hi all
I’m new to mender but I think I’ve well understand the concept I tried getting started demo etc and it’s working really great
now I need to setup a brand new img that just embed the mender client with our compagny token ( that is same as mine for now because I’m alone)
to send the image to some other developers and use it on our factory line
I followed the convert tutorial and all seems to go well ( Convert a Mender Debian image | Mender documentation ) using the last PI OS lite
after converting and flashing the image in a new SD I have no boot sequence (no kernel or service loading sequence just the start pi detail that display only few ms and black screen)
I tested 2 methods for flashing ( cat and dd one as mentioned in tutorial and direct use of rpi-imager with custom image ) results are same I well found the 4 partitions at the end but no kernel boot sequence
I’m quite confuse I pushed on mender hosted server my .mender artifact and if anyone want I can upload the .img file
thanks for any ideas
Hi @profff welcome to Mender Hub.
Can you share the exact commands you used to checkout mender-convert and build the image?
Also, do you have a serial console on the Pi? That may have additional info to help here.
Which version of the RpI are you using?
Drew
hi @drewmoseley
I tried 2 things
first with a brand new PI OS image never booted and 2nd with a booted and modded image
I’m working on a pi4 board with 8Gb ram and 16 Gb flash
after setting up the overlay conf
oga@oga-UX550VD:~/devel/mender_tools/mender-convert$ ./scripts/bootstrap-rootfs-overlay-hosted-server.sh --output-dir ${PWD}/rootfs_overlay_hosted --tenant-token <snip> Configuration file for using Hosted Mender written to: /home/oga/devel/mender_tools/mender-convert/rootfs_overlay_hosted/etc/mender
oga@oga-UX550VD:~/devel/mender_tools/mender-convert$ sudo cat /home/oga/devel/mender_tools/mender-convert/rootfs_overlay_hosted/etc/mender/mender.conf
{
"InventoryPollIntervalSeconds": 5,
"RetryPollIntervalSeconds": 30,
"ServerURL": "https://hosted.mender.io/",
"TenantToken": "<snip>",
"UpdatePollIntervalSeconds": 5
}
I just have launch the convert :
oga@oga-UX550VD:~/devel/mender_tools/mender-convert$ MENDER_ARTIFACT_NAME=bareminimal_0.0.1 ./docker-mender-convert --disk-image input/bareminimal.img --config configs/raspberrypi4_config --overlay rootfs_overlay_hosted/ Running mender-convert --disk-image input/bareminimal.img --config configs/raspberrypi4_config --overlay rootfs_overlay_hosted/ Running mender-convert-extract: --config ./work/override_compression_config --disk-image input/bareminimal.img --config configs/raspberrypi4_config --overlay rootfs_overlay_hosted/ 2021-04-06 07:59:24 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] Using configuration file: configs/mender_convert_config 2021-04-06 07:59:24 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] Using configuration file: ./work/override_compression_config 2021-04-06 07:59:24 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] Using configuration file: configs/raspberrypi4_config 2021-04-06 07:59:24 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] Validating disk image 2021-04-06 07:59:24 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] Disk parsed successfully 2021-04-06 07:59:24 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] NUMBER OF PARTS: 2 TYPE: dos 2021-04-06 07:59:24 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] PART 1: SIZE: 256M TYPE: 0xc 2021-04-06 07:59:24 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] PART 1: extracting to work/part-1.fs 2021-04-06 07:59:25 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] PART 2: SIZE: 14.6G TYPE: 0x83 2021-04-06 07:59:25 [INFO] [mender-convert-extract] PART 2: extracting to work/part-2.fs mender-convert-extract has finished. Cleaning up... Running mender-convert-modify: --config ./work/override_compression_config --disk-image input/bareminimal.img --config configs/raspberrypi4_config --overlay rootfs_overlay_hosted/ 2021-04-06 08:00:06 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Using configuration file: configs/mender_convert_config 2021-04-06 08:00:06 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Using configuration file: ./work/override_compression_config 2021-04-06 08:00:06 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Using configuration file: configs/raspberrypi4_config 2021-04-06 08:00:06 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Installing Mender client and related files 2021-04-06 08:00:12 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Successfully downloaded mender-client_2.5.0-1_armhf.deb modules/deb.sh: line 111: filename: unbound variable 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Successfully installed 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Using root device A in mender.conf: /dev/mmcblk0p2 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Using root device B in mender.conf: /dev/mmcblk0p3 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Creating state scripts version file. 