Can I limit the CPU and memory the agent uses?

Yes, the CPU and memory that the agent uses can be limited using systemctl as follows:

systemctl set-property formant-agent.service MemoryLimit=<value>
systemctl set-property formant-agent.service CPUQuota=<value>

For example, to lock the agent to using a maximum of 1 core

systemctl set-property formant-agent.service CPUQuota=100%

Can I install the Formant agent on Windows or MacOS?

We support agent installation via docker container for non-Linux systems. See documentation on installing the agent in docker container.

What environment variables can I add to /var/lib/formant/.bashrc?

Here is a list of all optional environment variables that affect the behavior of the Formant agent.

// The IP address where the Formant Agent will start it's server
FORMANT_AGENT_IP

// The Unix Socket where the Formant Agent will start it's server
FORMANT_AGENT_GRPC_UNIX_SOCKET

// The port where the Formant Agent will expose the gRPC interface
FORMANT_AGENT_GRPC_PORT

// The port where the Formant Agent will expose the HTTP interface
FORMANT_AGENT_HTTP_PORT

// Enables the local port forwarding feature
FORMANT_PORT_FORWARDING

The following environment variables are ROS-specific:

// The path to the root of the catkin workspace. The Formant agent uses this to find custom ROS message definitions
CATKIN_WS

// If the ROS setup files are not in <catkin_ws>/devel/setup.bash, the custom location of ROS setup script
SOURCE_SCRIPT

// The file location of the Python interpreter used by the tf2 bridge
FORMANT_AGENT_PYTHON_PATH

// The file location of the Python3 interpreter used by the ROS bridge
FORMANT_AGENT_PYTHON3_PATH

// The address of the ROS master to which the ROS Bridge connects
ROS_MASTER_URI

// The file localtion of the unix socket used for the ROS bridge
FORMANT_ROS_AGENT_GRPC_UNIX_SOCKET

// Enables replacement of timestamps on ROS messages with the current time
FORMANT_OVERRIDE_TIMESTAMP

Agent setup troubleshooting

The Formant agent ROS bridge is not running

Most parts of the formant agent ROS bridge are python3 processes. Try running import rospy in a python3 shell. If this import errors, you may have to install python3-roskpg-modules:

apt install python3-rospkg-modules

Please make sure you have the following packages installed on pyhton3 for ros_bridge:

rosgraph
roslib
rostopic
std_msgs
GTK
gi
sensor_msgs
genpy
actionlib_msgs
geometry_msgs
sensor_msgs

The following packages need to be installed on python2 for tf2_bridge:

rosgraph
rospy
tf2_ros
genpy

ImportError: cannot import name Gst, introspection typelib not found

Some systems will not have a video streaming dependency installed. To fix, you can install the following:

apt install gir1.2-gst-rtsp-server-1.0

/usr/sbin/policy-rc.d returned 101, not running 'enable formant-agent.service'

The system's policy-rd.d may be set up to disallow enabling services. Edit /usr/sbin/policy-rc.d to exit 0 instead of 101.

ROS data not showing up on webapp

If the installation was successful, but the ROS based data is not displaying on the webapp, it is likely that the agent did not detect that it was ROS based device. Check if ROS_MASTER is set in your environment. If it is not set, then set it as follows:

export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://localhost:11311

Then rerun the agent installation command you ran without the token. If you ran the docker based agent installation, rerun the docker based command.