Board description
NVIDIA Jetson TX2 hardware with computer vision, GPU and multimedia support.
URL: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/autonomous-machines/embedded-systems-dev-kits-modules/
Wiki: https://elinux.org/Jetson_TX2
Test results
The Yocto Project releases in the table below have been tested by the Mender community. Please update it if you have tested this integration on other Yocto Project releases:
| Yocto Project | Build | Runtime |
|---|---|---|
| sumo (2.5) |  |
|
| thud (2.6) | |
|
| warrior (2.7) | |
|
| zeus (3.0) | |
|
| dunfell (3.1) | |
|
Build Means that the Yocto Project build using this Mender integration completes without errors and outputs images.
Runtime Means that Mender has been verified to work on the board. For U-Boot-based boards, the integration checklist has been verified.
Getting started
Prerequisites
- A supported Linux distribution and dependencies installed on your workstation/laptop as described in the Yocto Mega Manual
- NOTE. Instructions depend on which Yocto version you intend to use.
Setup Yocto Environment
Dunfell and later releases use the tegra-demo-distro to demonstrate a working mender configuration.
Please use the setup-env script in tegra-demo-distro to setup and configure the tegrademo-mender distribution. Use the branch corresponding to the yocto version you plan to target. For instance, for the dunfell branch and NVIDIA L4T release 32.4.3, use these commands from the root of the cloned tree:
git submodule update --init
git checkout dunfell-l4t-r32.4.3
Then use
source ./setup-env --distro tegrademo-mender --machine jetson-tx2
To setup your build environment for Jetson TX2.
See the OE4T/meta-tegra wiki for more information about the meta-tegra project.
Setup build environment
Initialize the build environment:
source ./setup-env --distro tegrademo-mender --machine jetson-tx2
or if you’ve already setup your initial environment you can use the simpler option:
source ./setup-env
Building the image
You can now proceed with building an image:
bitbake demo-image-base
Using the build output
After a successful build, the images and build artifacts are placed in tmp/deploy/images/jetson-tx2.
The disk image package for Jetson has a name like demo-image-base-jetson-tx2.tegraflash.tar.gz. This file can be used along with recovery mode on the Jetson TX2 to initially provision the device. To enter recovery mode:
- Power cycle
- Hold down the RST button and REC button.
- Release the RST button while continuing to hold the REC button.
- Wait two seconds, then release the REC BUTTON.
You should see your NVIDIA device listed in the lsusb device output.
Next, extract the .tar.gz file and then run the ./doflash.sh script inside to flash the build to the device. The script at repos/meta-mender-community/meta-mender-tegra/scripts/deploy.sh can be customized to automate this step if desired. See the instructions on the OE4T wiki for additional details.
On the other hand, if you already have Mender running on your device and want to deploy a rootfs update using this build, you should use the Mender Artifact files, which have .mender suffix. You can either deploy this Artifact in managed mode with the Mender server (upload it under Releases in the server UI) or by using the Mender client standalone mode.
References
- meta-tegra: The base BSP layer with support for NVIDIA tegra. See completed pull request here for modifications to support Mender.
- meta-mender-tegra layer in meta-mender-community: Customization for mender on tegra, including u-boot and partitioning. See completed pull request here for initial modifications to support NVIDIA tegra. See OE4T layer at this link for any changes or to file issues against mender and NVIDIA support.
- The official Mender documentation explains how Mender works. This is simply a board-specific complement to the official documentation.
Standalone Updates and Bootloader Components
As of the warrior branch, the mender update framework for tegra now supports redundant boot for bootloader components using NVIDIA tools and images. This means you can now update all bootloader components in your image, including u-boot, c-boot and device trees. See this issue for background.
The redundant boot components are upgraded through a mender reboot state script. This means the upgrades are not performed during manual install. To perform reboot state script updates using manual install, the mender-install-manual script is provided in the rootfs. Run this script with the same arguments you would provide to mender -install. The system will run the reboot state script content after performing the update. Based on the implementation of NVIDIA redundant boot update software, the system will reboot automatically after running
Known issues
Let us know if you find one!
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