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Repair boot from SD card on i.MX6 Sabre boards

Buildroot Superseded Vincent Stehlé 6 participants 11 messages Oct 14, 2015 – Oct 22, 2015 Arm i.MX and Layerscape

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Vincent Stehlé

author
#0 lore raw

Hi,

Here is a two-patches series, to repair the boot from SD card on Freescale Sabre boards.

The first patch adapts the SD card creation script to the new versions of sfdisk; a prerequisite to actually preparing an SD card and booting from it.

The second patch switches the defconfigs to building a zImage instead of an uImage, to reflect what u-boot in Freescale releases awaits nowadays.

This was build-tested for all the five touched defconfigs but I did only verify the boot on i.MX6 quad Sabre AI.

Feedbacks and testers welcome!

Best regards,

V.

author
#1 lore raw

PATCH 1/2 board/freescale: refresh create-boot-sd.sh

Starting with version 2.26, sfdisk defaults to a unit of 512 B sectors. With those recent versions of sfdisk, the create-boot-sd.sh script ends up creating a boot partition of 240 KB, which is too small to contain a Linux kernel.

Version 2.25 of sfdisk and older defaulted to cylinders; a media-dependant unit, typically much larger than 512 B. With those versions the create-boot-sd.sh creates paritions, large enough to hold a kernel.

We update the create-boot-sd.sh script to use the more readable and more stable named-fields sfdisk format for the partitioning command, and set the boot partition size to 64 MB, which should be enough for everyone.

Signed-off-by Vincent Stehl? <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
Cc Gary Bisson <[email protected]>
---
 board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +2 -2
index af45115..cfb1101 100755
@@ -60,8 +60,8 @@ sync
 # - FAT partition starting at 1MB offset, containing uImage and *.dtb
 # - ext2/3 partition formatted as ext2 or ext3, containing the root filesystem.
 sfdisk ${DEV} <<EOF
-32,480,b
-512,,L
+start=1MiB, size=64MiB, type=b
+type=83
 EOF
 
 sync
Signature · 1 line
2.5.3
#2 lore raw

PATCH 1/2 board/freescale: refresh create-boot-sd.sh

Dear Vincent,

Quoted 4 lines · Vincent Stehl?

Starting with version 2.26, sfdisk defaults to a unit of 512 B sectors. With those recent versions of sfdisk, the create-boot-sd.sh script ends up creating a boot partition of 240 KB, which is too small to contain a Linux kernel.

Ouch!

Quoted 4 lines

Version 2.25 of sfdisk and older defaulted to cylinders; a media-dependant unit, typically much larger than 512 B. With those versions the create-boot-sd.sh creates paritions, large enough to hold a

paritions -> partitions, and remove the ',' after it.

Quoted 18 lines

kernel.

We update the create-boot-sd.sh script to use the more readable and more stable named-fields sfdisk format for the partitioning command, and set the boot partition size to 64 MB, which should be enough for everyone.

Signed-off-by Vincent Stehl? <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
Cc Gary Bisson <[email protected]>
---
  board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh | 4 ++--
  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +0 -0
index af45115..cfb1101 100755

board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh sync · line 63

Quoted 6 lines
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +1 -2
@@ -60,8 +60,8 @@ sync
  # - FAT partition starting at 1MB offset, containing uImage and *.dtb
  # - ext2/3 partition formatted as ext2 or ext3, containing the root filesystem.
  sfdisk ${DEV} <<EOF
-32,480,b
-512,,L
+start=1MiB, size=64MiB, type=b

Is the "MiB" suffix supported on older sfdisk releases? Ubuntu 14.04 ships sfdisk 2.20.1, and its manpage does not contain "MiB".

If that is not supported, then I guess "--unit M" should work. It's in the manpage, but I haven't tested it yet.

I strongly think we should support the latest Ubuntu LTS, AFAIK it's widely used by embedded Linux developers.

Signature · 1 line
Luca
#3 lore raw

PATCH 1/2 board/freescale: refresh create-boot-sd.sh

Quoted 46 lines · Luca Ceresoli

Dear Vincent,

Quoted 4 lines · Vincent Stehl?

