Entries by Raymond P. Burkholder

Following along the Software HowTo information page, I was able to:

• Build system requirements - check
• Build from source - Toolchain - check
• Build from source - Kernel - check
• Build from source - Bootloader - check
• Build from source - Buildroot - build failure (due to SSL include issues), instead, downloaded pre-built from BuildRoot 2015.11
• Boot from MicroSD card/USB stick - Buildroot - check, with one caveat that I had to rename the dtb file and remove _v5_ I believe.

With those steps, I was able to get a successful boot to ensure the board was functional. I used 'screen /dev/ttyUSB0 115200' as a console connection command to the EspressoBIN.

Ultimately, I want a Debian bootable system. So, for experiment #2.... GitHub armbian/build has the instructions for building from scratch. But I opted for instant gratification with downloading and installing a pre-built image. Even though the instructions at armbian espressobin are terse, they are accurate in terms of what is needed to get a (as of this writing) Debian Stretch v4.18.y kernel installed on EspressoBIN. The FAQ describes how to burn an image to an SDCard (in my case Etcher on Linux). I disable NetworkManager.service, NetworkManager-wait-online.service, systemd-networkd and systemd-resolved. I then manually adjust /etc/network/interfaces. Armbian Documentation talks about special optimizations as part of the build.

• EspressoBIN Block Diagram
• GPIO as a character device
• libgpiod
• New GPIO Presentation
• GPIO Device driver along with a collection of other embedded topics
• Driving an LED from an 1.8V GPIO pin that defaults to “IN”
• 88F3710 and 88F3720 - ARMADA® 3700 Family Single/Dual CPU System-on-Chip Hardware Specifications
• GPIO Map
• EspressoBIN GPIO Pins

Other related:
• Debian Arm64Port/AArch64 - port of Debian to the 64-bit Arm platform (arm64), known in some other places as AArch64, info up to Stretch
• InstallingDebianOnMarvellESPRESSOBin
• Run UBOS on ESPRESSObin - is a Linux distro that aims to make it 10x easier to run server-side apps for yourself, or for your family, on hardware or cloud servers you own.
• build/config/bootscripts/boot-espressobin.cmd - u-boot boot script for armbian
• ondemand governor does not scale up the cpu frequencies as expected.
• armbian build with governor
• I/O Related testing parameters
• govenor settings
• marvell dts file
• firmware?
• reference document of using crypto-safexcel engine in 3720 and 7K/8K SOCs.
• Command to recompile script into .scr format, cmd - armada-3720-espressobin.dtb is for the mainline kernel
• openssl crypt testing - must be kernel compile, no crypto module shows up in lsmod
• checking for crypto
• booting from sata
• armbian-config menu to build from beta
• ptp build
• build with custom options
• through put on various interfaces
• Marvell Linux Porting Guide
• Linux Kernel Crypto API
• armbian boot and os downloads
• Armada A388, A3700 forums
• Add support for the ethernet switch on the ESPRESSObin
• Marvell EBU:Mainline Linux - status of the support in the official Linux kernel for Marvell EBU processors.

Commands to try:

• armbianmonitor -m
• iperf3
• lspc sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 run --num-threads=$(grep -c '^processor' /proc/cpuinfo)
• isysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 run --num-threads=$(grep -c '^processor' /proc/cpuinfo
• cat /proc/cpuinfo
• cpufreq-info
• lsblk
• hdparm -tT /dev/sda
• ethtool --offload eth0 rx on tx on sg on tso on gso on gro on
• apt install armbian-config
• ls /sys/class/leds/
• cat /etc/default/cpufrequtils
• ls -al /sys/class/net
• udevadm info -q all -p /sys/class/net/wan
• cat /proc/version
• systemd --v
• cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu1/cpufreq/stats/trans_table
• cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_frequencies

From Armbian Ubuntu / Debian, be aware that:

manpage for systemd.netdev reads, in the part concerning the MACAddress= entry in the [NETDEV] section: If none is given, one is generated based on the interface name and the machine-id(5)

manpage for dbus-uuidgen, it says that the D-Bus machine-id should not be changed on a running machine or as they write: it will probably result in bad things happening. The machine-id should remain constant at least until next reboot.

