DESK-MX8M-L/Deployment/Standalone boot

History
ID#	Issue Date	Notes
16140	17/02/2022	First DESK-MX8M-L release
17662	27/02/2023	DESK-MX8M-L-2.0.0 release

Standalone boot

Introduction

This document was written and tested with the software/hardware combination described in the history table above. However, it contains general concepts that can be adapted on any DAVE Embedded Systems' Linux platform.

The following programming examples are intended for laboratory usage or for preliminary deployment strategy. A complete deployment strategy has to be carefully identified taking into account the overall arguments like boot speed, safe boot, recovery mechanisms, watchdog supervisor, etc.

Generally speaking, it is possible to configure a <SOM> to boot in standalone mode, without the need of a system microSD card or an NFS server, for example, with three options:

• booting with NOR and NAND internal storage
  • in this configuration the primary boot images will be fetched from NOR flash storage, while the root file system will be fetched from NAND flash
• booting with NAND only
  • in this configuration the whole system will boot without the need of a NOR flash storage, all images and the root file system will be fetched from NAND flash
• booting with eMMC only
  • in this configuration the whole system will boot without the need of a NOR/NAND flashes storage, all images and the root file system will be fetched from the eMMC flash

In the following paragraphs, we will take into account a real case using an embedded eMMC mounted in the ORCA or MITO 8M Mini SOMs

Program boot images into eMMC

The flash.bin Boot Image can be created following the instructions described in the Building Boot Image wiki page, fir example:

Boot binary

Load Boot binary form a tftp server:

load='tftpboot ${loadaddr} ${serverip}:${binfile}'
binfile='desk-mx8m/flash.bin'

u-boot=> run load
Using ethernet@30be0000 device
TFTP from server 192.168.0.13; our IP address is 192.168.0.90
Filename 'desk-mx8m/flash.bin'.
Load address: 0x40480000
Loading: #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         #################################################################
         ########
         1.8 MiB/s
done
Bytes transferred = 1304608 (13e820 hex)
u-boot=>

or load Boot binary form an SD card:

Hit ENTER within 1 seconds to stop autoboot
u-boot=> fatload mmc 1:1 ${loadaddr} flash.bin
1304608 bytes read in 63 ms (21.4 MiB/s)
u-boot=>

ORCA SOM

Flash the Boot image

Update to the latest Boot image version allows usage of u-boot environment variables available.

mmc_update=mmc dev; setexpr blocks ${filesize} / 0x200; setexpr blocks ${blocks} + 1; mmc write ${loadaddr} 40 ${blocks}

u-boot=> mmc dev 2
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc2(part 0) is current device
u-boot=> run mmc_update
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc2(part 0) is current device

MMC write: dev # 2, block # 64, count 2548 ... 2548 blocks written: OK
u-boot=>

MITO 8M Mini

Flash the Boot image

mmc_update 'mmc dev 0; setexpr blocks ${filesize} / 0x200; setexpr blocks ${blocks} + 1; mmc write ${loadaddr} 42 ${blocks}'

u-boot=> mmc dev 0
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0(part 0) is current device
u-boot=> run mmc_update
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0(part 0) is current device

MMC write: dev # 0, block # 66, count 2522 ... 2522 blocks written: OK
u-boot=>

Configuring the u-boot environment

Once the Boot Image has been correctly programmed, start the system from eMMC in order to configure/program the u-boot environment variables for a correct boot sequence.

kernel image and device tree

The following environment variables has to be set (or at least checked) in u-boot; depending on the formatted eMMC partition (FAT32 or ext4), the vars has to be properly modified:

FAT32

setenv mmc_loadk 'fatload mmc ${mmcdev}:1 ${loadaddr} ${bootfile}'
setenv mmc_loadfdt 'fatload mmc ${mmcdev}:1 ${fdt_addr} ${fdt_file}'

ext4

setenv mmc_loadk 'ext4load mmc ${mmcdev}:1 ${loadaddr} ${bootfile}'
setenv mmc_loadfdt 'ext4load mmc ${mmcdev}:1 ${fdt_addr} ${fdt_file}'

Then, u-boot uses the previously listed commands for reading the binary images and starting the Linux file system from the eMMC part 2 (which is reserved for the root-file system storage):

setenv mmcboot 'run mmcargs addcons addmisc; if run mmc_loadk; then if run mmc_loadfdt; then if run configid_fixupfdt; then booti ${loadaddr} - ${fdtaddr}; fi; fi; fi'
setenv mmcargs 'setenv bootargs root=${mmcroot}'
setenv normalboot mmcboot

boot vars

The following environment variables should be configured for u-boot properly identify the boot files, e.g.

setenv bootfile Image

ORCA SOM

The platform dependent variable have to be properly configured:

• the proper device tree binary

setenv fdt_file imx8mp-mito8mplus-cb1001.dtb

• the eMMC mmcblk device

setenv mmcroot '/dev/mmcblk2p2 rootwait rw'

then save the environment and reboot the system to apply the new configuration:

u-boot=> saveenv
Saving Environment to MMC...
Writing to MMC(2)... done
u-boot=> reset

MITO 8M Mini

The platform dependent variable have to be properly configured:

• the proper device tree binary

setenv fdt_file imx8mm-mito8mmini-cb100a.dtb

• the eMMC mmcblk device

setenv mmcroot '/dev/mmcblk0p2 rootwait rw'

then save the environment and reboot the system to apply the new configuration:

u-boot=> saveenv
Saving Environment to MMC...
Writing to MMC(0)... done
u-boot=> reset

Program root file system into eMMC

• boot the system via SD or NFS as described in the e Booting from NFS
• eMMC device has to be partitioned and properly formatted choosing the file system for each partition
• an example of SD partitioning script is the following one:

In the following examples, mmcblk2 device is used, we will refer to ORCA SOM. If MITO 8M Mni is used the mmcblk0 block device has to be seleced

Partitioning

#!/bin/sh

node=$1

# partition size in MB
BOOTLOAD_RESERVE=8
BOOT_SIZE=2048
RFS_SIZE=4096

# create the SDCARD partition
part=""
echo ${node} | grep mmcblk > /dev/null
if [ "$?" -eq "0" ]; then
        part="p"
fi

# print the SD total capacity
total_size=`sfdisk -s ${node}`
total_size=`expr ${total_size} / 1024`
echo SD total size: ${total_size}KB

# calculate partition sizes
boot_start=`expr ${BOOTLOAD_RESERVE} \\* 1024 \\* 1024 / 512`
boot_size=`expr ${BOOT_SIZE} \\* 1024 \\* 1024 / 512`
rfs_start=`expr ${boot_size} + ${boot_start}`
rfs_size=`expr ${RFS_SIZE} \\* 1024 \\* 1024 / 512`

umount ${node}${part}1 > /dev/null 2>&1
umount ${node}${part}2 > /dev/null 2>&1

# call sfdisk to create partition table
 { echo ${boot_start},${boot_size},83,-; echo ${rfs_start},${rfs_size},83,-; } | sfdisk --force ${node}

# format the SDCARD partition
echo "formatting boot"
mkfs.ext4 -F ${node}${part}1 -Lboot
echo "formatting rfs"
mkfs.ext4 -F ${node}${part}2 -Lrfs

E.g.

root@desk-mx8mp:~# ./emmc_partition.sh /dev/mmcblk2
SD total size: 7457KB
[  238.978157]  mmcblk2: p1 p2 p3
Checking that no-one is using this disk right now ... OK

Disk /dev/mmcblk2: 7.29 GiB, 7820083200 bytes, 15273600 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xbe0f0cf6

Old situation:

Device         Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk2p1         32768   524288   491521  240M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/mmcblk2p2        524289 12058623 11534335  5.5G 83 Linux
/dev/mmcblk2p3      12058624 15273599  3214976  1.5G 83 Linux

>>> Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0x7b310a69.
/dev/mmcblk2p1: Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 2 GiB.
/dev/mmcblk2p2: Created a new partition 2 of type 'Linux' and of size 4 GiB.
/dev/mmcblk2p3: Done.

New situation:
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x7b310a69

Device         Boot   Start      End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/mmcblk2p1        16384  4210687 4194304   2G 83 Linux
/dev/mmcblk2p2      4210688 12599295 8388608   4G 83 Linux

The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
[  239.419641]  mmcblk2: p1 p2
Syncing disks.
formatting boot
mke2fs 1.45.3 (14-Jul-2019)
Discarding device blocks: done
Creating filesystem with 524288 4k blocks and 131072 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 48ad5de1-5ffe-4ed9-b7e0-bdc05d0b8052
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (16384 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done

formatting rfs
mke2fs 1.45.3 (14-Jul-2019)
Discarding device blocks: done
Creating filesystem with 1048576 4k blocks and 262144 inodes
Filesystem UUID: aacf8195-ddbd-4fdc-a83e-99f57659367e
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736

Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (16384 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
root@desk-mx8mp:~#

• create a mount point and mount the first partition

mkdir -p /mnt/emmc
mount /dev/mmcblk2p1 /mnt/emmc

• copy kernel and dtb files from SD card

root@desk-mx8mp:~# mount /dev/mmcblk2p1 /mnt/emmc
[  314.432392] EXT4-fs (mmcblk2p1): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
root@desk-mx8mp:~# mkdir -p /mnt/sd
root@desk-mx8mp:~# mount /dev/mmcblk1p1 /mnt/sd
root@desk-mx8mp:~# cp /mnt/sd/* /mnt/emmc/
root@desk-mx8mp:~# umount /mnt/emmc

• now mount the EXT4 volume in the temporary directory

E.g.:

root@desk-mx8mp:~# mount /dev/mmcblk2p2 /mnt/emmc
[  433.481899] EXT4-fs (mmcblk2p2): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
root@desk-mx8mp:~# cd /mnt/emmc/
root@desk-mx8mp:/mnt/emmc#

• you can now extract the root file system into that directory

tar xvjf dave-image-devel-desk-mx8mp.tar.bz2

• finally, you need to cleanly umount and safely reboot or turn off the system.

root@desk-mx8mp:/mnt/emmc# cd
root@desk-mx8mp:~# umount /mnt/emmc
root@desk-mx8mp:~# reboot

Boot configuration

Once the system has been completely programmed, select the eMMC boot mode, reboot the system and configure U-Boot to apply for using the new configuration, i.e. to boot from internal storage:

u-boot=> setenv bootcmd run mmcboot
u-boot=> saveenv
u-boot=> reset

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