Where is that Log? DevUser and Account 1000 on PlayBook

PlayBook applications run in sandboxes, each one with holding files, data base, other data… and also the exit code and the log file for the latest execution of the application, all nicely protected using QNX.  Our IDE (formally QNX® Momentics IDE for BlackBerry® Native SDK for Tablet OS) knows how to talk to the PlayBook to get at these resources but you can also use NDK command-line commands, and this post will help you get started using several of them.

For concreteness, I’ll use the AudioControl sample (Samples Page or direct ZIP) – the application queries the PlayBook for audio control settings and shows the result on the log file for the application. This post shows how to access that log, first the slow way… then the fast way.

Note: The instructions assume you have installed a DebugToken into your PlayBook.

Prep Work: Install the Application

Start by downloading the latest NDK 2 (beta 2 as of this writing) so we can  use its command tools.  The NDK includes a handy script to set important environment variables, on my mac this looks like:

bash-3.2$ source /Developer/SDKs/bbndk-2.0.0-beta2/bbndk-env.sh

Next, unzip that AudioControl sample and open a terminal window on the AudioControlMakefile subdirectory.  You can now compile using make, and then package and install using blackberry-nativepackager. As described in the Elena-improved version of  NDK2 – Step by Step, you can rely on the local bar-descriptor.xml to describe all the assets and you only need to define externally the variable QNX_TARGET. The result is:

bash-3.2$ make
bash-3.2$ blackberry-nativepackager -package out.bar \
-devMode -debugToken MYDEBUGTOKEN\
bar-descriptor.xml -list -listManifest\
-D QNX_TARGET=/Developer/SDKs/bbndk-2.0.0-beta2/target/qnx6
bash-3.2$ blackberry-nativepackager -installApp \
-device DEVICEIP -password DEVICEPASSWD\
out.bar

Enable SSH Access

For safety, you cannot just ssh (yes, there is a wikipedia page for ssh) into your PlayBook.  You start the SSH daemon using the blackberry-connect program to physically (well, WiFi works) connect into the PlayBook, which must be in Developer Mode, provide the password to the device, and provide your RSA-4096 public key.  The daemon is active only while blackberry-connect is running, and will only accept connections that authenticate against that key.

Added: On Unix machines the desired key can be generated and can be installed in the default location with the command:

% ssh-keygen -b 4096 -t rsa

Start the blackberry-connect command… and leave it running!

bash-3.2$ blackberry-connect DEVICEIP \
-password DEVICEPASSWD \
-sshPublicKey ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
Info: Connecting to target 10.0.1.2:4455
Info: Authenticating with target 10.0.1.2:4455
Info: Encryption parameters verified
Info: Authenticating with target credentials.
Info: Successfully authenticated with target credentials.
Info: Sending ssh key to target 10.0.1.2:4455
Info: ssh key successfully transferred.
Info: Successfully connected. This application must remain running in order to use debug tools. Exiting the application will terminate this connection.

Explore

Now you can ssh into the device. You will need to ssh using the devuser login, which grants you enough privileges to be a productive developer, but not enough to get you into trouble.

You can safely explore around:

bash-3.2$ ssh devuser@10.0.1.2
$ pwd
/accounts/devuser
$ ls /accounts
1000       devuser
$ cd /accounts/1000
$ ls -F
appdata/           db/                sys/
certificates/      pimdata/           sysdata/
clipboard/         shared/
$ ls -ldg appdata/com.example.*
ls -d appdata/com.example.*
appdata/com.example.AudioControlMakefile.testDev_rolMakefilee6ce75a2
....
appdata/com.example.VideoPlaybackMakefile.testDev_ackMakefileaa3c64ef

The Log Output

Finally, back to that log file. Go to the sandbox for AudioControl and it is there:

$ cd com.example.AudioControlMakefile.testDev_rolMakefilee6ce75a2
$ cat logs/log
Audio Mixer Status
Headphone Volume: 53.360001
Speaker Volume: 53.360001
Input Gain: 100.000000
Headphone Muted: False
Speaker Muted: False
Input Muted: False

Audio Mixer Event
Headphone Volume: 53.360001
Speaker Volume: 53.360001
Input Gain: 100.000000
Headphone Mute: False
Speaker Mute: False
Input Mute: False
Available Output Channel: Headphones

BlackBerry-Deploy – a Swiss Army Knife

That was the “slow” – but most informative – way to get at the log file; as promised, there is a faster way, using the blackberry-deploy command. This command provides a shortcuts for many common operations, including a way to retrieve a file from the sandbox, so, in this particular case, once you know that the name of the log file is logs/log, you can extract it directly using -getFile as shown below:

bash-3.2$ blackberry-deploy -getFile logs/log /tmp/mylog \
-device MYDEVICEIP -password MYDEVICEPASSWD out.bar
Info: Sending request: Get File
Info: Action: Get File
Info: Package com.example.AudioControlMakefile.testDev_rolMakefilee6ce75a2
Info: Asset Path logs/log
Info: Sending File: 353
Info: File saved: /tmp/mylog

bash-3.2$ cat /tmp/mylog
Audio Mixer Status
Headphone Volume: 53.360001
Speaker Volume: 53.360001
Input Gain: 100.000000
Headphone Muted: False
Speaker Muted: False
Input Muted: False

Audio Mixer Event
Headphone Volume: 53.360001
Speaker Volume: 53.360001
Input Gain: 100.000000
Headphone Mute: False
Speaker Mute: False
Input Mute: False
Available Output Channel: Headphones

bash-3.2$

Both blackberry-nativepackager and blackberry-deploy will list you the subcommands they accept if you invoke them without arguments. Check them out!