GNU Radio Docker Environment

Just another custom docker environment for GNU Radio. Tested on M1 Macs & Ubuntu and GNU Radio 3.9.x. Custom dependencies are included.

gnuradio - companion - docker - macos - linux

Maintainer: Maximilian Bundscherer

Overview

First of all, I want to mention that I used this GitHub Gist and this GitHub Repo as a starting point, which was an invaluable help. I have therefore put the orginal doc in oldDoc/.

I built on this work because I use a slightly different workflow for my projects and because I work on both Macs and Linux servers.

Later I used this repo. I customised my Dockerfile for the same reason.

Let's get started

• (sudo password is gnuradio)

Run on macOS

• Start XQuartz xhost + 127.0.0.1 (opens XQuartz UI)
• Start container and connect to it docker start -i mb-gnuradio
• Run gnuradio-companion
• Read More selection below

Run on Ubuntu

• Start container and connect to it docker start -i mb-gnuradio
• Run gnuradio-companion
• Read More selection below

Install

XQuartz Installation (only macOS)

• XQuartz is required to run X11 applications in a Docker container. This is necessary because, for example, gnuradio-companion uses the graphical user interface.
• Restart mac after installation of XQuartz
• Test and configure XQuartz
  • xhost + 127.0.0.1 (opens XQuartz UI)
  • Open settings in XQuartz UI and allow connections from network clients in the security tab
  • docker run -e DISPLAY=host.docker.internal:0 gns3/xeyes (runs docker container with xeyes connected to XQuartz - for testing ui)

XQuartz Config (only Ubuntu)

• Configure XQuartz to allow connections from docker
  • xhost +local:docker
  • docker run -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:ro gns3/xeyes (runs docker container with xeyes connected to XQuartz - for testing ui)

Docker Image and Container (on Ubuntu and macOs)

• Clone this repo
• Build docker image
  • Build docker container (macOS) ./build-macOS.sh
  • Build docker container (Ubuntu) ./build-ubuntu.sh
  • Build docker container (Ubuntu Server in HPC) ./build-ubuntuHPC.sh
• Kill container after first start

More

GUI-Editor

• Use /usr/bin/gvim as editor in GNU Radio

Deprecated

Audio Output

• Use UDP Sink in GNU Radio and nc -l -u 0.0.0.0 7360 | play -t raw -esigned-integer -b 16 -r 48000 - on your host
• (alternative) Use Wave-File Sink in GNU Radio

OutOfTreeModules (OOT)

• gr_modtool newmod <MODULE_NAME> --srcdir /root/gr_prefix/gnuradio/gr-utils/modtool/templates/gr-newmod/
• cd <MODULE_NAME>
• gr_modtool add -t sync -l python (Add Python QA code? y)
• mkdir build; cd build
• cmake ..
• make (Edit files)
• make install
• ldconfig

Remove

• rm /usr/local/share/gnuradio/grc/blocks/<MODULE_NAME>_<BLOCK_NAME>.block.yml