Getting Started¶

Warning

Only Linux is supported as a development OS. For Windows and MacOS users, a Linux VM is recommended.

Developing and / or compiling BOLOS applications requires the SDK matching the appropriate device (the Nano S, X SDK or the Blue SDK) as well as the following two compilers:

A standard ARM gcc to build the non-secure (STM32) firmware and link the secure (ST31) applications. We recommend using GCC 7.
A standard ARM clang above 7.0.0 (but below 10.0.0) with ROPI support to build the secure (ST31) applications. We recommend using Clang 7.0.1.

Setting up the Toolchain¶

The Makefiles used by our BOLOS applications look for gcc and clang installations using the PATH environment variable.

If you don’t want to install specific versions of clang and gcc directly on your system, simply prepend their location in your PATH environment variable.

# GCC
PATH=~/bolos-devenv/gcc-arm-none-eabi-7-2017-q4-major-x86_64-linux/bin:$PATH

# Clang
PATH=~/bolos-devenv/clang+llvm-7.0.1-x86_64-linux-gnu-ubuntu-18.04/bin:$PATH

Cross compilation headers are required and provided within the gcc-multilib and g++-multilib packages. To install them on a debian system:

sudo apt install gcc-multilib g++-multilib

Setting up the SDK¶

Now that you have your toolchain set up, you need to download / clone the SDK for the appropriate Ledger device you’re working with. Make sure you checkout the tag matching your firmware version.

Ledger Nano S SDK: https://github.com/LedgerHQ/nanos-secure-sdk

Ledger Nano X SDK: https://github.com/LedgerHQ/nanox-secure-sdk

Ledger Blue SDK: https://github.com/LedgerHQ/blue-secure-sdk

Finally, link the environment variable BOLOS_SDK to the SDK you downloaded. When using the Makefile for our BOLOS apps, the Makefile will use the contents of the SDK to determine your target device ID (Ledger Nano S, X or Ledger Blue). Even if you aren’t building an app, loading an app with the Makefile still requires you to have the SDK for the appropriate device linked to by BOLOS_SDK.

Python Loader¶

If you intend to communicate with an actual Ledger device from a host computer at all, you will need the Python loader installed. For more information on installing and using the Python loader, see BOLOS Python Loader. The Makefiles for most of our apps interface with the Python loader directly, so if you only need to load / delete apps then you don’t need to know how to use the various scripts provided by the Python loader, but you’ll still need it installed.

Building and Loading Apps¶

In this section, we’ll walk you through compiling and loading your first BOLOS app onto your device. Applications that support multiple BOLOS devices are typically contained within a single repository, so you can use the same repository to build an app for different Ledger devices. Just make sure that you’ve set BOLOS_SDK to the appropriate SDK for the device you’re using. The Makefiles used by our apps use the contents of the SDK to determine which device you’re using.

Firstly, download the boilerplate app.

git clone https://github.com/LedgerHQ/app-boilerplate.git

Now you can let the Makefile do all the work. The load target will build the app if necessary and load it onto your device over USB.

cd app-boilerplate/
make load

And you’re done! After confirming the installation on your device, you should see an app named “Boilerplate”. The app can be deleted like so:

make delete

The Sia app is a very well documented app from community. If you want to study a full fledged app, this is the one you should read:

git clone https://github.com/LedgerHQ/ledger-app-sia.git