How to debug the IoT Framework (erlang)

This quick guide describes how to debug the Erlang side of the IoT-Framework.

In fact, this is pretty easy, all you need to do is run "make run". This should put you in the erlang console. Afterwards type "debugger:start" and normally if you have an X11 capable environment a new window will pop up which should permit you to setup breakpoints and execute code step by step.

If you don't have an X11 capable environment, perhaps because you are running the IoT-Framework code on a slim virtual machine which just contains the bare essentials then you need to use X11 forwarding.

To do that, ssh -X to the remote address (that would be the IP address of the virtual machine that's running the IoT-Framework). Since you've sshed into that system it's probably good to check if X11 forwarding is enabled in your ssh daemon. To do so check the configuration file in /etc/sshd. If it’s not enabled, then don’t forget to restart the sshd daemon and of course reconnect.

Once X11 forwarding is enabled then you can repeat the procedure as described in the beginning of this page and the debugger window will pop in your local environment (be that OSX, or Linux X11).