Atlas
Atlas carries everything we do on its shoulders. As a customer, you get a ready-made solution that makes it easy to build, test and maintain Linux-based systems. Get in touch and we'll help you get started.
What is Atlas?
Atlas started with our need to easily set up identical Yocto-based build environments regardless of host, and is based on Docker containers and a Makefile that helps start the builds, or sets up an environment to build Yocto images in a standardised way. Today, Atlas is much more than a build environment, with security maintenance, regular releases, reference platforms and more.
What can Atlas do for your project?
Atlas enables you to quickly develop, install and maintain secure and reliable Linux-based embedded systems. Instead of having to start from scratch, you can benefit from our expertise and get a ready-made platform that works right away. If you want, you can even let us take care of maintenance while you focus on developing your applications. What's more, you can seamlessly integrate Atlas with our solutions for CVE management (CMP), automated tests (TATE) and secure updates.
Based on the Yocto project's poky release, Atlas also offers extra metadata layers that we at Codiax maintain. We use pre-built Docker images to ensure that builds are always the same, whether it's a developer or an automated system that does them. The core of Atlas is essentially the smart Makefile structure that makes it easy to configure the build system, create documentation and start builds with just a few Make commands.
Atlas from Codiax gives you
- Fast start-up time for the development project with the latest Linux build environment based on the Yocto project, to get your builds up and running quickly.
- Identical, containerised build environments for all target systems, ensuring reproducible and flexible builds.
- Several well-tested reference systems and support for continuous updates (FOTA), for reliable and scalable platform operation.
- A powerful testing environment powered by GitHub Actions, Jenkins Pipelines or equivalent, along with TATE for automated testing.
- Regular security updates and support for CVE management, as well as modularity and support from Linux experts to ensure smooth operation.
Benefits and key features
Ease of use and customisation
Atlas is designed to be as user-friendly as possible, even for those who are not experts in Linux or the Yocto project. It is also designed to be easily customised to your specific target platform. By using a container-based build environment, dependence on the host computer is minimised. This allows you to use Atlas to build Linux platforms on almost any host computer.
This unique solution comes with comprehensive documentation that both complements the Yocto project's original documentation and can be easily extended with project-specific information. With meta-atlas, you also get access to a layer of add-ons and extensions that make it easy to further develop and customise the Atlas for your projects.
Hardware and platform support
Atlas has been tested with and supports the major hardware manufacturers such as NXP, Xilinx, Intel, Texas Instruments, Renesas and ST. Many common reference systems are already compatible with Atlas, and it is easy to create new BSPs for other platforms.
The included Linux kernels can be customised with the RT patch to better support systems with real-time requirements. To run multiple systems on the same hardware, Atlas offers support for hypervisors such as XEN and Jailhouse, allowing systems to be isolated to meet different security or real-time requirements.
In addition to this, Atlas offers tools to analyse and optimise start-up times, i.e. fast boot. The platform is regularly updated and follows the stable long-term versions of the Yocto project. Built-in tools also make it easy to track FOSS licences and generate licence information.
Security and privacy
In terms of security, Atlas offers features such as secure boot, integrity checking and secure upgrades to protect your system. An important aspect of security is ensuring the integrity of the file system, so we can make sure that no unauthorised changes are made to the file system from the outside.
In order to carry out safe upgrades in the field, we need a mechanism to ensure that the upgrade is always carried out reliably. Therefore, we have designed Atlas to protect the system from becoming unusable, even in the event of a power outage, for example. In addition, Atlas offers support for CVE management, making it easy for us to monitor and manage known security threats and vulnerabilities.
Development and construction process
We document and lock all source code used, so that each build can be recreated exactly as the original version. Typically, all builds are done in a Docker container, allowing all developers to work in the same environment and ensuring that the environments are built the same way. To speed up the process, Codiax also offers servers with pre-built standard Linux components. In addition, Atlas is continuously tested on multiple reference hardware with our automated test environment, TATE.
Take the next step with Atlas
Want to know more about how Atlas can improve your project? At Codiax, we offer both technical solutions and support to help you build robust and future-proof Linux-based systems. Get in touch and discover how Atlas can streamline your development process.