running linux cnc with no display - some questions

I want to see if there is any info or ideas on how I would run a machine using linux cnc without a display.

Basically I think I am asking 2 questions at once

1. can I just load linuxcnc at the command line without running a screen like axis ?
2. can i setup the machine to take commands over a network ?

I don't want to try to feed commands in real time, just start/stop/ load gcode. stuff like that

In terms of communication, some form of persistent socket communication would be great, but really I can probably make anything work, even if I have to write a communication shell.

My ideal situation is to have a machine that effectively has a virtual interface, something I can do in HTML/JS and I can load locally on an embedded device with a touch screen, or on a remote device on the same network.

Anyone interested in doing some work on this feel free to shoot me a message

Thank You
Calvin

You can only leve the disaplay away
and use a
Pendand
Control Panel
THE G-code is loded on Auteo so the Filename is the Same at all the time
You generate the NGC file to a FIX position
and the Button press relods the Code

THE Mashine is homed by button so the PART Zero is also Fixed as on Plasmatable in use

ofcase YOU CAN DO what you want to do
its not comen but workable
the Gcode file can come from whatever interface you like

calvin.d wrote: 1. can I just load linuxcnc at the command line without running a screen like axis ?

Yes.
The simplest way is to set DISPLAY = halui.

2. can i setup the machine to take commands over a network ?

Yes: linuxcnc.org/docs/html/man/man1/linuxcncrsh.1.html

Andy, thanks this is exactly the starting point I was looking for.

I think I might need to look at the linuxcncrsh source and see if I can do rewrite so it is websocket based not telnet based.

Thank You
Calvin

Machinekit might have something suitable already, try looking there first.

If you can make linuxcncrsh work with both, or create a related driver that works with websocket then (linuxcncwebsocket?) then we could consider adding it to the release. (It seems like something that is unlikely to break much, I imagine it translates input to NML messages?)

can you point me to where in the source the section for linuxcncrsh lives, googling gets me a ton of examples of usage, but not sure what section the source lives.

I want to do this at a low level, because I want this to be really light weight. machine kit has some bindings for python which I could just call from a webserver like flask and it would work, but not quite what I am looking for.

Thank You
C

It's partly hidden by the switch from "EMC2" to "LInuxCNC"

github.com/LinuxCNC/linuxcnc/blob/master...c/usr_intf/emcrsh.cc

Note that there is also an emcsh. I don't recall what that does.

Thanks for the fast reply, it also explains why I was not finding it

Thank you
C

I was looking at Youtube the other day and when I searched for Linuxcnc there were a few videos about remote connections.

There is also this....might be worth a look at for some ideas, not suggesting a backport to Linuxcnc.
machinekoder.com/machinetalk-explained-part-1-introduction/

andypugh wrote: Machinekit might have something suitable already, try looking there first.

If you can make linuxcncrsh work with both, or create a related driver that works with websocket then (linuxcncwebsocket?) then we could consider adding it to the release. (It seems like something that is unlikely to break much, I imagine it translates input to NML messages?)

Machinekit has something called Machinetalk. It's basically (so far yet not finished) rework of NML and at the same shift towards HAL layer.

Depending what exactly calvin.d wants to do. (Machinekit recently EOLed the main repository which was forked from LinuxCNC and split work to two repositories: Machinekit-HAL and Machinekit-CNC. If the topic author wants only the HAL layer, then he would be mainly interested in HALtalk , or basically remote components. If he is interested in the whole CNC package, he will be interested in mkwrapper.py , which is band-aid which translated the NML to Machinetalk.)

Machinetalk is mostly a combination of mDNS/DNS-SD for an announcement, ZeroMQ for transport and Protocol Buffers for object marshaling.

There are the-other-side libraries for Qt and Python . There is also the WebSocket translator (however that's all I know about it) for web-based communication. For other languages, you will have to program your own.