Deployment

we suggest to read the following pages before you proceed with this page

  1. preparing Development Host
  2. Building BSP with PTXdist
  3. Customizing BSP for own Product

Finally, you will find the built images in platform-<platformname>/images.

The complete system images are intended for

  • development system initialisation
  • deployment

Bootloader images:
Not to be confused with the u-boot*.bin images, these are just intermediate images and will not be booted by the i.MX6.

  • u-boot-TQMa6S.imx: u-boot bootloader for TQMa6S on MBa6x (usage on SD Card and eMMC)
  • u-boot-TQMa6Q.imx: u-boot bootloader for TQMa6Q on MBa6x (usage on SD Card and eMMC)

Linux images:

  • linuximage: Kernel (zImage)
  • imx6dl-mba6x.dtb: device tree blob for TQMa6S on MBa6x
  • imx6q-mba6x.dtb: device tree blob for TQMa6Q on MBa6x

Rootfs images:

  • root.tgz: Root file system archive (for NFS etc.)
  • root.ext2: Root file system partition image (for system update)

To update bootloader / kernel in a running system you have to copy the images in your tftp directory and download them to the eMMC.

To install a new firmware use SD cards. To copy the built images on the host system to a connected card type: 

$ cd <BSP project>/platform-<platform_name>/images
$ sudo dd if=tqma6x_hd.img of=/dev/sdf bs=1M conv=fsync #Assuming the SD card is assigned to /dev/sdf

To find out what device file the SD card has, type “dmesg” after you connect the card to see the system messages. At the bottom you'll see some “Attached scsi …” messages along with something like: 

[ 8197.588395]  sdf: sdf1

Installation from bootable SD card

This procedure overwrites the MBR and all partitions on the eMMC with images from the SD card.
The U-Boot environment is preserved.

See dip_switches for selecting the boot medium on the MBa6x.

Install script usage

Current U-Boot versions provide a script that copies the MBR and partition contents from the SD card to the eMMC. This script is called via “run install_firmware” command at the U-Boot prompt. Due to memory limitations the root partition must be copied in a loop, each run copies the maximum memory amount available. To tell the script the size of your rootfs partition you have to use the rootblks16 variable.

This variable holds the hexadecimal number of 512-byte blocks your rootfs partition has in size. 

setenv rootblks16 0x40000

This sets a 128MB partition.

Updating existing firmware from bootable SD card

Please note: At this state there is no way to extract the image sizes from the SD card.
Without them calculation of required sectors to store the images is not possible.
Therefore using this update method will grab and overwrite whole uboot/dtb/kernel partitions respectively.

  1. Boot from eMMC
  2. Plug in card, power on device and stop autoboot
  3. To update U-Boot type:
    run upd_uboot_sd
  4. To update device tree type:
    run upd_fdt_sd
  5. To update Kernel type:
    run upd_kernel_sd

Updating existing firmware over ethernet

  1. Boot from eMMC and stop autoboot
  2. Connect device via ethernet to a tftp server supplying the image
  3. Provide the correct network configuration:
    setenv serverip 0.0.0.0
    setenv netmask 255.255.255.0
    setenv ipaddr 0.0.0.0
  4. Provide U-Boot the file name of the desired image on the server:
    For U-Boot: setenv uboot filename
    For device tree: setenv dtb filename
    For Kernel: setenv kernel filename
  5. Perform Update:
    For U-Boot: run upd_uboot_net
    For device tree: run upd_fdt_net
    For Kernel: run upd_kernel_net

The u-boot update scripts automatically implement the selection of the primary copy to boot.

Using different boot media

NFS

To boot the TQMa6x from network you need a working bootloader in eMMC or SD-card which is able to get the kernel image over tftp and to provide the kernel with commandline settigns for NFS. You have to provide the images via tftp and nfs and to configure the bootloader (cf. U-Boot variables boot_nfs, addnfs, kernel, dtb, serverip, rootpath) to work with your tftp-server and your nfs-server.