• remove the SD card from the EspressoBin,
• mount it on a different Linux system
• delete /the/mounting/point/var/lib/dbus/machine-id
• generate a random new machine id using dbus-uuidgen –ensure=/the/mounting/point/var/lib/dbus/machine-id
• copy /the/mounting/point/var/lib/dbus/machine-id to /the/mounting/point/etc/machine-id
• put the SD card back to the EspressoBin
• use serial console to get the newly generated MAC address for br0
• use this MAC address in the dnsmasq configuration of my LeDe router

A few special projects to consider:

• TV headend (IPTV server)
• Syncthing (personal cloud)
• SoftEther VPN server (VPN server)
• Transmission (torrent server)
• ISPConfig (WEB & MAIL server)
• Openmediavault NAS (NAS server)
• PI hole (ad blocker)
• MiniDLNA (media sharing)

ust for the record: We have a SoC talking via RGMII to the onboard switch (currently with 1GbE but maybe 2.5GbE possible). We use DSA to tell the switch to not act as a switch on layer 2 anymore but separate downstream ports to get 3 individual interfaces just to bridge them again at the kernel layer above. Doing this at the DSA layer (telling the switch to be a dumb layer 2 switch accessible as eth0) might save CPU resources and result in better performance if I'm not wrong?

so it looks like the topaz switch needs to be talking to soc via SGMII instead of RGMII to achieve 2.5G.

..and I think i'm officially convinced that the max bandwidth between topaz switch and cpu is in fact 1gigabit... The connection is using a seperate RGMII lane. (eth0)

eth1 -- would be the interface capable of of SGMII, but the 3 fast lanes are occupied with USB, MiniPCI and SATA

• MTD: where the firmware and the u-boot environment are stored. The u-boot-tools package contains some utilities to read/modify the u-boot environment which is much more comfortable then in the interactive u-boot shell.
• pass the mtd partitioning information via the kernel command

Use HELIOS LanTest for file testing across network.

I/O Related Testing: "keep in mind that we've tested there 'advanced' stuff with mPCIe SATA controllers. On the onboard SATA port EspressoBin should in a single disk configuration easily exceed 500 MB/s (or in other words: Fast enough for any HDD imaginable) "

finding bottlenecks

beta sources

bootlin (formerly Free Electrons) - it was confirmed that support for the Marvell 3720 security engine is available in the crypto tree of 4.16-rc1 and that some known bugs will be fixed until the final release of 4.16.

I had a quick look over the diff for 4.16-rc1 and it looks like there's progress on support for DVFS too

These problems seem to arise (after some time) if your board is powered simultaneously by two sources with different GND potentials (check DC and AC). In this case your board will be exposed to severe electrical and thermal strain causing hardware issues after some time. It can be avoided if you access the serial console using a laptop that is not connected to a power supply itself (see usb/main power ).

IO Crest SI-MPE15047 4 Port Serial Mini PCIe Controller Card (RS-232) - could be used as console server.

IO Crest 4 Port SATA III Mini Pci-E Controller Card Components Other SI-MPE40125

M.2 form factor

Inside Secure, a SafeXcel EIP-97/197 cryptographic engine designed by Inside Secure, installed with 'modprobe crypto_safexcel'. More info at in a forum posting. The Kernel has some docs. Intelectual property sheet for EIP-97 - References IPsec, MACsec, SRTP, SSL, TLS, and DTLS.

From Reverse-engineering the ESPRESSObin’s GPIO pins:

From the iovisor-dev mailing list:

>I am trying to collect IPFIX flow data from the linux host interface.

Why IPFIX and not sFlow or netflow ?

>Can someone guide me the best way to collect the data using XDP.

It depends a bit on you setup. Assuming you want to do this "inline" on the box receiving the traffic. Then you should know/learn, that XDP cannot allocate a new packet (that e.g. could be used sending IPFIX/sFlow info directly). Instead, I would use the perf-ringbuffer to store sampled-packets (via copy), and then code a userspace program that reads from this perf-ringbuffer, and it will communicate with the central IPFIX/sFlow server.

>Any samples for reference will be a great help.

