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iCub user environment

The main user configured on all iCub Setup machines is usually icub (SID: 1000 - GID 1000).

All the environment configurations required for this user are stored in a separate file that is loaded every time a bash session is started.

Note

If you installed your system starting from an image (eg. the iCubOS - Installation from image chapter), the steps below have already been added into the image.

Users and Passwords

The default user account is

Username : icub Password : icub

If you want to change the default password simply execute (this works only if you are using persistence)

passwd icub

NOTE: As in any Ubuntu installation, the root user has no password, this means that the direct login (i.e. ssh root@icub-head) is disabled, but you can always do

sudo su -

The bashrc

The user enviroment configurations (for bash sessions) are stored in the file

~/.bashrc_iCub

Online updated version

You can find the updated default .bashrc_iCub file online. There are two versions of the iCub environment file:

the above files must be renamed to .bashrc_iCub and saved in the user home directory, along with the .bashrc file.

How to setup the enviroment properly

To use the ~/.bashrc_iCub file to setup the environment, the following lines: 

#Load the iCub custom bashrc
if [ "$HOME" != "" ]; then
  ICUBRC_FILE="${HOME}/.bashrc_iCub"
else
  ICUBRC_FILE="/home/icub/.bashrc_iCub"
fi
if [ -f "$ICUBRC_FILE" ]; then
  source $ICUBRC_FILE
fi
should be added at the beginning of file ~/.bashrc just BEFORE the following lines: 
# If not running interactively, don't do anything
case $- in
   *i*) ;;
     *) return;;
esac

The reason why the .bashrc_iCub needs to be added at the beginning of ~/.bashrc is that file must be loaded every time a bash session is started, no matter if the session is interactive or not (this is required when we want to start our programs remotely), and the line of code after # If not running interactively, don't do anything make the ~/.bashrc file exit if executed in a non-interactive shell.

Required configuration

To customize the above user environment, you ought to manually make some changes:

  • The YARP_ROBOT_NAME - you must insert your robot name, in the following line and remove the leading "#" 
    #export YARP_ROBOT_NAME=

Groups

Add the user icub to the following groups

  • video
  • audio
  • tty
  • dialout
  • i2c
  • bluetooth

use the next command to perform that action 

usermod -a -G video,audio,tty,dialout,i2c,bluetooth icub