On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Zygmunt Krynicki
<zygmunt.kryni...@linaro.org> wrote:
> W dniu 07.12.2011 18:44, Paul Larson pisze:
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 10:01 AM, Zygmunt Krynicki
>> <zygmunt.kryni...@linaro.org <mailto:zygmunt.kryni...@linaro.org>> wrote:
>>
>>    Hi, sorry for the topic, I wanted to catch your attention.
>>
>>    This is a quick brain dump based on my own observations/battle with
>>    master images last week.
>>
>>    1) Unless we use external USB/ETH adapters then cloning a master image
>>    clones the mac address as well. This has serious consequences and I'm
>>
>> This doesn't ring true.  We do have different mac addresses, even on
>> boards without flash and on-board ethernet.
>
> How does it work? As far as I know mac address is burned in boot.scr, if you
> copy that (and tell me we don't) then we get duplicates.
>
> Update: after a quick discussion on #linaro it seems that the mac address is
> actually burned into the hardware pack and lmc does not make one (at least
> not for panda). I have not verified this yet but if true then _all_ pandas
> with a given hwpack build get the same mac.

As I said at #linaro, there's no default mac address at any hwpack we
produce. If you have a boot.scr with a mac address pre-defined, then
you either customized your own hwpack or it's a bug.

I believe we already have a valid and unique mac address for all the
boards we currently support, even if they rely on being calculated
during boot time (like the hack that Andy did for panda). Let me know
if you're still having issues with random mac address every time you
boot your board.

>>  The process isn't *that*
>> hard.  It's essentially just a nano image, a couple of extra packages
>> installed, and add a few partitions.  However, I do agree with the
>> sentiment that this should be automated as much as possible.
>>
>>    2) Running code via serial on the master image is a mess. It is very
>>    fragile. We need an agent on the board instead of a random master
>>    image+serial shell. The agent will expose board identity, capabilities
>>    and standard APIs to LAVA (notably the dispatcher).
>>    The same API, if done sensibly, will work for software emulators and
>>    hardware boards. Agent API for a software emulator can do different
>>    things. Dispatcher should be based on agent API instead of ramming the
>>    serial line.
>>
>> This sounds like a good connect topic.  It has some advantages, but also
>> a lot of things to address.

While I agree that a different implementation might be a nice thing, I
also see that it can be quite complicated and still not yet sure if
this will actually help much.

I know serial is not the best interface you have, but it's the only
one that we know it works for all the boards we have :-) Once you
start relying on ethernet or such, then you can easily be blocked by
issues at the kernel/userspace side.

Unfortunately it seems that serial is the most reliable interface you
may have with these boards.

>>    3) The master image, as we know it today, should be booting remotely.
>>    The boot loader can stay on the board until we can push it over USB.
>> em
>>
>> The problem is getting it to a state that we can push it over usb for
>> every board.  Not all boards support this, and the ones that do
>> sometimes have issues with the tools to make it possible.
>
> I don't want to push 100% over usb but pushing 99.9 (all except to boot
> loader) works for all boards as far as I know. This would give us
> controllable master image (hell we could install tests before turning the
> power on).

I guess this will only be an issue with Origen, as to make ethernet to
work at the boot loader you also need to have USB support (kind of
similar as Panda). For the others I believe it should just work (if
not, it's a bug).

Cheers,
-- 
Ricardo Salveti de Araujo

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