From XDP howto use the perf-ringbuffer via bpf_perf_event_output, samples are avail here:

• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/samples/bpf/xdp_sample_pkts_kern.c
• https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/samples/bpf/xdp_sample_pkts_user.c

Notice, there are also plenty of BCC examples using the perf-ringbuffer, look for BCC code with:

   BPF_PERF_OUTPUT(events);
   events.perf_submit(ctx, data, sizeof(struct data_t));

• OCC Batch Processing Links - reports, summary, and raw data [OCC, founded in 1973, is the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization]

• Functional Data Structures: (a flânerie by Prabhakar Ragde) [not really C++ though][uses OCaml]
• What can C++ offer as far as functional programming? from Stack OverFlow

• Symmetry Electronics has Powered Equipment POE modules by SilverTel

• Vitesse VSC73xx DSA router driver for a now obsolete Enhanced 5 + 1-Port Integrated Gigabit Ethernet Switch with Transceivers.
• swconfig from OpenWrt, goal of the switch configuration API is to provide a common basis to build re-usable and extensible switch drivers, developed in parallel with the kernel's own:
• Distributed Switch Architecture
• LWN: The rise of Linux-based networking hardware

• Get-Console: "world's smallest device server", very inexpensive as well
• OpenGear: a bit more sophisticated, higher in price as well

I found that pictures I captured and edited were printing somewhat dark. Time to investigate how to get a consistent photographic workflow. I use darktable for photo management and preliminary colour management. So, some links I have to come back to:

• DisplayCAL - Open Source Display Calibration and Characterization powered by ArgyllCMS
• Loading/Applying profiles in Xfce in the displaycal forums.
• Display color management in darktable
• My Free and Open Source Photography Workflow - darktable, gimp, Geeqie, ArgyllCMS
• X-Rite i1Display Pro and ColorChecker Passport Bundle at B&H Photo Video

• SAMA5D3 Xplained is a fast prototyping and evaluation platform for microprocessor-based design based upon the SAMA5D36 processor. It has a 100mbps and a 1gbps interface. Linux4SAM supplies the tooling to support the card. Linux mainline 4.9 with specific contributions. Features KSZ9031 and KSZ8081 PHYs with connectors. Could maybe replace with something like KSZ9893R 3 port Gigabit Switch or KSZ9896 6 port Gigabit Switch or KSZ9897S 7 port Gigabit Switch? A 100 <-> 1000 Software Bridge will use 95% cpu.
• Cyclone V SoC Multi-Port Ethernet Aggregator Board - NetLeap - NovTech's NetLeap, an Industry 4.0 Multi-Protocol Ethernet Ports Aggregator Platform, allows the development and integration of a variety of Ethernet protocols including PROFINET, EtherCAT, EtherNet/IP, Ethernet Powerlink, Modbus TCP, SERCOS III and more. This solution is preproduction ready. A total of six 1G/100/10 Ethernet ports are present. Two are connected to the HPS (The ARM* Cortes-A9 core of the Cyclone® V SoC) and four are connected to the FPGA fabric. With its six ports, the NetLeapâ„¢ allows different protocols to reside on the same platform and can be used as a protocol bridge, a switch, or a router. The kit comes with a templated project example that allows the board to boot to Linux and have all six ports work as a standard Ethernet.
• Networking Products - SG-1000 microFirewall Security Appliance
• Newport GW6400 - High Performance Single Board Computers for Networking with 4x Mini-PCIe Sockets, 5x Gigabit Ethernet Ports, and USB 2.0/3.0
• NFV PicoPod s a Cluster of Six MACCHIATOBin Networking Boards for OPNFV, ODP, DPDK and OPF
• SolidRun ClearFog Base is a $90 Router/Networking Board with USB 3.0, M.2, mSATA, and Gigabit Ethernet Support
• Orange Pi R1 - dual 10/100 ports for $14
• EspressoBin offers Marvell’s dual-core, Cortex-A53 Armada 3720 SoC, plus 2x GbE, 1x WAN, SATA, and mini-PCIe. GlobalScale shopping cart. Hack-A-Day leads to Building my ideal router for $50 (which talks about wireless, netflow, and security). ArchLinux|ARM has an install page. reddit says " 4.17 in particular ? It has hardware offload for the Topaz switch and the nic chip in the Espressobin which might reduce cpu usage", using a four drive setup as an example in the article. armbian has various add-on cards for mPCI and USB. arch linux ARM setup.
• Sinovoip’s “Banana Pi BPI-R2” router SBC gives you 5x GbE, WiFi, BT, 2GB RAM, 8GB eMMC, SATA, and mini-PCIe, plus a quad-core -A7 MediaTek MT7623N. More info on the gitbooks and the wiki and forum. Among other sites, can be ordered from AliExpress. Other info at armbian. Lots of links at end of BPI-R2. aluminum cases. BPI-4G LTE module.
• SolidRun’s “Marvell MacchiatoBIN” is a $349, Mini-ITX networking SBC that runs Linux 4.4 on Marvell’s quad -A72 Armada 8040, and supports ODP, OFP, and NFV. Main Site. I just wish Marvell would be more forthcoming on documentation on their chipsets rather than hiding behind NDA all the time. Pico MacchiatoBIN - with case, power supply, fan. Provided link to Marvell Prestar DX Switches which have VxLAN support. Suggests it works with OpenFlow 1.4 (open vswitch enabled?). arch linux ARM setup.
• EPIC-KBS9 from Aaeon is an SBC with 6th or 7th Gen Core S-series chips, 4x GbE ports, up to 32GB DDR3, and mini-PCIe and PCIe x4 expansion.
• minnowboard two port boards in the $200 range.

