SolidRun ClearFog Base

The official Mender documentation explains how Mender works. This is simply a board-specific complement to the official documentation.

Board description

ClearFog Base SBC is equipped with numerous I/O options, and is compatible with a variety of power, memory and storage configurations. Device makers can easily bridge a variety of different network standards like LAN, Wi-Fi, Cellular, Fiber and DSL, as well as utilize mikroBUS boards for IoT type networking standards such as ZigBee, Sub GHz, Bluetooth and others.

clearfog-base-with-som-01-300x300

URL: https://www.solid-run.com/marvell-armada-family/clearfog/
Wiki: https://developer.solid-run.com/

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
thud (2.6) :test_works: :test_works:

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.
  • Google repo tool installed and in your PATH.

Configuring the build

Setup Yocto environment

Set the Yocto Project branch you are building for:

# set to your branch, make sure it is supported (see table above)
export BRANCH="thud"

Create a directory for your mender-clearfog setup to live in and clone the
meta information.

mkdir mender-clearfog && cd mender-clearfog

Initialize repo manifest:

repo init -u https://github.com/mendersoftware/meta-mender-community \
           -m meta-mender-clearfog/scripts/manifest-clearfog.xml \
           -b ${BRANCH}

Fetch layers in manifest:

repo sync

Setup build environment

Initialize the build environment:

source setup-environment clearfog

Configure Mender server URL (optional)

This section is not required for a successful build but images that are generated by default are only suitable for usage with the Mender client in standalone mode, due to lack of server configuration.

You can edit the conf/local.conf file to provide your Mender server configuration, ensuring the generated images and Mender Artifacts are connecting to the Mender server that you are using. There should already be a commented section in the generated conf/local.conf file and you can simply uncomment the relevant configuration options and assign appropriate values to them.

Build for Hosted Mender:

# To get your tenant token:
#    - log in to https://hosted.mender.io
#    - click your email at the top right and then "My organization"
#    - press the "COPY TO CLIPBOARD"
#    - assign content of clipboard to MENDER_TENANT_TOKEN
#
MENDER_SERVER_URL = "https://hosted.mender.io"
MENDER_TENANT_TOKEN = "<copy token here>"

Building the image

You can now proceed with building an image:

MACHINE=clearfog-base bitbake core-image-base

Replace core-image-base with your desired image target.

Using the build output

Note! The default configuration is booting from a SD card

After a successful build, the images and build artifacts are placed in tmp/deploy/images/clearfog-base/.

  • tmp/deploy/images/clearfog-base/core-image-base-clearfog-base.sdimg
  • tmp/deploy/images/clearfog-base/core-image-base-clearfog-base.mender
  • tmp/deploy/images/clearfog-base/u-boot-spl-sdhc.kwb

The disk image with .sdimg is used to provision the device storage for devices without Mender running already. Please proceed to the official documentation on provisioning a new device for steps to do this.

The u-boot-spl-sdhc.kwb file is used to provision the device with a Mender compatible U-Boot.

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.

Boot medium configuration and flashing instructions

Depending on which medium you intend to boot from you need to adjust the UBOOT_BINARY variable, please take a look in below link for further information:

Flashing instructions depend-on which boot medium was choosen and you can find more information in the Solidrun documentation,

https://developer.solid-run.com/knowledge-base/a388-u-boot/#installing-manually

Known issues

SolidRun does not provide an official Yocto BSP for the ClearFog Base boards and this integration is based on a layer that I have created which can be found here:

I am on the lookout to find a better location for above code.


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2 Likes

Hi Mirzak,
I am using Solidrun imx6 board and I have built image using your manifest-clearfog.xml and generated .sdimg. But Board unable to boot… Dont know whether its because of difference between your integration meant for solidrun clearfog base and my board is solidrun imx6…
Any suggestions from you…?

This is only for the ClearFog Base board which is based on Marvell SoC, and will not work on Solidrun i.MX6 based devices.

A post was split to a new topic: Solidrun i.MX6 integration errors

6 posts were split to a new topic: Booting Solidrun ClearFog Base from eMMC

Well it looks like SolidRun are now maintaining a layer to support the clearfog boards (based on yocto: warrior). I wish they did it a little earlier but at least there’s something :slight_smile:

Supports Clearfog-base, Clearfog-Pro and Clearfog-GTR

Shame, I reached out to them way back but never got any response of their intentions,

Summary

I have ran into a new issue with this board and the mender service. The issue seems to be isolated to the mender service and how the daemon works. It seems if one of the network interfaces is connected but does not have access to public internet, meaning it cannot connect to the mender server, then the mender service cannot poll for update or update inventory even if the another network interface is connected. If however, I bring down the isolated interface and restart the mender service, then it works fine. Furthermore, if I bring the isolated interface backup after it is already connected, then everything works fine as well.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Connect interface ‘eth0’ (leftmost) to a network with public access / connectivity to the mender server.
  2. Connect interface ‘eth1’ to a network with no public access / no connectivity to the mender server.

What is the current bug behavior?

The device is unable to connect to the mender server to update inventory or poll for updates.

What is the expected correct behavior?

The device should be able to connect to the mender server through interface ‘eth0’.

Systemd Mender Service

Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials systemd[1]: Started Mender OTA update service. Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:25:30Z" level=info msg="Configuration file does not exist: /var/lib/mender/mender.conf" module=config Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:25:30Z" level=info msg="Loaded configuration file: /etc/mender/mender.conf" module=config Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:25:30Z" level=info msg="Mender running on partition: /dev/mmcblk0p2" module=main Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:25:30Z" level=info msg="State transition: init [none] -> init [none]" module=mender Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:25:30Z" level=info msg="State transition: init [none] -> idle [Idle]" module=mender Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:25:30Z" level=info msg="authorization data present and valid" module=mender Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:25:30Z" level=info msg="State transition: idle [Idle] -> check-wait [Idle]" module=mender Dec 17 17:25:30 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:25:30Z" level=info msg="State transition: check-wait [Idle] -> inventory-update [Sync]" module=mender Dec 17 17:27:40 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:27:40Z" level=error msg="failed to submit inventory data: Patch https://hosted.mender.io/api/devices/v1/inventory/device/attributes: dial tcp 34.196.11.110:443: connect: network is unreachable" module="client_inventory" Dec 17 17:27:40 ipessentials mender[2424]: time="2019-12-17T17:27:40Z" level=warning msg="failed to refresh inventory: failed to submit inventory data: inventory submit failed: Patch https://hosted.mender.io/api/devices/v1/inventory/device/attributes: dial tcp 34.196.11.110:443: connect: network is unreachable" module=state