Easy Installer fails with large images

Technical Support
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1

I am using a Linux host with unattended flashing over Ethernet. The linux host serves nginx, dhcp and dns. I am using the Toradex easy installer 2.0b7-20210415 from the artifactory:

https://artifacts.toradex.com/artifactory/tezi-oe-prod-frankfurt/thud/release/4/apalis-imx8/tezi/tezi-run/oedeploy/https://artifacts.toradex.com/artifactory/tezi-oe-prod-frankfurt/thud/release/4/apalis-imx8/tezi/tezi-run/oedeploy/Apalis-iMX8_ToradexEasyInstaller_2.0b7-20210415.zip

I have no problem flashing the MMC with a mender image with a 1 GB rootfs size. But when I increase this to something larger (the total image size is well within the 16 GB total), I get the following popup error from the easy installer VNC connection:

2852-tezierror.png

2

What exactly the image size? Have you tried to flash it from USB stick or SD card?

3

I am flashing via unattended Ethernet (local nginx server connected via ethernet, serving as tezi.toradex.com). I have not tried to flash via USB stick, but I intend to.

My image.json file is:

{
    "config_format": 2,
    "autoinstall": true,
    "name": "Toradex Embedded Linux Reference Minimal Image",
    "description": "Minimal image without graphical interface that just boots",
    "version": "Mender dunfell",
    "release_date": "2021-07-16",
    "prepare_script": "prepare.sh",
    "wrapup_script": "wrapup.sh",
    "marketing": "mender-tezi-metadata/marketing_mender_toradex.tar",
    "icon": "mender-tezi-metadata/mender_toradex_linux.png",
    "supported_product_ids": [
        "0037",
        "0047",
        "0048",
        "0049"
    ],
    "blockdevs": [
        {
            "name": "mmcblk0",
            "table_type": "gpt",
            "content": {
                "rawfiles": [
                    {
                        "filename": "Reference-Minimal-Image-apalis-imx8.sdimg.bz2"
                    }
                ]
            }
        },
        {
            "name": "mmcblk0boot0",
            "erase": true,
            "content": {
                "filesystem_type": "raw",
                "rawfiles": [
                    {
                        "filename": "imx-boot",
                        "dd_options": "seek=0"
                    }
                ]
            }
        }
    ]
}

In the good case, where the image is written correctly and boots without error, the sdimg file looks like (fdisk -u -l):

Disk /var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg: 1016 MiB, 1065353216 bytes, 2080768 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: 0x684a9a61

Device                                                               Boot   Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg1 *      49152  114687   65536   32M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg2       114688  966655  851968  416M 83 Linux
/var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg3       966656 1818623  851968  416M 83 Linux
/var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg4      1818624 2080767  262144  128M 83 Linux

In the error case, where the image is not written successfully, the sdimg file is (fdisk -u -l):

Disk /var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg: 3,102 GiB, 4286578688 bytes, 8372224 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: 0xdc70cdbd

Device                                                               Boot   Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg1 *      49152  114687   65536   32M  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg2       114688 4112383 3997696  1,9G 83 Linux
/var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg3      4112384 8110079 3997696  1,9G 83 Linux
/var/www/html/apalis-imx8/Apalis-iMX8_Reference-Minimal-Image.sdimg4      8110080 8372223  262144  128M 83 Linux

In this case I get the error popup from tezi shown below.
2855-tezierror2gbrootfs.png

4

I have now verified that it works fine with the USB stick. But the same image served by my local host fails as described above. I also verified that the target can still ping tezi.toradex.com after the failure, so it is not losing the ethernet connection.

5

Hi @pally

Based on our conversation over in Mender Hub, you got this working by using the mender_tezi image but are still having trouble with the other mechanism right? Can you clarify how you are creating the image that fails and how it differs from the mender_tezi image?

Drew

6

Hi Drew,

I got it working by using a USB stick instead of unattended flashing over Ethernet. Both methods now use the same mender_tezi image, and the unattended Ethernet still fails in the way described above.

I would very much like to see this working with unattended Ethernet. I can flash with a USB stick for the time being, but it would be nice to get the other method working.

BTW, this thread looks different than it did this morning. For example, I already answered Alex’s question about image size, but I don’t see that any more.

Paul

7

Hi Paul,

Is it possible you have some kind of file size limitation on your server? Are there any logs there where you can see details of the transfer?

Drew

8

I spoke with @pally over on Mender Hub and he confirmed that this issue was an NFS server setting.

9

Yes, the problem was with the nginx server timing out on long transfers. I had to add /etc/nginx/conf.d/timeout.conf with the contents:

proxy_connect_timeout 1200;
proxy_send_timeout 1200;
proxy_read_timeout 1200;
send_timeout 1200;