Creating a target connection

QNX Tool SuiteIntegrated Development Environment User's GuideDeveloperSetup

A target connection defines connection settings for a target machine. Each connection provides a launch target that you can select in the launch bar to specify where an application is to run.

These instructions assume you have a target machine that you plan to connect to through a specified hostname or IP address. There are other target types you can use, as explained in Supported target types.

For the target connection to be active (and hence, usable for launching applications), you must ensure that the corresponding target is accessible to the host machine through TCP/IP. Information on setting up an IP link with a target is given in IP communication.

Note:
If you are connecting to a target (only tested with VMware target), then you may need to be disconnected from VPN for the IDE to connect to your target.
To create a target connection:
  1. In the launch bar at the top of the IDE UI, click the button for the Launch Target dropdown, which is the rightmost dropdown:
    Image of launch bar, which contains three control buttons and three dropdowns, with the rightmost dropdown defining the Launch Target
  2. Select New Launch Target to open the launch target wizard selector.
  3. Select QNX Target in the list of target types, then click Next to open the New QNX Target window.
  4. Optional: In the Target Name field, you can uncheck the Same as hostname box and enter a nondefault name for the launch target.
    For convenience, this box is initially checked so the value entered in the Connection field (in the next step) is used as the launch target name.
    Note:
    This IDE dialog uses the standard networking term of hostname to refer to the name of the machine you're connecting to. In this case, it's the target machine, not the host (development) machine.
  5. In the Connection field, enter either the hostname or IP address of the target machine.
    The port number is preset and is used by the qconn agent, which handles IP communication.
  6. Click Finish to create the target connection.
The IDE adds an entry for the target referred to by the new connection to the Launch Target dropdown, and in the Project Explorer and Target Navigator views, whose visiblity depend on which IDE perspective is selected. The IDE also tries to connect to the target using the specified settings. If the connection attempt succeeds, you'll see a purple circle symbolizing a physical connector (even if your target is virtual) but with no red box (), on the left of the launch target name. If it fails, you'll see a red box with an X in the lower left corner of the icon ().

You can now select the new launch target to tell the IDE to debug, profile, or run an application on the target using the corresponding connection settings.

You can also edit the target connection settings by clicking the button (Icon: Edit button) on the right of its name.

Note:
The IDE sometimes displays a read timeout error message when interacting with a target where there are processes that consume a lot of CPU time. This is caused by a timeout of the socket used by the IDE to talk to the qconn target agent, which is trying to get data from a busy system. The situations when this occurs include but aren't limited to:
  • Sending a signal to a process
  • Gathering profiling data from a process
  • Terminating a process from the launch bar
Several workarounds can be applied:
  • Increase the qconn priority (e.g., to 21); its default priority is 10.
  • Decrease the priority of the busy process (e.g., to 9); this can be configured in the Arguments tab of the launch configuration, when launching the process.
  • For a virtual machine target, configure the target to have more cores; this is especially recommended for QNX VM targets.
  • Increase the qconn socket timeout, by specifying the following line in qde.ini: Dcom.qnx.qconn.defaultReadTimeout=30000. This example makes the timeout 30 seconds, but this may not work depending on how badly the process starves the CPU.
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