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Installing a custom /etc/fstab (see /mender-convert/logs/convert.log.FY3H for more info) 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Using boot partition device in fstab: /dev/mmcblk0p1 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Using data partition device in fstab: /dev/mmcblk0p4 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Performing platform specific modifications (if any) 2021-04-06 08:00:13 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Running hook: platform_modify 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Performing user/local specific modifications (if any) 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Running hook: user_local_modify 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Applying rootfs overlay: rootfs_overlay_hosted/ 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Performing overlay specific modifications (if any) 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [INFO] [mender-convert-modify] Running hook: overlay_modify mender-convert-modify has finished. Cleaning up... Running mender-convert-package: --config ./work/override_compression_config --disk-image input/bareminimal.img --config configs/raspberrypi4_config --overlay rootfs_overlay_hosted/ 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Using configuration file: configs/mender_convert_config 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Using configuration file: ./work/override_compression_config 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Using configuration file: configs/raspberrypi4_config 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [WARN] [mender-convert-package] The allocated boot part size 40 MiB is too small. 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [WARN] [mender-convert-package] The actual boot part size is 256 MiB 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [WARN] [mender-convert-package] Will adjust MENDER_BOOT_PART_SIZE_MB automatically 2021-04-06 08:00:14 [WARN] [mender-convert-package] Consider adjusting the configuration file to avoid this message 2021-04-06 08:00:15 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Rootfs filesystem size will be 1902 MiB 2021-04-06 08:00:15 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Creating a file-system image from: work/rootfs/data/ 2021-04-06 08:00:15 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Creating a file-system image from: work/rootfs/ 2021-04-06 08:00:25 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Copying root filesystem image to deploy directory 2021-04-06 08:00:28 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Writing Mender artifact to: deploy/bareminimal-raspberrypi4-mender.mender 2021-04-06 08:00:28 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] This can take up to 20 minutes depending on which compression method is used 2021-04-06 08:00:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Creating Mender compatible disk-image 2021-04-06 08:00:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Total disk size: 8192 MiB 2021-04-06 08:00:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Boot partition 256 MiB 2021-04-06 08:00:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] RootFS partitions 3892 MiB x 2 2021-04-06 08:00:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Data partition 128 MiB 2021-04-06 08:00:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Using input diskimage partition scheme (dos) 2021-04-06 08:00:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Writing DOS (MBR) partition table 2021-04-06 08:00:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Writing boot partition image 2021-04-06 08:00:47 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Writing rootfsa partition image 2021-04-06 08:01:15 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Writing rootfsb partition image 2021-04-06 08:01:43 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Writing data partition image 2021-04-06 08:01:45 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Performing platform specific package operations (if any) 2021-04-06 08:01:45 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Running hook: platform_package 2021-04-06 08:01:45 [INFO] [mender-convert-package] Conversion has completed! \o/ mender-convert-package has finished. Cleaning up... Output Artifacts and images can be found in the deploy directory: deploy/2021-03-04-raspios-buster-armhf-lite-raspberrypi4-mender.cfg deploy/2021-03-04-raspios-buster-armhf-lite-raspberrypi4-mender.ext4 deploy/2021-03-04-raspios-buster-armhf-lite-raspberrypi4-mender.img deploy/2021-03-04-raspios-buster-armhf-lite-raspberrypi4-mender.mender deploy/bareminimal-raspberrypi4-mender.cfg deploy/bareminimal-raspberrypi4-mender.ext4 deploy/bareminimal-raspberrypi4-mender.img deploy/bareminimal-raspberrypi4-mender.mender
— @drewmoseley edit to remove tenant token
I forgot to mention that before converting I’ve cloning the repo
oga@oga-UX550VD:~/devel/mender_tools$ git clone -b 2.3.0 https://github.com/mendersoftware/mender-convert.git
Cloning into 'mender-convert'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 140, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (140/140), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (79/79), done.
remote: Total 2591 (delta 68), reused 125 (delta 61), pack-reused 2451
Receiving objects: 100% (2591/2591), 1.13 MiB | 462.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1562/1562), done.
