| Updated: April 19, 2023 |
The QNX development environment consists of a host and a target machine.
The host is where you write and build your code. This machine runs Windows, Linux, or Mac OS and contains the QNX SDP and IDE. The target is where you run, debug, and profile your applications. This machine runs QNX Neutrino and contains the embedded system you're designing (and all of the applications for it).
The target can be a physical board or an existing virtual machine. In these two cases, you must manually set up host-target communication, which can be based on an IP or a serial connection. As of version 7.1 of the IDE, the target can also be a QNX virtual machine (VM) that you create through the IDE, as explained in “Creating a QNX virtual machine”. Creating your own VM is convenient because the generated QNX system image includes the drivers and utilities needed for host-target communcation, saving you from manually setting it up.
For all target types, you must create a target connection to tell the IDE where your applications will run. The next section explains how to create a connection to an existing target.