RDMnet

RDMnet is an ANSI standard for entertainment technology by ESTA for transmission of RDM over IP networks. RDMnet leverages and extends the widely-adopted RDM message set and provides a standard method for configuring both IP-based entertainment equipment and interfaces between IP and DMX512 (commonly referred to as gateways).

About this ETCLabs Project

RDMnet is official, open-source software developed by ETC employees and is designed to interact with ETC products. For challenges using, integrating, compiling, or modifying this software, we encourage posting on the issues page of this project.

Before posting an issue or opening a pull request, please read the contribution guidelines.

Repository Contents

This repository contains a C-language library for core RDMnet communication. It also contains example applications that demonstrate the roles of Components in RDMnet:

• rdmnet_controller_example: A Qt-based GUI application which does basic discovery, display and configuration of RDMnet Components.
• rdmnet_broker_example: A console application which implements an RDMnet Broker.
• rdmnet_device_example: A console application which implements an RDMnet Device.
• rdmnet_gateway_example: A console application which implements an RDMnet Gateway, affectionately referred to as the "Fakeway". Uses ETC Gadget 2 devices to simulate gateway ports.
• llrp_manager_example: A console application which implements a basic LLRP Manager.

The applications are available as a binary package on the Releases page.

The example applications currently support Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux, and are built using CMake. In addition to these platforms, the RDMnet library also supports any plaform targeted by EtcPal, including embedded RTOS platforms such as FreeRTOS.

Building

For instructions on building the RDMnet library and applications, as well as an RDMnet overview and in-depth documentation, please see the documentation.

Future Plans

This library is maintained by ETC. This open-source implementation of an industry standard is intended to encourage adoption of RDMnet throughout the entertainment industry. The code is licensed under the Apache License 2.0, which allows usage of this library in commercial and/or closed-source applications.

The current prototypes are mostly compliant with the current standard version, with a few exceptions:

• The Broker library has no RDM responder functionality and does not implement an LLRP Target
• EPT is not implemented
• The "Request Dynamic UID Assignment" and "Fetch Dynamic UID Assignment List" Broker messages are not yet implemented

Standards Version

The current version of this repository implements ANSI E1.33-2019, published in August of 2019. You can download the standard document for free from the ESTA TSP downloads page.

Quality Gates

Code Reviews

• At least 2 developers must approve all code changes made before they can be merged into the integration branch.
• API and major functionality reviews typically include application developers as well.

Automated Testing

• This consists primarily of unit tests covering the individual API modules.
• Some integration tests have also been made.

Automated Style Checking

• Clang format is enabled – currently this follows the style guidelines established for our libraries, and it may be updated from time to time. See .clang-format for more details.
• Non-conformance to .clang-format will result in pipeline failures. The code is not automatically re-formatted.

Continuous Integration

• A GitLab CI pipeline is being used to run builds and tests that enforce all supported quality gates for all merge requests, and for generating new library builds from main. See .gitlab-ci.yml for details.

Automated Dynamic Analysis

• ASAN is currently being used when running all automated tests on Linux to catch various memory errors during runtime.

Revision Control

RDMnet development is using Git for revision control.

License

RDMnet is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. RDMnet also incorporates some third-party software with different license terms, disclosed in ThirdPartySoftware.txt in the directory containing this README file.