Starting with version 2.26, sfdisk defaults to a unit of 512 B sectors. With those recent versions of sfdisk, the create-boot-sd.sh script ends up creating a boot partition of 240 KB, which is too small to contain a Linux kernel.

Ouch!

Quoted 4 lines

Version 2.25 of sfdisk and older defaulted to cylinders; a media-dependant unit, typically much larger than 512 B. With those versions the create-boot-sd.sh creates paritions, large enough to hold a

paritions -> partitions, and remove the ',' after it.

Quoted 19 lines

kernel.

We update the create-boot-sd.sh script to use the more readable and more stable named-fields sfdisk format for the partitioning command, and set the boot partition size to 64 MB, which should be enough for everyone.

Signed-off-by Vincent Stehl? <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
Cc Gary Bisson <[email protected]>
---
  board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh | 4 ++--
  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +0 -0
index af45115..cfb1101 100755

board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh sync · line 63

Quoted 6 lines
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +1 -2
@@ -60,8 +60,8 @@ sync
  # - FAT partition starting at 1MB offset, containing uImage and *.dtb
  # - ext2/3 partition formatted as ext2 or ext3, containing the root filesystem.
  sfdisk ${DEV} <<EOF
-32,480,b
-512,,L
+start=1MiB, size=64MiB, type=b

Is the "MiB" suffix supported on older sfdisk releases? Ubuntu 14.04 ships sfdisk 2.20.1, and its manpage does not contain "MiB".

Quoted 5 lines

If that is not supported, then I guess "--unit M" should work. It's in the manpage, but I haven't tested it yet.

I strongly think we should support the latest Ubuntu LTS, AFAIK it's widely used by embedded Linux developers.

We should also still support Ubuntu 12.02 IMHO and even older RHEL.

So to avoid this kind of issue, it would be better to use genimage. But that's
a much bigger change, of course.

Regards,
Arnout

Signature · 6 lines
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect            +32-16-286500
Essensium/Mind                                http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium           BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoutvandecappelle
GPG fingerprint:  7493 020B C7E3 8618 8DEC 222C 82EB F404 F9AC 0DDF
#4 lore raw

PATCH 1/2 board/freescale: refresh create-boot-sd.sh

Hi,

Quoted 31 lines · Arnout Vandecappelle
Quoted 30 lines · Luca Ceresoli

Dear Vincent,

Quoted 4 lines · Vincent Stehl?

Starting with version 2.26, sfdisk defaults to a unit of 512 B sectors. With those recent versions of sfdisk, the create-boot-sd.sh script ends up creating a boot partition of 240 KB, which is too small to contain a Linux kernel.

Ouch!

Quoted 4 lines

Version 2.25 of sfdisk and older defaulted to cylinders; a media-dependant unit, typically much larger than 512 B. With those versions the create-boot-sd.sh creates paritions, large enough to hold a

paritions -> partitions, and remove the ',' after it.

Quoted 13 lines

kernel.

We update the create-boot-sd.sh script to use the more readable and more stable named-fields sfdisk format for the partitioning command, and set the boot partition size to 64 MB, which should be enough for everyone.

Signed-off-by Vincent Stehl? <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
Cc Gary Bisson <[email protected]>

---
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh | 4 ++--

1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 8 lines

board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh sync · line 61

Quoted 8 lines
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +0 -0
index af45115..cfb1101 100755
@@ -60,8 +60,8 @@ sync
 # - FAT partition starting at 1MB offset, containing uImage and *.dtb
 # - ext2/3 partition formatted as ext2 or ext3, containing the root

filesystem.

Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 4 lines

sfdisk ${DEV} <<EOF
-32,480,b
-512,,L
+start=1MiB, size=64MiB, type=b

Is the "MiB" suffix supported on older sfdisk releases? Ubuntu 14.04 ships sfdisk 2.20.1, and its manpage does not contain "MiB".

Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 5 lines

If that is not supported, then I guess "--unit M" should work. It's in the manpage, but I haven't tested it yet.

