Software checksum for Real-Time Applications

[LabviewingToday]

Hello all,

We are developing products based on the NI sbRIO platform and deploying Real-time applications to the target. We need to get these products UL listed and part of the testing process requires that the software be locked down and not changed while the testing is ongoing. For this I need a way to get and display the checksum (or some other signature) of the Real-time application currently deployed on the target.

Is there a way to accomplish this? Please let me know if more information is needed.

Thanks

[Esteban.R]

Hi LabVIEWingToday

I am not sure what exactly you want to check or read in order to ensure that the software is locked down. I found this white-paper that might help you want to do.

Best Practices for Security on RIO Systems: Part 3 Extreme

I also found the other two parts which might be of interested to you.

Best Practices for Security on RIO Systems: Part 1 Recommended

Best Practices for Security on RIO Systems: Part 2 Optional

If this is not what you are looking for let me know with a little more details, as unfortunately I am not familiar with the UL listed and the checksum terminology that you used or what you expect to see.

Regards

Esteban R.

[LabviewingToday]

Esteban,

Thank you for the input. I will go through the links you recommend. To give you a better idea of what I want to accomplish:

• We are bulding real-time applications from RT VI's that call FPGA using the open FPGA VI reference.
• We define this RT vi as the startup application in the build specification and deploy the realtime application (.rtexe).
• We have a touch screen HMI in the unit that we use to command and control the unit.
• I want to show some signature number (say checksum) of the realtime application on the touch screen.
• The third party test engineer will verify this number throughout the testing process to ensure that the software has not been modified.

In my mind, to accomplish this I would need to programmatically access this number from the real time VI and communicate it to the HMI so it can be displayed.

My question is: how do I generate and access this number from within the RT VI that is being deployed on the target.

Again thank you for your input and let me know if I can provide more information.

[Esteban.R · Accepted solution]

Hi LabVIEWingToday

On the first link of previous post, there is a section that explains what the checksum is and they recommend either a community tool or a LabVIEW VI which you could use programmatically.

For computing a checksum on key files, consider using the the MD5Checksum File.VI, which is a built ...

Regards

Esteban R.