing validation of configuration files against a given JSON schema.

Install jsonschema by executing the following command:

pip3 install -U jsonschema

2.1.2. Dependencies

DDS Router has the following dependencies, when installed from sources in a Windows environment:

2.1.2.1. Asio and TinyXML2 libraries

Asio is a cross-platform C++ library for network and low-level I/O programming, which provides a consistent asynchronous model. TinyXML2 is a simple, small and efficient C++ XML parser. They can be downloaded directly from the links below:

After downloading these packages, open an administrative shell with PowerShell and execute the following command:

choco install -y -s <PATH_TO_DOWNLOADS> asio tinyxml2

where <PATH_TO_DOWNLOADS> is the folder into which the packages have been downloaded.

2.1.2.2. OpenSSL

OpenSSL is a robust toolkit for the TLS and SSL protocols and a general-purpose cryptography library. Download and install the latest OpenSSL version for Windows at this link. After installing, add the environment variable OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR pointing to the installation root directory.

For example:

OPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=C:\Program Files\OpenSSL-Win64

2.1.2.3. yaml-cpp

yaml-cpp is a YAML parser and emitter in C++ matching the YAML 1.2 spec, and is used by DDS Router application to parse the provided configuration files. From an administrative shell with PowerShell, execute the following commands in order to download and install yaml-cpp for Windows:

git clone --branch yaml-cpp-0.7.0 https://github.com/jbeder/yaml-cpp
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX='C:\Program Files\yamlcpp' -B build\yamlcpp yaml-cpp
cmake --build build\yamlcpp --target install    # If building in Debug mode, add --config Debug

2.1.2.4. eProsima dependencies

If it already exists in the system an installation of Fast DDS library with version greater than 2.4.0, just source this library when building the DDS Router application by using the command:

source <fastdds-installation-path>/install/setup.bash

In other case, just download Fast DDS project from sources and build it together with DDS Router using colcon as it is explained in section Colcon installation.

2.2. Colcon installation

Important

Run colcon within a Visual Studio prompt. To do so, launch a Developer Command Prompt from the search engine.

  1. Create a DDS-Router directory and download the .repos file that will be used to install DDS Router and its dependencies:

    mkdir <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir src
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eProsima/DDS-Router/main/ddsrouter.repos
vcs import src < ddsrouter.repos

    Note

    In case there is already a Fast DDS installation in the system it is not required to download and build every dependency in the .repos file. It is just needed to download and build the DDS Router project having sourced its dependencies. Refer to section eProsima dependencies in order to check how to source Fast DDS library.

  2. Build the packages:

    colcon build

Note

Being based on CMake, it is possible to pass the CMake configuration options to the colcon build command. For more information on the specific syntax, please refer to the CMake specific arguments page of the colcon manual.

2.3. CMake installation

This section explains how to compile DDS Router with CMake, either locally or globally.

2.3.1. Local installation

  1. Open a command prompt, and create a DDS-Router directory where to download and build DDS Router and its dependencies:

    mkdir <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src
mkdir <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\build
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eProsima/DDS-Router/main/ddsrouter.repos
vcs import src < ddsrouter.repos

  2. Compile all dependencies using CMake.

    • Foonathan memory

      cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\foonathan_memory_vendor
cd build\foonathan_memory_vendor
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\foonathan_memory_vendor -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=ON
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

    • Fast CDR

      cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\fastcdr
cd build\fastcdr
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\fastcdr -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

    • Fast DDS

      cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\fastdds
cd build\fastdds
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\fastdds -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

    • Dev Utils

      # CMake Utils
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\cmake_utils
cd build\cmake_utils
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\dev-utils\cmake_utils -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

# C++ Utils
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\cpp_utils
cd build\cpp_utils
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\dev-utils\cpp_utils -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

    • DDS Pipe

      # ddspipe_core
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\ddspipe_core
cd build\ddspipe_core
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\ddspipe\ddspipe_core -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

# ddspipe_participants
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\ddspipe_participants
cd build\ddspipe_participants
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\ddspipe\ddspipe_participants -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

# ddspipe_yaml
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\ddspipe_yaml
cd build\ddspipe_yaml
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\ddspipe\ddspipe_yaml -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

  3. Once all dependencies are installed, install DDS Router:

    # ddsrouter_core
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\ddsrouter_core
cd build\ddsrouter_core
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\ddsrouter\ddsrouter_core ^
    -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

# ddsrouter_yaml
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\ddsrouter_yaml
cd build\ddsrouter_yaml
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\ddsrouter\ddsrouter_yaml -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

# ddsrouter_tool
cd <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router
mkdir build\ddsrouter_tool
cd build\ddsrouter_tool
cmake <path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\src\ddsrouter\tools\ddsrouter_tool -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install ^
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=<path\to\user\workspace>\DDS-Router\install
cmake --build . --config Release --target install

Note

By default, DDS Router does not compile tests. However, they can be activated by downloading and installing Gtest and building with CMake option -DBUILD_TESTS=ON.

2.3.2. Global installation

To install DDS Router system-wide instead of locally, remove all the flags that appear in the configuration steps of foonathan_memory_vendor, Fast-CDR, Fast-DDS, and DDS-Router

2.4. Run an application

If the DDS Router was compiled using colcon, when running an instance of a DDS Router, the colcon overlay built in the dedicated DDS-Router directory must be sourced. There are two possibilities:

  • Every time a new shell is opened, prepare the environment locally by typing the command:

    setup.bat

  • Add the sourcing of the colcon overlay permanently, by opening the Edit the system environment variables control panel, and adding ~/Fast-DDS/install/setup.bat to the PATH.

However, when running an instance of a DDS Router compiled using CMake, it must be linked with its dependencies where the packages have been installed. This can be done by opening the Edit system environment variables control panel and adding to the PATH the DDS Router, Fast DDS and Fast CDR installation directories:

  • Fast DDS: C:\Program Files\fastdds

  • Fast CDR: C:\Program Files\fastcdr

  • DDS Router: C:\Program Files\ddsrouter