I strongly think we should support the latest Ubuntu LTS, AFAIK it's widely used by embedded Linux developers.

We should also still support Ubuntu 12.02 IMHO and even older RHEL.

Agreed.

Quoted 1 line

So to avoid this kind of issue, it would be better to use genimage. But

that's

Quoted 1 line

a much bigger change, of course.

What about parted instead of sfdisk? Seems to be more consistent across the different releases.

Regards,
Gary
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author
#5 lore raw

PATCH v2 1/1 board/freescale: switch create-boot-sd.sh to parted

Starting with version 2.26, sfdisk defaults to a unit of 512 B sectors. With those recent versions of sfdisk, the create-boot-sd.sh script ends up creating a boot partition of 240 KB, which is too small to contain a Linux kernel.

As it is difficult to address both pre and post v2.26 sfdisk versions in a single command, we change the create-boot-sd.sh script to use parted instead. While at it, we set the boot partition size to 64 MB, which should be enough for everyone.

Signed-off-by Vincent Stehl? <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
Cc Gary Bisson <[email protected]>

---

Hi,

This is a second proposal, using parted this time. Even with sfdisk `--unit' parameter, I could not find an eleguant solution to support all versions of sfdisk, sorry. Please let me know if you find switching to parted acceptable.

This is tested on Sabre AI with an i.MX6 Quad.

Best regards,

V.

Changes in v2
-------------
- Switch to parted, as advised by Gary.
- Fix spelling in commit message, spotted by Luca.

 board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh | 10 ++++++----
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +6 -4
index af45115..d80bd52 100755
@@ -59,10 +59,12 @@ sync
 # - Bootloader at offset 1024
 # - FAT partition starting at 1MB offset, containing uImage and *.dtb
 # - ext2/3 partition formatted as ext2 or ext3, containing the root filesystem.
-sfdisk ${DEV} <<EOF
-32,480,b
-512,,L
-EOF
+parted --script "${DEV}" \
+       mklabel msdos \
+       unit MiB \
+       mkpart primary fat16 1 64 \
+       mkpart primary ext2 64 100% \
+       print
 
 sync
Signature · 1 line
2.6.1
#6 lore raw

PATCH v2 1/1 board/freescale: switch create-boot-sd.sh to parted

Hi Vincent,

Quoted 9 lines · Vincent Stehl?

Starting with version 2.26, sfdisk defaults to a unit of 512 B sectors. With those recent versions of sfdisk, the create-boot-sd.sh script ends up creating a boot partition of 240 KB, which is too small to contain a Linux kernel.

As it is difficult to address both pre and post v2.26 sfdisk versions in a single command, we change the create-boot-sd.sh script to use parted instead. While at it, we set the boot partition size to 64 MB, which should be enough for everyone.

You should mention in the relevant readme.txt files under board/freescale/ that parted needs to be installed on the host.

Alternatively, you can enable host-parted in the config files, and use that in create-boot-sd.sh.

Quoted 3 lines
Signed-off-by Vincent Stehl? <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
Cc Gary Bisson <[email protected]>

baruch

Signature · 3 lines
     http://baruch.siach.name/blog/                  ~. .~   Tk Open Systems
=}------------------------------------------------ooO--U--Ooo------------{=
   - baruch at tkos.co.il - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -
#7 lore raw

PATCH v2 1/1 board/freescale: switch create-boot-sd.sh to parted

In reply to Vincent Stehlé
Quoted 17 lines · Vincent Stehl?

Starting with version 2.26, sfdisk defaults to a unit of 512 B sectors. With those recent versions of sfdisk, the create-boot-sd.sh script ends up creating a boot partition of 240 KB, which is too small to contain a Linux kernel.

As it is difficult to address both pre and post v2.26 sfdisk versions in a single command, we change the create-boot-sd.sh script to use parted instead. While at it, we set the boot partition size to 64 MB, which should be enough for everyone.

Signed-off-by Vincent Stehl? <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
Cc Gary Bisson <[email protected]>

---

Quoted 6 lines

Hi,

This is a second proposal, using parted this time. Even with sfdisk `--unit' parameter, I could not find an eleguant solution to support all versions of sfdisk, sorry. Please let me know if you find switching to parted acceptable.

