Azure Sphere version 20.10 is now available

This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: New blog articles in Microsoft Tech Community.

The Azure Sphere 20.10 release includes an updated Azure Sphere OS, Azure Sphere SDK, and extensions for Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. If your devices are connected to the internet, they will receive the updated OS from the cloud. However, to develop apps that use the new features in the OS, you'll need to install the 20.10 SDK and the updated extension for your development environment.

 

If you installed the 20.10 Evaluation SDK, you should replace it by installing the 20.10 SDK for the retail release. The 20.10 SDK contains the 5, 6, 7, and 7+Beta2010 sysroots and all the new features introduced with the 20.10 release.

 

New and changed features in the 20.10 release

For the Azure Sphere 20.10 release, we upgraded the Yocto Project to the latest 3.1 LTS Dunfell release. The upgrade included updates to open-source tools, libraries, and the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) toolchain. The upgrade brought new functionality to support changes like a 64-bit time_t type. It also addressed known security vulnerabilities in the open-source libraries used for building Azure Sphere.

 

Memory visualization in Visual Studio Extension

The 20.10 Visual Studio Extension now lets you see memory usage for high-level applications, using new information available from the Azure Sphere OS. See Memory use in high-level applications for information about how to use the new feature.

 

Container support for build pipelines

We have added support for use of containers (first shipped in 20.07) as part of build pipelines in GitHub and ADO.  Add continuous integration to your container builds describes how to use containers as part of build pipelines in GitHub and ADO, and Use containers for build and debug with Visual Studio Code explains how to debug directly in a container with Visual Studio Code.

 

MAC address

It is now possible to set the Ethernet MAC address for eth0 connections by using the azsphere device network update-interface command.

 

Custom NTP server

High-level apps can now use a custom NTP server. For more information, see Specifying an NTP Server in the online documentation and the CustomerNTP_HighLevelApp  for sample code.

 

Server-side authentication for wolfSSL

Azure Sphere now supports server-side authentication for wolfSSL, in addition to client-side.

 

New IOCTLs for GPIO and UART

New I/O controls (IOCTLs) are available for both GPIO and UART. See ioctl for a complete list.

 

Power management

The 20.10 release introduces power profiles, which let high-level apps select the appropriate balance between performance and energy use. See Set power profiles for Azure Sphere devices for details.

 

Secure connections

Applications can now access the device authentication and attestation (DAA) certificate on the device for use in authenticating with wolfSSL and other services. The DeviceAuth_GetCertificatePath function is new in the deviceauth.h header for this release.

 

External interrupts in RTApps

Real-time capable applications (RTApps) can now use external interrupts.

 

Support for AIA in tenant CA certificates

Azure Sphere tenant CA certificates now support the Authority Information Access (AIA) extension, which is an industry standard for all certificates. This extension includes an access method and a URL that points to the issuing certificate's public certificate file. Support for the AIA extension means that you can use the Certification Path tab on the Certificate control panel to view the tenant certificate chain up to the Root CA certificate.

 

Device certificates do not yet support the AIA extension.

 

IoT C SDK

For the 20.10 release, we've added support for Model ID to help simplify some IoT Central/PnP and IoT Edge scenarios. We’ve also added new functions from the SDK and exposed more functionality to enable connectivity to IoT Edge.

 

IoT Edge example

We have added support for IoT Edge to the Azure IoT sample . IoT Edge provides a filtering and data processing layer between a downstream device, like Azure Sphere, and IoT hub. Consider using IoT Edge if your Azure Sphere device produces too much data or data that requires post-processing.

 

The sample application lets you start prototyping solutions with IoT Edge and Azure Sphere. It does not support bulk device onboarding. In addition to the sample, we've added Set up Azure IoT Edge for Azure Sphere to the online documentation.

 

C runtime library time_t type

In this release, we upgraded the C runtime library (libc) in the Azure Sphere OS to musl version 1.2. With this upgrade, musl has updated C type time_t (and thus all of its derivatives) to 64 bits instead of 32 bits in preparation for the UNIX epoch rollover in 2038. To read more about this change, please visit the MUSL release page: https://musl.libc.org/time64.html  and see C runtime library time_t type in What’s new.

 

 

 

For more information on Azure Sphere OS feeds and setting up an evaluation device group, see Azure Sphere OS feeds.

 

If you encounter problems

For self-help technical inquiries, please visit Microsoft Q&A or Stack Overflow. If you require technical support and have a support plan, please submit a support ticket in Microsoft Azure Support or work with your Microsoft Technical Account Manager. If you would like to purchase a support plan, please explore the Azure support plans.

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