Other boards:

• BeagleBone Blue - mucho I/O: Motor control: 8 6V servo out, 4 bidirectional DC motor out, 4 quadrature encoder in; Sensors: 9 axis IMU (accels, gyros, magnetometer), barometer, thermometer
• FireFly - interesting add-ons like cameras, ASTRA Pro Structured Light Camera, binocular camera, capacitive touch screens, remote controls, ..
• ODroid
• ZedBoard: community-based site is dedicated to helping you jump-start your design with the Xilinx Zynq®-7000 All Programmable SoCs and UltraScale+ MPSoCs

Canada vendors:

• Mouser Electronics
• Newark element14
• Digi-Key
• Lees Electronic - Vancouver - electronic and mechanical
• Buy a PI - various SBC's

Embedded systems reviews:

• Linux Gizmos
• CNXSoft – Embedded Systems News

Embedded Linux Wiki

search engines for electronic parts

• Octopart
• digipart

Evolution to 'build your own"

• mikroETH 100
• Microchip's Ethernet Portfolio
• KSZ9031 Gigabit Ethernet Transceiver with Power Saving Feature
• AN1120: Ethernet Theory of Operation
• Segger physical connectivity example
• Microchip High Throughput Ethernet Interface Solutions
• 32 bit ARM with 2xGE
• 1G Ethernet PHYs by Microsemi (some have MacSec capability

Other linux SoC

• Linux for Amlogic Meson
• BORA Xpress XILINX Zynq CPU module

AVB

• Audio Visual Bridging - AKA IEEE 1588 / 802.1AS Time Stamping
• KSZ9567 7-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch with AVB, IEEE 1588, SGMII/RGMII/MII/RMII
• KSZ9477 7-Port Gigabit Ethernet Switch with Ring Redundancy, AVB, IEEE1588, SGMII/RGMII/MII/RMII

• Awesome Electronics - github curated links

In running a bastardized combination of Debian Stretch/Sid/Buster/Experimental on my Intel NUC NUC8i7HVK with kernel 4.18.0-rc4-amd64 to successfully work with the in-kernel AMD screen drivers, with some recent updates, I started experiencing some of my windows were freezing (going to 100% cpu in top). Konsole was the most repeatable offender. Others included picture preview, VLC, etc. Konsole would 'reliably' freeze (100% cpu) after moving the window.