I really don't like that we would rely on a tool installed on the host.

Is there any reason why genimage (cfr. wandboard) wouldn't work, like I
suggested earlier?

Regards,
Arnout

Quoted 39 lines

This is tested on Sabre AI with an i.MX6 Quad.

Best regards,

V.

Changes in v2
-------------
- Switch to parted, as advised by Gary.
- Fix spelling in commit message, spotted by Luca.

 board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh | 10 ++++++----
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +6 -4
index af45115..d80bd52 100755
@@ -59,10 +59,12 @@ sync
 # - Bootloader at offset 1024
 # - FAT partition starting at 1MB offset, containing uImage and *.dtb
 # - ext2/3 partition formatted as ext2 or ext3, containing the root filesystem.
-sfdisk ${DEV} <<EOF
-32,480,b
-512,,L
-EOF
+parted --script "${DEV}" \
+       mklabel msdos \
+       unit MiB \
+       mkpart primary fat16 1 64 \
+       mkpart primary ext2 64 100% \
+       print
 
 sync
Signature · 6 lines
Arnout Vandecappelle                          arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect            +32-16-286500
Essensium/Mind                                http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium           BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoutvandecappelle
GPG fingerprint:  7493 020B C7E3 8618 8DEC 222C 82EB F404 F9AC 0DDF
author
#8 lore raw

PATCH v2 1/1 board/freescale: switch create-boot-sd.sh to parted

On 10/21/2015 08:37 PM, Arnout Vandecappelle wrote:
..

Quoted 2 lines

Is there any reason why genimage (cfr. wandboard) wouldn't work, like I
suggested earlier?

Hi Arnout,

You are right, genimage seems like a nice solution. In fact I think I prefer this SD card image generation approach over the direct SD card modification method.

Thank you for this suggestion.

Best regards,

V.

author
#9 lore raw

PATCH 2/2 imx6sabre: use zImage format for kernel

In reply to Vincent Stehlé

Starting with u-boot rel_imx_3.10.53_1.1.0_ga, the default is to boot a zImage instead of an uImage. Update the i.MX6 defconfigs accordingly. This repairs the boot from SD card.

While at it, align freescale_imx6sololiteevk_defconfig a bit more on the other i.MX6 defconfigs, update documentation and SD card creation script comments to reflect the change to zImage.

Signed-off-by Vincent Stehl? <[email protected]>
Cc Gary Bisson <[email protected]>
---
 board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh           |  2 +-
 board/freescale/imx6sabre/readme.txt        |  2 +-
 configs/freescale_imx6dlsabreauto_defconfig |  2 +-
 configs/freescale_imx6dlsabresd_defconfig   |  2 +-
 configs/freescale_imx6qsabreauto_defconfig  |  2 +-
 configs/freescale_imx6qsabresd_defconfig    |  2 +-
 configs/freescale_imx6sololiteevk_defconfig | 10 +++++++++-
 7 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)
board/freescale/create-boot-sd.sh +1 -1
index cfb1101..e75d107 100755
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ sync
 # Partition the card.
 # SD layout for i.MX6 boot:
 # - Bootloader at offset 1024
-# - FAT partition starting at 1MB offset, containing uImage and *.dtb
+# - FAT partition starting at 1MB offset, containing uImage or zImage, and *.dtb
 # - ext2/3 partition formatted as ext2 or ext3, containing the root filesystem.
 sfdisk ${DEV} <<EOF
 start=1MiB, size=64MiB, type=b
board/freescale/imx6sabre/readme.txt +1 -1
index 6850885..6958d92 100644
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ You will find in ./output/images/ the following files:
   - rootfs.ext2
   - rootfs.tar
   - u-boot.imx
-  - uImage
+  - zImage
 
