This topic explains how to boot Digi Embedded Yocto images without updating the firmware on the internal eMMC. This is helpful during the development phase, as it preserves the original firmware on the SOM.

Open a serial connection

You must open a serial connection to communicate with your device.

  1. Open a serial connection using any terminal program such as Tera Term, Minicom, Coolterm, or HyperTerminal. This documentation demonstrates using Minicom to work with the device command line.

    Use the following settings:

    Parameter Value

    Port

    Serial port where the device is connected

    Baud rate

    115200

    Data bits

    8

    Parity

    None

    Stop bits

    1

    Flow control

    None

  2. Reset the device by pressing the reset button on the board. Then immediately press any key in the serial terminal to stop the auto-boot process. The U-Boot bootloader prompt displays:

    U-Boot dub-2020.04-r2.2 (Jan 18 2021 - 15:54:04 +0000)

CPU:   NXP i.MX8QXP RevB A35 at 1200 MHz at 25C
DRAM:  2 GiB
MCA:   HW_VER=1  FW_VER=1.01
MMC:   FSL_SDHC: 0, FSL_SDHC: 1
In:    serial
Out:   serial
Err:   serial
Model: Digi International ConnectCore 8X SBC Pro Board.
ConnectCore 8X SOM variant 0x02: 2 GiB LPDDR4, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, MCA, Crypto-auth
  Board version 3, ID 135
Boot:  MMC0

 BuildInfo:
  - SCFW 56682d58, SECO-FW 0e4b9cee, IMX-MKIMAGE 8da5cd23, ATF c949a88
  - U-Boot dub-2020.04-r2.2

flash target is MMC:0
Net:   eth0: ethernet@5b040000 [PRIME], eth1: ethernet@5b050000
Fastboot: Normal
Normal Boot
Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
=>

Boot the system from network

This shows how to transfer the images to the target via TFTP or NFS, and mount an NFS root file system.

This requires that you set up your PC workstation as explained in Set up native Linux PC.

1. Prepare the device artifacts

  1. Get the Digi Embedded Yocto firmware images to boot from network:

    • The kernel file: <kernel-file>.bin.

    • The device tree: <device-tree-file>.dtb.

    • Any device tree overlays files that apply to your hardware: <device-tree-overlay-file>.dtbo (see Pre-compiled device tree overlays).

    • The compressed root file system: <rootfs-file>.rootfs.tar.bz2.

    1. After building the Digi Embedded Yocto firmware, you can find the image files inside the project directory at:

      <project_folder>/tmp/deploy/images/ccimx8x-sbc-pro

    2. You can download Digi provided pre-built images from:

  2. Untar the root file system tarball (*.rootfs.tar.bz2) in the NFS exported directory of your development workstation. See Set up native Linux PC.

    $ sudo tar xvfp image.rootfs.tar.bz2 -C /exports/nfsroot-ccimx8x_sbc_pro

  3. Copy the kernel *.bin file to the TFTP exported directory of your development workstation.

    $ sudo cp <kernel-file>.bin /tftpboot

  4. Copy the device tree *.dtb file to the TFTP exported directory of your development workstation.

    $ sudo cp <device-tree-file>.dtb /tftpboot

    Read the board_id of your platform from U-Boot to find out the appropriate device tree file for your platform. For example:

    => printenv board_id
board_id=135

    The dtb file name of your device device tree for your platform follows the format: <platform>-id<board_id>--5.4-r0.2-<platform>-<date>.dtb

  5. (Optional) Copy any device tree overlay *.dtbo files that apply to your variant to the TFTP exported directory of your development workstation.

    $ sudo cp <device-tree-overlay-file>.dtbo /tftpboot

2. Configure your device’s network settings

  1. Get a dynamic IP for your target:

    => setenv autoload no
=> dhcp

    or you can set a static IP:

    => setenv ipaddr 192.168.115.222

  2. Configure the IP of the development workstation with TFTP and NFS servers installed. See Set up native Linux PC:

    => setenv serverip 192.168.115.1

3. Boot from network

Boot from TFTP+NFS

  1. Set the directory with the rootfs to mount. This directory is the one exported via NFS in your development workstation. See Set up an NFS server.

