ROS 2 shared memory in snaps

Strictly confined ROS 2 snaps shows an access error regarding shared memory. If you see something similar to:

[RTPS_TRANSPORT_SHM Error] Failed to create segment 86bb3c83d0835208: Permission denied -> Function compute_per_allocation_extra_size
[RTPS_MSG_OUT Error] Permission denied -> Function init

ROS 2 communication library is trying to use the shared memory mechanism. But don’t worry, even if you see this error, the messages are going to be transmitted (just not through shared memory).

Here, we present solutions to make the error message disappear by activating snap shared memory interface or simply disabling ROS 2 shared memory.

If you want a detail explanation about ROS 2 shared memory and why It doesn’t work right away in snaps please visit the blog: how-to-use-ros-2-shared-memory-in-snaps .

Note that everything discussed hereafter is exemplified on GitHub .

Public shared memory interface for ROS 2

Snap is providing an interface called shared-memory . This interface allows different snaps to have access (read and/or write) to a specified path. This is meant to share resources in /dev/shm across snaps. To do so, we have to declare both a slot as well as plug. Before running the snap, we will have to manually connect these slot & plug, possibly connecting several other snaps to the same slot.

The slot is the one defining the shared memory paths to be accessed. With ROS 2, we actually need access to everything within the /dev/shm directory (due to the semaphore temporary files). An example of the slot and plug is as follows:

slots:
  shmem-slot:
    interface: shared-memory
    write: ['*'] # paths are relative to /dev/shm
    private: false 
plugs:
  shmem-plug:
    interface: shared-memory
    shared-memory: shmem-slot
    private: false

Then both, the plug and the slot are added to the apps:

apps:
  my-ros-2-app:
    [...]
    plugs: [network, network-bind, shmem-plug]
    slots: [shmem-slot] 

Once the snap is built and installed, we can connect the shared memory with the command

sudo snap connect my_snap_name:shmem-plug my_snap_name:shmem-slot

Additional snaps will simply have to create their own plug and connect it to the very same slot.

This solution has an important overhead, since one must define slots and plugs, possibly across multiple snaps. But it is the de-facto way to enable the use of the shared memory feature in strictly confined snaps. Note that snapd 2.56.2 (or above) is necessary.

You can find a complete example of a ROS 2 snap using the public shared memory interface on GitHub .

Private shared memory interface

Snap is providing another interface called private shared memory that vastly simplifies shared memory support with snap. The private shared memory is a subset of the shared memory interface . Without modifying your software, all calls to /dev/shm are going to be bound to /dev/shm/snap.SNAP_NAME automatically. It can be activated by simply adding the plug to the snapcraft.yaml:

plugs:
  shared-memory:
    private: true

In a ROS 2 context, adding the private shared memory allows the shared memory to work within a given snap, hence benefiting from better performance.

Everything is fine within the snap, but the application is mute to the outside. ROS 2 applications running on the host, but outside the snap, will not be able to see the topics from the snap; let alone to subscribe to them.

This being said, it is important to note that if you access these topics published from the snap from another computer, it will work seamlessly as the data are shared via UDP.

You can find a complete example of a ROS 2 snap using the private shared memory interface on GitHub.

Disabling shared memory for ROS 2

FastDDS offers two options to totally disable the shared memory feature; either at compile time or at run time. We are detailing both options hereafter.

At compile-time

FastDDS offers an option to compile without the shared memory feature by simply specifying a CMake variable: -DSHM_TRANSPORT_DEFAULT=OFF. With this, no shared memory nor any associated files – ciao the error message. Adding the following FastDDS part to your snapcraft.yaml will disable FastDDS at compile time:

  fastdds:
    plugin: colcon
    source: https://github.com/eProsima/Fast-DDS.git
    source-tag: "v2.1.1" # Use tag according to your ROS version
    colcon-cmake-args:
            - -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
            - -DSHM_TRANSPORT_DEFAULT=OFF
    build-packages:
            - libasio-dev
            - ros-foxy-fastcdr # Replace by used ROS 2 release
            - nlohmann-json3-dev
            - ros-foxy-tinyxml2-vendor  # Replace by used ROS 2 release
    stage-packages:
            - ros-foxy-fastcdr  # Replace by used ROS 2 release
            - ros-foxy-tinyxml2-vendor  # Replace by used ROS 2 release

Of course, the main drawback of this approach is that we have to recompile FastDDS with every snap.

You can find a complete example of a ROS 2 snap using the FastDDS with shared memory disable at compile time on GitHub.

Disabling shared memory at run-time

FastDDS also allows for providing a configuration XML file at runtime in order to customize several aspects of the middleware. Such as, forcing the transport to use UDPv4. The XML profile is passed through an environment variable: Under your snap/local directory, create the file fastdds_no_shared_memory.xml with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
    <profiles xmlns="http://www.eprosima.com/XMLSchemas/fastRTPS_Profiles" >
        <transport_descriptors>
            <transport_descriptor>
                <transport_id>CustomUdpTransport</transport_id>
                <type>UDPv4</type>
            </transport_descriptor>
        </transport_descriptors>

        <participant profile_name="participant_profile" is_default_profile="true">
            <rtps>
                <userTransports>
                    <transport_id>CustomUdpTransport</transport_id>
                </userTransports>

                <useBuiltinTransports>false</useBuiltinTransports>
            </rtps>
        </participant>
    </profiles>

And then, you can add the proper part to place your profile and set the environment variable to your app in your snapcraft.yaml:

parts:
  [...]
  config:
    plugin: dump
    source: snap/local/
    organize:
      'fastdds_no_shared_memory.xml': usr/share/
apps:
  my-ros-2-app:
    [...]
    environment:
        FASTRTPS_DEFAULT_PROFILES_FILE: ${SNAP}/usr/share/fastdds_no_shared_memory.xml

This is much easier to set up and to change in subsequent releases of a snap.

You can find a complete example of a ROS 2 snap using the FastDDS with shared memory disable at run time on GitHub.