ROS 2 Setup And Smoke Test

This guide describes the supported local smoke path for the ZeptoDB ROS 2 connector. It is intended for development hosts, CI workers, and robot-lab edge nodes where the full ROS 2 apt distribution is not already installed.

The tested path on Amazon Linux 2023 is RoboStack Jazzy through micromamba. On Ubuntu hosts, a sourced system ROS 2 Jazzy install can also work as long as rclcpp, std_msgs, rosbag2_cpp, rosbag2_storage, ros2topic, and the tracetools runtime dependencies are available to CMake and the dynamic linker.

Quick Smoke

tools/run-ros2-smoke.sh

The script performs four checks:

1. Creates or reuses ROS2_PREFIX (default: $HOME/ros2_jazzy) and installs any missing required RoboStack packages.
2. Verifies rclcpp, std_msgs, rosbag2_cpp, rosbag2_storage, rosbag2_storage_default_plugins, ros2topic, and demo_nodes_cpp.
3. Publishes std_msgs/msg/Float64 {data: 42.5} on /zepto_smoke and confirms ros2 topic echo --once receives it.
4. Configures a focused ZeptoDB build with -DZEPTO_USE_ROS2=ON, -DZEPTO_BUILD_PYTHON=OFF, and -DZEPTO_ENABLE_DUCKDB=OFF, then runs Ros2ConsumerTest.*, including generated sqlite3 rosbag2 import tests and the live rclcpp publish to ZeptoDB table ingest test.

Useful overrides:

MICROMAMBA=$HOME/.local/bin/micromamba \
ROS2_PREFIX=$HOME/ros2_jazzy \
BUILD_DIR=/tmp/zeptodb_ros2_smoke_build \
ROS_DOMAIN_ID=79 \
JOBS=8 \
tools/run-ros2-smoke.sh

Manual Install

MAMBA_ROOT_PREFIX="$HOME/.mamba" ~/.local/bin/micromamba create -y \
  -p "$HOME/ros2_jazzy" \
  -c conda-forge -c robostack-jazzy \
  lttng-ust \
  ros-jazzy-ros-base \
  ros-jazzy-rclcpp \
  ros-jazzy-std-msgs \
  ros-jazzy-rosbag2-cpp \
  ros-jazzy-rosbag2-storage-default-plugins \
  ros-jazzy-ros2topic \
  ros-jazzy-demo-nodes-cpp

lttng-ust is included explicitly because RoboStack tracetools may export raw -llttng-ust linker flags. ZeptoDB’s zepto_ros2 CMake target propagates the ROS prefix lib directory so downstream executables can resolve those libraries during link.

Manual Build

MAMBA_ROOT_PREFIX="$HOME/.mamba" ~/.local/bin/micromamba run \
  -p "$HOME/ros2_jazzy" \
  /usr/bin/cmake -S . -B /tmp/zeptodb_ros2_smoke_build -G Ninja \
  -DZEPTO_USE_ROS2=ON \
  -DZEPTO_BUILD_PYTHON=OFF \
  -DZEPTO_ENABLE_DUCKDB=OFF

MAMBA_ROOT_PREFIX="$HOME/.mamba" ~/.local/bin/micromamba run \
  -p "$HOME/ros2_jazzy" \
  ninja -C /tmp/zeptodb_ros2_smoke_build -j"$(nproc)" zepto_ros2 zepto_tests

MAMBA_ROOT_PREFIX="$HOME/.mamba" ~/.local/bin/micromamba run \
  -p "$HOME/ros2_jazzy" \
  /tmp/zeptodb_ros2_smoke_build/tests/zepto_tests \
  --gtest_filter='Ros2ConsumerTest.*'

The smoke build disables embedded DuckDB because the ROS connector path does not depend on it, and avoiding that dependency keeps CI and edge validation small.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
micromamba not found	Install micromamba or set MICROMAMBA=/path/to/micromamba.
rclcpp/std_msgs: not found	Run CMake inside the ROS environment or source a system ROS 2 setup before configuring.
rosbag2_cpp/storage: not found	Install ros-jazzy-rosbag2-cpp and ros-jazzy-rosbag2-storage-default-plugins, then reconfigure.
cannot find -llttng-ust	Install lttng-ust into the ROS environment and reconfigure.
ROS pub/sub timeout	Use an isolated ROS_DOMAIN_ID, check local firewall rules, and ensure no stale daemon is using incompatible middleware settings.
CMake RPATH warning for conda/system libraries	Expected for focused RoboStack smoke builds. Use one consistent toolchain/runtime path for release packaging.

Production Notes

• The current bridge is read-only. It subscribes to scalar std_msgs topics and imports/replays scalar rosbag2 topics without publishing back into the ROS graph.
• Use explicit topic allowlists in production configs. Avoid wildcard discovery outside lab tooling.
• Keep robot control loops in their own ROS 2 executor. ZeptoDB should sit beside the graph as telemetry storage, replay, and analytics infrastructure.
• Run the smoke script whenever changing ROS 2 packages, middleware, compiler, or container base images.