One approach at a solution was to (from forum.kde.org):

renaming a couple files in the ~/.config directory:
* plasma-org.kde.plasma.desktop-appletsrc
* plasmashellrc
  then run 'killall plasmashell && plasmashell &'

This helped a bit, but not much. I ended up installing the LXDE window manager. As an aside, I needed to install parcellite to manage the clipboard. There are some caveats:

• Don't install LXDE from with in a Konsole session in Plasmashell. The window may freeze, which interrupts the install, and generates an incomplete install. It is better to exit the window manager (or ssh in to a console), and install LXDE that way.
• When installing LXDE, there was a prompt on whether to use clipit (it was asking about copying and pasting passwords and such). I said no. Not realizing this just kills the clipit password manager. Hence the requirement to install parcellite after the fact.

Possible debugging steps in the future:

• strace Konsole
• (gdb) thread apply all backtrace [as seen at bugs.launchpad.net]

As a word of note, the current plasma is from Sid:

$ dpkg -l |grep plasma-desk
ii  plasma-desktop                                4:5.13.1.1-1                            amd64        Tools and widgets for the desktop
ii  plasma-desktop-data                           4:5.13.1.1-1                            all          Tools and widgets for the desktop data files
$ dpkg -l |grep plasma-work
ii  plasma-workspace                              4:5.13.2-1                              amd64        Plasma Workspace for KF5

In summary, my Konsole is now stable. And in changing window/display managers, rather than sddm/plasma, I am using lightdm/lxde. I will switch back and try once more plasma updates arrive.

There is a an old Debian Bug logged: background konsole processing using 100% cpu after login in the konsole package. It may or may not be related.

Notes:

• LXSession contains information for customizing and automating LXDE sessions
• based upon the list at 10 Best Clipboard Managers for Linux, copyq is a good candidate as a clipboard manager.

From Things you can do with Debian: multimedia editing

• gimp - image processing
• audacity - quick audio recording / editing
• ardour - audio recording / editing / mixing / mastering
• kdenlive - video editing / mixing
• openshot - video editing / mixing
• handbrake - video transcoding

Simple streaming the Linux desktop to Kodi using GStreamer and RTP by Petter Reinholdtsen

2018/09/13 - Distributing static routes with DHCP

Intel has released a new NUC, the NUC8i7HVK. It used an integrated AMD GPU graphics engine, the Radeon RX Vega M GH in the NUC8i7HVK model.

During the initial release days, most of the installation and configuration documentation revolved around installing a specific version of Ubuntu, and installing a particular driver set from the AMD support pages.

That is no longer necessary. AMD has been contributing a significant amount of code to recent versions of the kernel for driving their new graphics chipsets.

I had tried to load, build, and install the amdgpu-pro driver, but it would never match up with the current kernel header files in Stretch and Buster.

One important note: the built in Intel graphics adapter needs to be disabled in the BIOS. Then these are the installation steps to get things running (I have two 4K screens attached, both rotated 90 degrees). So things seem to work.

In addition, i have the following in /etc/default/grub (run update-grub after changing):

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="amdgpu.dc=1"

I used the non-free firmware image of Debian Buster to get the ball rolling. I think I encountered some black screens so had to ssh in from a different computer to fix various gaffes on the way to getting something working.

apt -t experimental install linux-image-4.18.0-rc4-amd64 linux-headers-4.18.0-rc4-amd64
reboot
apt -t experimental install mesa-utils mesa-utils-extra mesa-va-drivers \
         mesa-vdpau-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers libglx-mesa0 \
         xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu
wget -m -np https://people.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/radeon_ucode/vegam/
mkdir /lib/firmware/amdgpu
cp people.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/radeon_ucode/vegam/*.bin /lib/firmware/amdgpu/
/usr/sbin/update-initramfs -u -k all
reboot

Which results in:

# lspci|grep -i vga
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Polaris 22 [Radeon RX Vega M GH] (rev c0)
# uname -a
Linux nuc8i7hvk01 4.18.0-rc4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.18~rc4-1~exp1 (2018-07-12) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Long story short, the solution was to install the latest firmware. In this case, I have an Intel NUC8i7HVK Mini PC with Intel Wireless-AC 8265 and Bluetooth 4.2. I installed the Intel wireless firmware package from experimental:

apt -t experimental install firmware-iwlwifi

This is also running current experimental kernel:

# uname -a
Linux nuc8i7hvk01 4.18.0-rc4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.18~rc4-1~exp1 (2018-07-12) x86_64 GNU/Linux

Which provided a more recent load on boot:

[ 2.478527] iwlwifi 0000:06:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware iwlwifi-8265-36.ucode

Upon reboot, it was easy to scan, connect, and pair the Logitech MX Anywhere 2S mouse.