Note: switching to '7e924d6b2fb7479de96066bebe8b8ba57d6356a3'.
You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in this
state without impacting any branches by switching back to a branch.
If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may
do so (now or later) by using -c with the switch command. Example:
git switch -c <new-branch-name>
Or undo this operation with:
git switch -
Turn off this advice by setting config variable advice.detachedHead to false
after that I built the docker container using convenience script
oga@oga-UX550VD:~/devel/mender_tools/mender-convert$ ./docker-build
[+] Building 360.4s (16/16) FINISHED
=> [internal] load build definition from Dockerfile 0.0s
=> => transferring dockerfile: 2.32kB 0.0s
=> [internal] load .dockerignore 0.0s
=> => transferring context: 74B 0.0s
=> [internal] load metadata for docker.io/library/ubuntu:20.04 1.6s
=> [internal] load build context 0.0s
=> => transferring context: 906B 0.0s
=> [build 1/4] FROM docker.io/library/ubuntu:20.04@sha256:3c9c713e0979e9bd6061ed52ac1e9e1f246c94 69.7s
=> => resolve docker.io/library/ubuntu:20.04@sha256:3c9c713e0979e9bd6061ed52ac1e9e1f246c9495aa063 0.0s
=> => sha256:3c9c713e0979e9bd6061ed52ac1e9e1f246c9495aa063619d9d695fb8039aa1f 1.20kB / 1.20kB 0.0s
=> => sha256:5403064f94b617f7975a19ba4d1a1299fd584397f6ee4393d0e16744ed11aab1 943B / 943B 0.0s
=> => sha256:26b77e58432b01665d7e876248c9056fa58bf4a7ab82576a024f5cf3dac146d6 3.32kB / 3.32kB 0.0s
=> => sha256:a70d879fa5984474288d52009479054b8bb2993de2a1859f43b5480600cecb24 28.57MB / 28.57MB 68.7s
=> => sha256:c4394a92d1f8760cf7d17fee0bcee732c94c5b858dd8d19c7ff02beecf3b4e83 848B / 848B 1.7s
=> => sha256:10e6159c56c084c858f5de2416454ac0a49ddda47b764e4379c5d5a147c9bf5f 187B / 187B 0.2s
=> => extracting sha256:a70d879fa5984474288d52009479054b8bb2993de2a1859f43b5480600cecb24 0.6s
=> => extracting sha256:c4394a92d1f8760cf7d17fee0bcee732c94c5b858dd8d19c7ff02beecf3b4e83 0.0s
=> => extracting sha256:10e6159c56c084c858f5de2416454ac0a49ddda47b764e4379c5d5a147c9bf5f 0.0s
=> [stage-1 2/9] RUN apt-get update && env DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y 223.0s
=> [build 2/4] RUN apt-get update && env DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get install -y 265.8s
=> [build 3/4] RUN git clone https://github.com/jnovy/pxz.git /root/pxz 0.9s
=> [build 4/4] RUN cd /root/pxz && make 0.7s
=> [stage-1 3/9] COPY --from=build /root/pxz/pxz /usr/bin/pxz 0.0s
=> [stage-1 4/9] RUN echo "Defaults secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin: 0.4s
=> [stage-1 5/9] RUN chmod 0440 /etc/sudoers.d/secure_path_override 0.5s
=> [stage-1 6/9] RUN sed -i -e 's/,metadata_csum//' /etc/mke2fs.conf 0.4s
=> [stage-1 7/9] RUN wget -q -O /usr/bin/mender-artifact https://downloads.mender.io/mender-arti 18.7s
=> [stage-1 8/9] COPY docker-entrypoint.sh /usr/local/bin/ 0.0s
=> exporting to image 1.6s
=> => exporting layers 1.6s
=> => writing image sha256:001dba185dc01aa4ed21fbebb6902d80a0cfc1da6b682e70ba291fdc8e4ca966 0.0s
=> => naming to docker.io/library/mender-convert
sorry for letting token visible but it’s not a big issue as it’s just a test account the compagny one will be different
and thank’s for editing and anonymizing my post
I don’t see anything obviously wrong there. What command did you use to write the SDCard?
