Artifact update error: Failed to read the current active partition: No match between boot and root partitions

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Update: I finally made it work. Took a lot of time to dig into all the details, but I know a bit more about U-Boot and Mender now… Thanks @drewmoseley @mirzak and for helping me finding the right information.

My path to success to get Mender to run on Nano Pi R1 (not all details are included):

1 Build U-boot for Mender

I concluded that I had to build the U-Boot image from original source and Mender patches. When we started looking at Mender as a system, we did not realize that this was necessary as the system only was tested using Raspberry devices.

Steps to build U-Boot

  • Read the following posts:
  • Forked U-boot for NanoPi R1 (link)
  • Installed necessary toolchain and cross compiler from http://download.friendlyarm.com/nanopineo
  • Modified/patched the forked U-Boot source to become Mender U-Boot
  • Added the following lines to configs/nanopi_h3_defconfig:
    • CONFIG_ENV_IS_IN_MMC=y
    • CONFIG_USE_BOOTARGS=y
    • CONFIG_BOOTARGS="console=ttyS0,115200 panic=10 rootfstype=ext4 rw rootwait fsck.repair=yes"
  • Remove the following lines from configs/nanopi_h3_defconfig:
    • CONFIG_ENV_OFFSET ...
  • Added the following lines to include/configs/sun8i.h (Note: should be in include/friendlyelec/boardtype.h, but this file is not included early enough…):
    • #define CONFIG_BOOTCOUNT_LIMIT
    • #define CONFIG_BOOTCOUNT_ENV
    • #define CONFIG_SYS_REDUNDAND_ENVIRONMENT(undocumented?)
  • Removed/fixed the following lines from Kconfig
    • ENV_OFFSET: default 0x88000 if ARCH_SUNXI (should be 0x400000)
    • ENV_SIZE: default 0x20000 if ARCH_SUNXI (should be 0x4000)
  • Fixed the MENDER_LOAD_KERNEL_AND_FDT by adding the following lines after loading fdt. This was a bit tricky, but necessary to load the kernel from correct partition and avoiding re-enumerating all the mmc’s). Also note that all boot files are lodead from /boot/ at root partition. I am not even sure if this is the correct way to do it, but it works…:
# define MENDER_LOAD_KERNEL_AND_FDT                                        \
    "if test \"${fdt_addr_r}\" != \"\"; then "                             \
    "load ${mender_uboot_root} ${fdt_addr_r} /boot/${mender_dtb_name}; " \
    "fdt addr ${fdt_addr_r}; "                                             \
    "fdt set mmc${boot_mmc} boot_device <1>; "                             \
    "fi; "                                                                 \
    "load ${mender_uboot_root} ${kernel_addr_r} /boot/${mender_kernel_name}; "
#endif
  • Compiled U-Boot and fw_printenv
$ export PATH=/opt/FriendlyARM/toolchain/4.9.3/bin:$PATH
$ make nanopi_h3_defconfig ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-
$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-
$ make envtools ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=arm-linux-

The files fw_env.config, fw_printenv and u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin is then used as a bases (togehter with the base image) and fed into mender-convert to create the final complete image.

2 Create image using mender-convert

The trick to get the final image was to use basic mender-convert for Ubuntu/Debian and convert the image by injecting the U-Boot image directly into using dd. In addition, all boot files were placed in a folder called /boot/ at the root-fs. Finally fw_printenv/fw_setenv was installed together with the configuration file.

  • Created a special configuration file (configs/nanopi_r1_config) for Nano Pi R1 to be used in mender-convert:
MENDER_DEVICE_TYPE="NanoPi_R1"
MENDER_GRUB_EFI_INTEGRATION=n
MENDER_KERNEL_IMAGETYPE="zImage"
MENDER_IGNORE_MISSING_EFI_STUB=1

# 8MB alignment
MENDER_PARTITION_ALIGNMENT="8388608"
MENDER_STORAGE_TOTAL_SIZE_MB="7456"
MENDER_COMPRESS_DISK_IMAGE="gzip"

function platform_modify() {
  log_info "Copying boot-files to /boot/"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo cp -R work/boot/* work/rootfs/boot/"
  log_info "Installing fw_printenv and fw_setenv"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo install -m 755 u-boot-files/fw_printenv work/rootfs/sbin/fw_printenv"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo ln -fs /sbin/fw_printenv work/rootfs/sbin/fw_setenv"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo ln -fs /sbin/fw_printenv work/rootfs/usr/bin/fw_printenv"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo ln -fs /sbin/fw_printenv work/rootfs/usr/bin/fw_setenv"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo ln -fs /sbin/fw_printenv work/rootfs/usr/local/bin/fw_printenv"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo ln -fs /sbin/fw_printenv work/rootfs/usr/local/bin/fw_setenv"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo cp u-boot-files/fw_env.config work/rootfs/etc"
}

function platform_package() {
  log_info "Writing pre-compiled U-Boot image to ${img_path}"
  run_and_log_cmd "sudo dd if=u-boot-files/u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=${img_path} bs=1024 seek=8 conv=notrunc"
}

  • Put files from U-Boot in a folder:
    mender-convert/u-boot-files/fw_env.config
    mender-convert/u-boot-files/fw_printenv
    mender-convert/u-boot-files/u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin

  • Run mender-convert

This image can finally be dd’d directly to the device…

3 Final notes

Final testing remains. I cannot guarantie that this will actually work. Remaining tasks:

  • Test and verify that device is bootable from both partitions (p2 and p3)
    • Seems to be working by manually setting mender_boot_part and mender_boot_part_hex
  • Test that and ferify device appears on Mender management server
  • Test and verify that device can be updated with artifacts

Edit: Realized that i could place all boot files (kernel and *.dtb) in the folder /boot/ at root. Changed /u-boot/ -> /boot/. Also fixed some typos.

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