Hi
On our custom built Colibri carrier board we have no display interface. But we would still like to use the Toradex EasyInstaller if possible.
How can we install an image from within EasyInstaller console?
Thanks and best regards,
Tonio
Hi @tgsell!
In the absence of a display, you can access the Toradex Easy Installer interface via VNC (or RDP on 2.x releases) using your module’s IP address (if it’s connected to the Ethernet) or the USB RNDIS IP address (default to 192.168.11.1), if that interface is connected.
Hi @gustavo.tx
Thanks, that’s a good hint! I will try that.
But I would still be interested in how to install an image from within the EasyInstaller console. Do you have any idea how this works?
@tgsell unfortunately, the Toradex Easy Installer doesn’t offer a command-line interface for installing images using the console.
For faster installs, you can use features such as Auto Install.
@gustavo.tx are you sure? Isn’t the “mouse-clicky” frontend just calling some comands in the background, which I could execute from the EasyInstaller command line, which I can access via debug serial?
@tgsell in that sense, yes, the Easy Installer is a Qt application running some commands and checks to install the image. However, what I meant is that the Easy Installer itself does not offer a command-line interface to easily accomplish these tasks. You can always manually mount the storage device, create the partitions and write to disk.
If your goal is to do partial updates (update U-Boot, kernel or rootfs separately), there are some better options to do this documented here, since the Easy Installer wasn’t designed to provide partial update capabilities.
@gustavo.tx thanks for your fast help! You are right, I am probably better off, not to use EasyInstaller for what I try to accomplish. I have actually already setup an TFTP/NFS boot environment for the kernel/linux. But I am at the moment struggling with a fast u-boot development setup. Actually, I have already opened another question for that (BSP3.0 - u-boot update - Technical Support - Toradex Community). Maybe I have too look into this UUU tool as well.
Yeah, for U-Boot development using the USB recovery mode is the preferred solution. However, the details depend on the exact module in question. You may e.g. use the tooling from the Toradex Easy Installer recovery mode implementation and just replace resp. U-Boot there with yours.
@gustavo.tx I tried to connect via vncviewer to EasyInstaller running on Colibri iMX6ULL with our carrier board. Unfortunately it complains with “unable connect to socket (111)”. What vnc server should be running on the EasyInstaller image? If I “ps | grep -i vnc” in EasyInstaller command line, no service pops up…
@marcel.tx thanks for you input. Can you please elaborate more on that. What do you exactly mean by “tooling from Easy Installer recovery mode implementation”?
Please read the Toradex Easy Installer Guide and ask specific question, if anything is not clear. Thanks
@tgsell I think the VNC server is hosted by the Qt application so it won’t show up in ps. I tried connecting here with the USB RNDIS IP (192.168.11.1) and it works. Should work with your network IP too.
Which Toradex Easy Installer version are you using? In case you’re using version 2.0, connection should be via RDP, not VNC.
@gustavo.tx thanks! I am on version 2.0. With RDP everything works out of the box : )
@gustavo.tx ok, still not all problem solved… as we are using another USB power enable pin, as well as a different SD chip detect pin, the pin mapping used in the Easy installer image does not fit and thus, it does not recognize USB sticks nor SD cards. Do you have any suggestions on that?
@tgsell since you’re using your own custom carrier board, you’ll need to make the respective changes to the Linux device tree and then generate your own image.
There are two ways to do this. You can follow this article to clone the kernel sources, make the changes, compile it manually and swap the default kernel and device tree files for the ones you just compiled. This is described here.
The other alternative is to use Yocto/OpenEmbedded to generate a full custom image. You can refer to this article for more information. Yocto will automatically build and deploy a Toradex Easy Installer image.
@gustavo.tx I am already building my own image with Yocto/OpenEmbedded, have changed the device tree and u-boot to work with our carrier board and booting directly via TFTP/NFS the newly built kernel/rootfs. Everything works as a charm.
I just do not have found a proper (fast) way to update u-boot.
Where does Yocto build the Toradex Easy Installer? I can not find it in the deploy directory…
@tgsell you should be getting a tarball with a name like <machine>-<image>-Tezi_<version>.tar in your deploy directory. This is actually defined in the machine configs as mentioned here. Then you can just extract this file to an SD card and install it with the Toradex Easy Installer. Could you please check if this file was generated?
Also, which version of our BSP are you using?
@gustavo.tx ah ok, I did not know, that this is directly containing Easy Installer.
Unfortunately it does not boot Easy installer… this is what I get with distro_boot:
Colibri iMX7 # run distro_bootcmd
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0(part 0) is current device
Scanning mmc 0:1...
Found U-Boot script /boot.scr
1202 bytes read in 11 ms (106.4 KiB/s)
## Executing script at 87000000
** No boot file defined **
SCRIPT FAILED: continuing...
MMC: no card present
starting USB...
Bus usb@30b10000: USB EHCI 1.00
Bus usb@30b20000: probe failed, error -22
scanning bus usb@30b10000 for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
scanning usb for storage devices... 1 Storage Device(s) found
Device 0: Vendor: JetFlash Rev: 1100 Prod: Transcend 64GB
Type: Removable Hard Disk
Capacity: 57671.0 MB = 56.3 GB (118110208 x 512)
... is now current device
Scanning usb 0:1...
FEC0 Waiting for PHY auto negotiation to complete....user interrupt!
Could not initialize PHY FEC0
BOOTP broadcast 1
BOOTP broadcast 2
Abort
Or with usb_boot:
Colibri iMX7 # run usb_boot
Device 0: Vendor: JetFlash Rev: 1100 Prod: Transcend 64GB
Type: Removable Hard Disk
Capacity: 57671.0 MB = 56.3 GB (118110208 x 512)
... is now current device
Scanning usb 0:1...
@tgsell this image won’t boot the Easy Installer, this is actually your image and has to be installed with the Toradex Easy Installer. What you have to do is load the Toradex Easy Installer as you did before (according to these instructions), then extract this image to an SD card or USB drive and connect it to your board. The Toradex Easy Installer will automatically detect the connected USB device and will show a new entry on the list so you can click and install the image.
@gustavo.tx I think things are getting confused now.
My problem is, that Easy installer (the one I can download from your web) is using a device tree which is configured for Toradex Carrier boards (e.g. the Aster board). But our carrier board is using a different USB power enable and SD chip select pin. That is why your Easy Installer is not recognizing any USB stick nor SD card anymore on our carrier board!
Thus, I need a different way to update u-boot. I cannot use the Easy Installer. Or I would need to be able to build Easy Installer with an adapted device tree.