The GSR device (GSM Smart Router) uses obelisk as its core. The following section describes de details on how is it run and the environment provided.
The GSR runs an image based on LEDE, a GNU/Linux operating system based on OpenWrt.
The command gsr is a symlink to obelisk, both located on /usr/bin.
The obelisk-wrapper script (located on /usr/bin) is responsible for launching and restarting obelisk if it dies. It is automatically started when the device boots with the /etc/init.d/obelisk service. This service provides /etc/init.d/obelisk stop, /etc/init.d/obelisk start and /etc/init.d/obelisk restart commands for managing obelisk.
The obelisk-wrapper script starts obelisk with the main config file /etc/obelisk/obelisk.json (where the changes to the config are saved) on top of a failsafe config file /etc/obelisk/failsafe.json that is never modified. This ensures that some modules are always enabled and a minimum functionality is preserved in case of disaster (for example when saving an empty config or when accidentally deleting the config file).
If obelisk crashes, obelisk-wrapper launches it again. If 5 consecutive crashes occur and each running time has been inferior to 5 minutes it probably means that something is wrong in the configuration or the binary and obelisk-wrapper enters the failsafe mode.
The failsafe mode tests if the binary can be run, if it can't obelisk is run from the factory read-only binary (/rom/usr/bin/obelisk) and the main config file is restored to factory defaults (/rom/etc/obelisk/obelisk.json).
In failsafe mode, the failsafe config file is loaded and its defined instances started. Then the main config file is loaded but its instances are not started. Modifications done to the config while obelisk is running are done taking into account the main config file and then, when the config is saved, this is done to the main config file. When this happens (or after 10 minutes) the device reboots. The failsafe mode allows to externally connect to fix things or to reset the configuration to some known good values.
Take special care of stopping
obeliskwhen connected through a VPN connection that it handles. The connection will stop andobeliskwon't be started again. Connecting through the LAN interface doesn't present this risk.
To read the syslog where obelisk logs all it's data, the logread command must be used.
logread -f -l 200 shows the last 200 lines and follows the output.
There is some free space for users to add their custom scripts wherever they want and interface with obelisk through a local connection to obbus.
You can download the toolchain needed to compile software here: http://obelisk-repo.n4m.zone/repo/external/toolchains/v3/Nayar-Toolchain-mips-24kc_gcc-6.3.0_musl-1.1.16.Linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
We also provide a Lua 5.1 environment, but you will need to install socket and msgpack packages manually to be able to connect to obbus, since these are not installed by default to save some space.
Be aware that there is only ~3MiB of storage available to host your custom scripts and any data you may want to preserve
You will also need to setup a startup script on /etc/init.d/ to run your scripts on boot alongside obelisk