    => setenv rootpath /exports/nfsroot-ccimx8x_sbc_pro

  2. Specify the device tree (.dtb) file name. This is the name of the .dtb file you copied to the TFTP exported directory of your development workstation.

    => setenv fdt_file <device-tree-file>.dtb

  3. (Optional) Use a comma-separated list to specify the device tree overlay (.dtbo) files you want to apply. These are the names of the .dtbo files you copied to the TFTP exported directory of your development workstation.

    => setenv overlays <overlay1>.dtbo,<overlay2>.dtbo

  4. Establish the kernel file (.bin) name. This is the name of the .bin file you copied to the TFTP exported directory of your development workstation.

    => setenv imagegz <kernel-file>.bin

  5. Save the changes.

    => saveenv

  6. Boot from TFTP.

    => dboot linux tftp

    You can make these changes persistent by writing the following command:

    => setenv bootcmd 'dboot linux tftp'
=> saveenv

The target now loads the kernel and device tree from the TFTP server and the root file system from the NFS server.

Boot entirely from NFS

To avoid using TFTP for kernel and device tree files and boot everything from NFS, copy the kernel .bin and device tree .dtb files to the NFS-exported directory of your development workstation (instead of to the TFTP directory). See Set up an NFS server.

=> dboot linux nfs

Boot from microSD card

U-Boot can start a complete Digi Embedded Yocto system from a microSD card. To boot a system from a microSD card, follow these steps:

1. Create a bootable microSD card from a Digi Embedded Yocto image

Requirements:

  • Root/Administrator permissions in your development computer

  • A microSD card with a minimum capacity of 2 GB

The following procedure will destroy existing data in the microSD card.

To create a bootable microSD card from an existing Digi Embedded Yocto image:

  1. Download the bootable Digi Embedded Yocto image from this URL: https://ftp1.digi.com/support/digiembeddedyocto/3.2/r3/images/ccimx8x-sbc-pro/xwayland/.

  2. Extract the .sdcard.gz file from the zip you downloaded into a folder of your choice.

  3. Decompress the file using the following command:

    $ gzip -d -f <path/filename.sdcard.gz>

  4. Insert the microSD card into your computer and check the node Linux assigns to it (/dev/[sdcard]) using dmesg:

    $ dmesg
[1413652.901270] sd 41:0:0:0: [sdc] 7744512 512-byte logical blocks: (3.96 GB/3.69 GiB)
[1413652.903140] sd 41:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page present
[1413652.903144] sd 41:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[1413652.905638] sd 41:0:0:0: [sdc] No Caching mode page present
[1413652.905642] sd 41:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[1413652.915154] sdc: sdc1

    Do not mount any partitions the card might contain (or unmount any partition if automatically mounted) as you will be writing to the entire block device.

    Using an incorrect device node in the next step might destroy all data on your computer hard drive.

  5. Raw write the image file to the microSD card with this command:

    $ sudo dd if=<path/filename.sdcard> of=/dev/<sdcard> bs=64K && sync

    In this example:

    • You must substitute <path/filename.sdcard> with the path and filename to the SD card image.

    • You must substitute <sdcard> with the device node Linux assigned to your microSD card.

The microSD card is now ready.

Substitute the bootloader

The .sdcard image contains the bootloader of the default variant of the ConnectCore 8X. Attempting to boot it on a non-default variant will result in unexpected behavior. You can substitute the bootloader on the image with the one corresponding to your variant by raw writing it to the microSD card at a specific offset after the .sdcard image has been written:

$ sudo dd if=<path/filename.bin> of=/dev/<sdcard> bs=1k seek=32 oflag=sync

See U-Boot files by variant.

2. Boot Digi Embedded Yocto from the microSD card

  1. Power off the device.

  2. Insert the microSD card into the microSD card holder (bottom side of the board).

  3. Change the boot source configuration to boot from the microSD card. To do so, set the boot mode micro-switches as follows:

    • BOOT.1 OFF

    • BOOT.2 ON

      microSD boot

  4. Power on the device. Digi Embedded Yocto boots from the microSD card.