For future reference, here are some commands to see some activiites:

$ hcitool dev
Devices:
        hci0    0C:54:15:66:3B:9E

$ hciconfig
hci0:   Type: Primary  Bus: USB
        BD Address: 0C:54:15:66:3B:9E  ACL MTU: 1021:4  SCO MTU: 96:6
        UP RUNNING PSCAN ISCAN
        RX bytes:41366 acl:2102 sco:0 events:164 errors:0
        TX bytes:4913 acl:29 sco:0 commands:75 errors:0

# bluetoothctl
Agent registered
[MX Anywhere 2S]# help
Menu main:
Available commands:
-------------------
advertise                                         Advertise Options Submenu
scan                                              Scan Options Submenu
gatt                                              Generic Attribute Submenu
list                                              List available controllers
show [ctrl]                                       Controller information
select                                      Select default controller
devices                                           List available devices
paired-devices                                    List paired devices
system-alias                                Set controller alias
reset-alias                                       Reset controller alias
power                                     Set controller power
pairable                                  Set controller pairable mode
discoverable                              Set controller discoverable mode
agent                          Enable/disable agent with given capability
default-agent                                     Set agent as the default one
advertise                            Enable/disable advertising with given type
set-alias                                  Set device alias
scan                                      Scan for devices
info [dev]                                        Device information
pair [dev]                                        Pair with device
trust [dev]                                       Trust device
untrust [dev]                                     Untrust device
block [dev]                                       Block device
unblock [dev]                                     Unblock device
remove                                       Remove device
connect                                      Connect device
disconnect [dev]                                  Disconnect device
menu                                        Select submenu
version                                           Display version
quit                                              Quit program
exit                                              Quit program
help                                              Display help about this program

[MX Anywhere 2S]# paired-devices
Device E1:38:CB:49:A9:A5 MX Anywhere 2S

[MX Anywhere 2S]# devices
Device E1:38:CB:49:A9:A5 MX Anywhere 2S

[MX Anywhere 2S]# paired-devices
Device E1:38:CB:49:A9:A5 MX Anywhere 2S

Debian wiki on bluetooth: Using Bluetooth in a Debian system

• XAGYL Communications: well stocked Ontario Mikrotik distribution
• Solimedia Technology Inc.: Vancouver based online ordering, with some interesting 4G and IP Telephony products
• Baltic Networks: US based distribution with larger product line
• Miro: an African company with product lines of reference interest
• MikroTik Router Hardening
• automated backup scripts
• Mikrotik Open Ports which may need firewalling
• Tools for effortless reverse engineering of MikroTik routers
• SFP module compatibility table
• Managing 1500 routers with a single click: high level notes only (I'll probably use SaltStack with the SSH proxy capability instead)
• Manual:Flashfig
• Automatically provisioning RouterBoards: background info with someone's specific ideas on a domain specific language
• Manual:CAPsMAN: Controlled Access Point system Manager (CAPsMAN) allows centralization of wireless network management and if necessary, data processing
• CPE WAN Management Protocol & Auto Configuration Server from a TR-069 perspective but Mikrotik NetInstall is still integral to a clean recover process
• automatic backup '/system scheduler' ideas
• Mikrotik Script Repository

• Linux Kernel Archives
• Linux Kernel Mailing List
• Kernel Newbies
• LWN
• phoronix
• Linux Compatible

Other randomness:

• Networking CAKE Is Ready For Tasting With Linux 4.19: CAKE Qdisc (exposed as the sch_cake module) aims to "squeeze the most bandwidth and latency out of even the slowest ISP links and routers". The comments section has a number of links to other resources.
• Clixon is an automatic configuration manager where you generate interactive CLI, NETCONF, RESTCONF and embedded databases with transaction support from a YANG specification.
• YANG-Based Unified Modular Automation Tools
• Infrared temperature sensor driver for Linux kernel released - not sure how useful this is but leads to other products of possible value