Do you have a serial console? That is usually more helpful than the HDMI output and if you don’t have one I suggest you do for this and future troubleshooting efforts. This link is a great intro to using them and you can buy the cables readily on Amazon or other services. If you can share the serial console logs that would be the best next step.
Drew
than’ks for your analyse
for flashing image into sd I used 3 different methods (all same result)
balena / rpi-imager
and dd
sudo cat ./bareminimal-raspberrypi4-mender.img | sudo dd bs=4M of=/dev/sdb status=progress
by the past I got some issue flashing too large image files from linux on sd but I tried on window with diferent sd cards and card reader still same issue … 
unfortunately I have enable the serial but disable the console ( because I will use if for something else)
I will re-flash a standard PI OS image and try again through serial console
ok so I’ve :
- tried a brand new PIOS lite image
- got check that serial console wxorking properly
- converted it to mender as before
- re flashing it in a new sd
and result is same ( not a big surprise as the boot sequence looks not starting correctly )
just small video to showcase the issue
mender converted image issue - YouTube
let me explain my objective and why i need a converted image and not a live client added as in getting started demo example
I want that end of product line technician flash an image with minimal image that already integrate mender client but :
I cant use an already registered pi image with an already existing id in mender server (like the command line in getting started demo is going to do) otherwise all products will get same id on server
and
I cant use a standard pi OS image and ask to the product technician to get logged onto mender server and do an ssh onto pi and copy past to a shell etc
that’s why I want the pi os already integrate the client but with a new ID and n ot registered yet to mender server (I will probably doing scripting to send the UID as preregistered onto mender server)
it acts as if it don’t know in boot-loader part on what partition (A or B) to boot on and stays in boot-loader for ever
I definitely understand the need for the converted image. It’s definitely the way to go for anything beyond just playing around with the system.
When you say you disabled the console, how did you do that? We discovered recently that “enable_uart=1” was required for U-Boot to function due to something related to GPU clock dividers or some such. See this thread for the full context.
Drew
usually in raspi-config you can choose to enable console over serial or just enable serial acting a standard tty that what I plane to use (or disable every thing) but anyway just for testing I enabled console over serial a redo the test ( the one shown in video)
when setting uart_enable=yes in /boot/config.txt you just enable the uart to enable console you need to add console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 in cdmline.txt
but that’s not the issue right here because
- I took a standard pi OS witch enable serial console by default
- I tested that serial console is working before converting the image
- took the image out of sd
- converting
- and shoot it on an sd again
and I still get black screen
now I’m trying a new approach : setup a standard pi image that will call the download.mender.io script (in a service for example) at first boot with right tenant token and remove itself at the end (or event better do the update that will remove it from root fs)
Can you share your two images with me?
sure !! (thanks again for your strong help)
here you can find the non converted image :
and here this is the converted one :
OK, I took a look at your images and I cannot explain the behavior. The image files look ok to me from the partition layout:
$ sudo fdisk -l blanklite_console.img; sudo fdisk -l blanklite_console-raspberrypi4-mender.img
Disk blanklite_console.img: 14.86 GiB, 15931539456 bytes, 31116288 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: 0x249f3474
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
blanklite_console.img1 8192 532479 524288 256M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
blanklite_console.img2 532480 31116287 30583808 14.6G 83 Linux
Disk blanklite_console-raspberrypi4-mender.img: 8 GiB, 8589934592 bytes, 16777216 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: 0x0b5af379
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
blanklite_console-raspberrypi4-mender.img1 * 24576 548863 524288 256M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
blanklite_console-raspberrypi4-mender.img2 548864 8519679 7970816 3.8G 83 Linux
blanklite_console-raspberrypi4-mender.img3 8519680 16490495 7970816 3.8G 83 Linux
blanklite_console-raspberrypi4-mender.img4 16490496 16752639 262144 128M 83 Linux
But when I write the blanklite_console-raspberrypi4-mender.img file to a 64GB SDCard, I get no errors but it does not appear to have a partition table. I remove the sdcard and reinsert it and the dmesg log shows the /dev/sdb device but no partitions. Very odd.
