• Zephyr Project is a small, scalable real-time operating system for use on resource-constrained systems supporting multiple architectures.  Developers are able to tailor their optimal solution. As a true open source project, the community can evolve the Zephyr Project to support new hardware, developer tools, sensor and device drivers.  Advancements in security, device management capabilities, connectivity stacks and file systems can be easily implemented.

Features

Security

As more and more devices become connected in the Internet of Things model, even the smallest of them require some level of security to protect from malicious attacks. The Zephyr Project was developed with security in mind.The project employs an in-depth security development life cycle through all stages of development including: security validation, fuzz and penetration testing, frequent code reviews, static code analysis, threat modeling and reviews to prevent back doors in the code. The kernel is statically compiled into a single binary executable which limits attacks to code that is known at compile time, no loadable kernel modules. The project has been scrutinized by multiple security validation experts to help identify attack models using industry standard security tools.Ensuring security integration is top priority for the project. The project's governance includes the formation of a security working group, a delegated security maintainer, and establishing a mindset of building the project with security in mind. The governance and its members have the responsibility to ensure that all aspects of the code are developed securely.

Open Source

The Zephyr Project is available through the Apache 2.0 open source license. It’s free to use in commercial and non-commercial solutions. Hosted as a collaborative project with the Linux Foundation, the project will be managed with a lightweight governance and open source structure.The Linux Foundation is actively seeking out new members from all over the industry: industrial and commercial vendors, semi-conductor, operating system vendors, development tools, accelerators, startups, and professional makers who are interested in participating and contributing to the Zephyr Project.The success of the project is through industry lead development efforts from all aspects of embedded computing. From professional makers to large industrial and commercial vendors, the Zephyr Project strives to deliver a universally adoptable solution for the Internet of Things.

Connectivity

The Zephyr Project provides connectivity protocols optimized for low powered, small memory footprint devices. The project will support Bluetooth, Bluetooth LE, WiFi, 802.15.4 as well as other standards like 6Lowpan, CoAP, IPv4, IPv6, and NFC. The project will continue to refine and enhance functionality through community driven development.Zephyr Project communications and networking development will continue to expand and enhance support over time as new connectivity and interconnectivity standards become more established, the project will integrate support for these as well.

Modular

The Zephyr project provides developers with feature-rich software optimized for memory constrained devices. The Zephyr kernel and associated software modules can run on systems as small as 8kB of memory all the way up to 512 kB. It is designed to allow complete freedom to use the RTOS as-is or to tailor a solution by enabling or disabling almost every feature via kconfig to define the best configuration for your device. The Zephyr Project lets developers use the tool suite of their choice by supporting custom toolchains and compiler optimizations.Over time, the project will provide the ability to easily integrate 3rd party components including 3rd party libraries, external components, and application development and module configuration tools.

Diagram of usage

    • Fibers are cooperatively scheduled.
    • Fibers run until they yield or call a blocking API:
    • - Marked as not runnable.
    • - Next highest priority fiber is then run.
    • Typically, fibers are used for device drivers and performance-critical work.
    • ISRs can interrupt fibers and tasks.
    • Nested ISRs are on by default.
    • ISRs can mark fibers or tasks as runnable.
    • A task is scheduled when no fibers are runnable.
    • Tasks are preemptible.
    • The highest priority task runs first.
    • Round-robin time-slicing between tasks of equal priority is implemented.
    • Tasks are used for data processing.
taskstaskstasks
chip k swapperfibersfibers
isrisrisr
mailbox
pipesevent
memory mapsmemory pools
microkernel
chip background
chip k swapperfibersfibers
isrisrisr
lifostack
pipesevent
timermutex lock
nanokernel

Community

The Zephyr Project community encompasses a number of smaller communities, each with its own focus, needs, and methods for communicating.

The Zephyr Project member community consists of the member organizations and their representatives. Each member organization provides an administrative representative to the project's Governing Board, and a technical representative to the Technical Steering Committee, or TSC. You can find more information on the About page. Members meet periodically at the Governing Board meetings, and face to face at least annually at the Linux Foundation's Open IoT Summit.

The Zephyr Project developer community consists of developers from member organizations and the general community who participate in the development of software within the Zephyr Project. Members contribute and discuss ideas, submit bugs and bug fixes, provide training, and help those who need it through the community's forums such as mailing lists, or IRC channels. Anyone can join the developer community, but only member organizations can currently provide members to the project's leadership, which includes the Chief Architect, a hierarchy of Maintainers, and member representatives on the Technical Steering Committee.

The Zephyr Project user community includes everyone working with the project to build interesting things. If this means you, welcome to the Zephyr community! If not, we would be glad to welcome you.

The links below show a few channels for you to participate with the Zephyr Project.

JIRA

JIRA

Mailing lists

Mailing Lists

Gerrit

Gerrit
Gitweb

IRC

#zephyrproject

Jenkins

Jenkins

Wiki

Zephyr Project wiki