 Create a bootable SD card
 =========================
configs/freescale_imx6dlsabreauto_defconfig +1 -1
index 0de8eea..c175530 100644
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_GIT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_URL="git://git.freescale.com/imx/linux-2.6-imx.git"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_VERSION="rel_imx_3.14.28_1.0.0_ga"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="imx_v7"
-BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_UIMAGE_LOADADDR="0x10008000"
+BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_ZIMAGE=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DTS_SUPPORT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_INTREE_DTS_NAME="imx6dl-sabreauto"
configs/freescale_imx6dlsabresd_defconfig +1 -1
index 3010d7d..25bd6ce 100644
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_GIT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_URL="git://git.freescale.com/imx/linux-2.6-imx.git"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_VERSION="rel_imx_3.14.28_1.0.0_ga"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="imx_v7"
-BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_UIMAGE_LOADADDR="0x10008000"
+BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_ZIMAGE=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DTS_SUPPORT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_INTREE_DTS_NAME="imx6dl-sabresd"
configs/freescale_imx6qsabreauto_defconfig +1 -1
index 70367a7..b5ecc0e 100644
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_GIT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_URL="git://git.freescale.com/imx/linux-2.6-imx.git"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_VERSION="rel_imx_3.14.28_1.0.0_ga"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="imx_v7"
-BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_UIMAGE_LOADADDR="0x10008000"
+BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_ZIMAGE=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DTS_SUPPORT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_INTREE_DTS_NAME="imx6q-sabreauto"
configs/freescale_imx6qsabresd_defconfig +1 -1
index 3fad77a..6dea756 100644
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_GIT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_URL="git://git.freescale.com/imx/linux-2.6-imx.git"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_VERSION="rel_imx_3.14.28_1.0.0_ga"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="imx_v7"
-BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_UIMAGE_LOADADDR="0x10008000"
+BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_ZIMAGE=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DTS_SUPPORT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_INTREE_DTS_NAME="imx6q-sabresd"
configs/freescale_imx6sololiteevk_defconfig +9 -1
index 5d98e9a..18ed588 100644
@@ -2,6 +2,14 @@
 BR2_arm=y
 BR2_cortex_a9=y
 
+# patches
+BR2_GLOBAL_PATCH_DIR="board/freescale/imx6sabre/patches"
+
+# toolchain
+BR2_KERNEL_HEADERS_VERSION=y
+BR2_DEFAULT_KERNEL_VERSION="3.14.28"
+BR2_PACKAGE_HOST_LINUX_HEADERS_CUSTOM_3_14=y
+
 # system
 BR2_TARGET_GENERIC_GETTY_PORT="ttymxc0"
 

@@ -11,7 +19,7 @@ BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_GIT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_URL="git://git.freescale.com/imx/linux-2.6-imx.git"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_CUSTOM_REPO_VERSION="rel_imx_3.14.28_1.0.0_ga"
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DEFCONFIG="imx_v7"
-BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_UIMAGE_LOADADDR="0x80008000"
+BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_ZIMAGE=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_DTS_SUPPORT=y
 BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_INTREE_DTS_NAME="imx6sl-evk"
Signature · 1 line
2.5.3
Tested-by
#10 lore raw
In reply to Vincent Stehlé

I know that this patch is still under review and might change, but in it's present form,

usind a imx6sabreq and util-linux 2.26.2-9 from debian

Tested-by J?r?my Rosen <[email protected]>

Cordialement

J?r?my Rosen
+33 (0)1 42 68 28 13

fight key loggers : write some perl using vim

Open Wide Ingenierie

23, rue Daviel
75013 Paris - France
www.openwide.fr

----- Le 14 Oct 15, ? 16:03, Vincent Stehl? vincent.stehle at freescale.com a ?crit :

Quoted 24 lines

Hi,

Here is a two-patches series, to repair the boot from SD card on Freescale Sabre boards.

The first patch adapts the SD card creation script to the new versions of sfdisk; a prerequisite to actually preparing an SD card and booting from it.

The second patch switches the defconfigs to building a zImage instead of an uImage, to reflect what u-boot in Freescale releases awaits nowadays.

This was build-tested for all the five touched defconfigs but I did only verify the boot on i.MX6 quad Sabre AI.

Feedbacks and testers welcome!

Best regards,

V.
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