I’m wondering if the large disparity in partition sizes is somehow at fault. Your input image contains a partition of 14.6G but your output partitions are 3.8G. It looks like it should fit since the used sides of your input image is 1.2G. Maybe we have a partition alignment issue.
Can you try increasing MENDER_STORAGE_TOTAL_SIZE_MB to 32GB and 64GB and see if the behavior is different?
@lluiscampos @kacf any ideas on this?
Drew
thanks again for your help
my input img is 14Gb because I extracted it from a 16 Gb SD but I got same result with a non extended root fs freshly downloaded from PIOS website (what I did at the beginning)
where should I change MENDER_STORAGE_TOTAL_SIZE_MB ? on the host env before calling convert script that runs docker container ?
On my side after flashing a mender converted image I well find the 4 partitions (boot / root-fs A / B and data ) on the host system
I have 2 other questions :
as I have an issue with converted image and as I really want we use your product on our next items I tried to find another option to get a production ready mender preinstalled image
- so I took a golden image with no mender inside
- booted it in a raspberry
- installed by hand mender client (following the doc Client installation | Mender documentation)
- disable the
mender-client.service - removed from hosted server the device record trough curl API
- and I have even prepare some script for the device register alone at first boot to be pre-authorised before enabling the
mender-client.servicebecause I don’t want to have to create a different image for each new device even with a script it’s too bulky to setup on production line - (I have also ad
/proc/cpuinfoserial to themender-device-identityand it works great)
and it looks working perfectly except I don’t have the 2 root-fs swapping partitions for system updates (I was thinking client will do that if it’s not already done at boot but i was wrong)
so I took another look at the get.mender.io install script that do the partitions transforms and I don’t see where in the install procedure it do the re-partitioning stage
I seen that it install also mender-connect package but I don’t seen any info about that in the documentation
so my questions are :
- where in the scripts are done the partitions resizing when using the getting started installation procedure ? ( or can I set the partition scheme manually ?)
- what is mender-connect used for ?
- when creating a system snapshot artifact does it require the device to have the 2 root-fs a/b ready for the deploy ? because in the mender client install documentation nowhere I seen something about partition setup
finaly I tried to setup all my system over the buster distrib you provide here https://d4o6e0uccgv40.cloudfront.net/2020-05-27-raspios-buster-lite-armhf/arm/2020-05-27-raspios-buster-lite-armhf-raspberrypi4-mender-2.5.0.img.xz
this one is booting correctly unfortunatly enabling the camera looks impossible because missing update and wend doing an apt update I have no support for lots of things starting by keyboard !
but it works on ssh so it’s ok for me
last things I need to acheive to get my img almost complete is to know if I can get read only partitions even on DATA because we dont want the sd card beeing corrupted by too long swap operation and/or power failure
and is it possible to encrypt partitions to avoid getting anyone looking keys
and sorry for my missunderstanding about mender install I understand now that partitioning is not done byt client itself
The variables are set in configuration files. Specifically configs/images/raspberrypi_raspbian_config. You can modify it there or add a local configuration file to override it.
We never modify the partitions in a live system. It’s not possible to do it robustly. We do have this link which is a method to do that but it can result in a bricked system.
mender-connect is a remote shell feature.
I honestly don’t know what will happen if you use the snapshot feature on a system without the dual partition setup. It may well create the artifact but you won’t be able to deploy it.
I’ll take another look at your converted image and see if I can find anything.
Drew
thank’s again for all the time you spend on my poor work …
I will try to move forward with the pre partitioned img you provide and go for a manual install or client (thanks for the enlightenment on mender-connect)
Hi @profff I had a simiilar behavior when using the 2.3.0 tag but it seems to be resolved in the master branch. Can you try the latest HEAD of master to see if your issue is addressed there?
Drew