SocketCAN drivers for Linux supported on CANopen Stack

The newest implementations of SocketCAN drivers for Linux is now being supported by the CANopenRT protocol software as announced by IXXAT Automation GmbH, a leading supplier of data communication systems for industrial automation and automotive applications. The support for SocketCAN drivers for Linux is limited though to those using the Sysfs virtual file system.

SocketCAN, for those who are not familiar with it, is an open source set of drivers and a network stack that allowed the Berkeley sockets API to be extended and used in Linux by introducing a new set of protocol family known as the PF_CAN. SocketCAN’s main components are basically network device drivers for the different CAN controllers together with the CAN protocol family implementation. The SocketCAN has been part of the vanilla kernel since version 2.6.25.

The CANopenRT software from IXXAT supports multiple user application at the same time while interacting with just one CANopen core stack module ever since its initial release. The CAN controller’s abstraction as a socket interface offers the possibility to have other CAN based protocols run on the same CAN interface. This can be paralled to CANopen on Linux platforms. This is similar to the versatility that is already available on Microsoft Windows operating systems with CANopenRT for IXXAT’s VCI V3 driver.

As far as SocketCAN drivers testing is concerned, the CANopenRT was already tested with Freescale MSCAN and NXP SJA1000 for Linux distributions based on the kernel version 2.6.

Source: openPR

*picture taken from source