Raymond P. Burkholder - Things I Do - Embedded Systems

Protectionism on Garage Door Openers

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sun, 12 Nov 2023 17:45:32 +0000

Chamberlain blocks smart garage door opener from working with smart homes - Chamberlain Group recently made the decision to prevent unauthorized usage of our myQ ecosystem through third-party apps.

Whenever someone says: I can control my garage door from my phone! I point out that what they've really done is:

ceded all control of their garage door to another entity
they request action(s) from that entity
hope the other entity allows that action

One popular fix for people with the MyQ problem is ratgo - You plug a board into the opener and it talks to you locally with no cloud involvement.

RabbitMQ Installation for MQTT

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 04:02:55 +0000

To install rabbitmq and enable mqtt extensions:

To add a user and set permissions for an mqtt client, only one client can use the connection at once

# username and password are both "mqtt-test"
rabbitmqctl add_user mqtt-test mqtt-test
rabbitmqctl set_permissions -p / mqtt-test ".*" ".*" ".*"
rabbitmqctl set_user_tags mqtt-test management

To disable anonymous attachments:

root@rabbitmq:/# cat /etc/rabbitmq/rabbitmq.conf
mqtt.allow_anonymous = false

Installing ESPHome

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sat, 06 May 2023 17:13:05 +0000

I had a very old proprietary ADT alarm system in my house. It was time for an upgrade. But the desire during the upgrade was that alarm sensor values could gbe read by my home automation solution. The value in this is that I wouldn't need to duplicate sensors between the two systems: door open/close, motion detection, smoke, ...

The two primary solutions I found in the local market were systems based upon:

Qolsys IQ 4 Panel.
DSC Neo Panel, an advancement over the DSC PowerSeries

Both of these systems rely on PowerG sensors as well as proprietary encrypted busses and communications. PowerG sensors do not seem to be available to consumers outside of the alarm industry. And these systems do not allow any sort of read-only or rw access with consumer equipment. Everything is totally locked down and the consumer locked out. Only industry heavy-weights like Control4 have been allowed third party access to these systems.

I had to resort to some old school thinking on this.

I am presently evaluating the DSC PowerSeries panels and keypads.

taligentx/dscKeybusInterface is a library which can run on ESP8266 microcontrollers to communicate with the DSC un-encrypted DSC Keybus. This provides an ability to arm/disarm the alarm system via home automation. Home automation can also read the alarm state to provide larger awareness of the event. ESP8266 into existing alarm DSC System is a large thread about this style of integration from a Home Assistant automation perspective.

DSCKeyBus ESPHOME custom component to interface to a DSC POWERSERIES alarm system took taligentx's code and added bells and whistles to be used with Home Assistant. ESPHome provides the glue between the microcontroller world and Home Assistant.

My goal here is to extract the ESPHome components so that I might integrate the ESP8266 with Domoticz, an alternate home automation solution. Let us see where this goes.

The first step is the installation:

$ python3 --version
Python 3.11.2
$ mkdir esphome
$ cd esphome
$ python3 -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ pip3 install esphome
Collecting esphome
  Using cached esphome-2023.4.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl (2.6 MB)
Collecting voluptuous==0.13.1
  Using cached voluptuous-0.13.1-py3-none-any.whl (29 kB)
 ....
$ esphome version
Version: 2023.4.4

hmm, interesting, it has installed esptool, tornado and platformio

'deactivate' can be used to exit the environment. 'source venv/bin/activate' to activate the environment and regain the (venv) prompt.

In the directory esphome, run the following to generate a bare bones configuration file:

$ esphome wizard test01.yaml
... a bunch of prompts ...
$ cat test01.yaml
esphome:
  name: test1
esp8266:
  board: esp12e
# Enable logging
logger:
# Enable Home Assistant API
api:
  password: "no"
ota:
  password: "no"
wifi:
  ssid: "an_ssid"
  password: "ssid_pass"
  # Enable fallback hotspot (captive portal) in case wifi connection fails
  ap:
    ssid: "Test1 Fallback Hotspot"
    password: "randomstuff"
captive_portal:

This can be installed with:

 esphome run test01.yaml

There is a dashboard available for monitoring connected devices. Use this to create .yaml devices in esphome/config, which can then be built and uploaded to the device manually

pip install tornado esptool
esphome dashboard config/

More instructions can be found at Getting Started with the ESPHome Command Line

During the build process, I see that PlatformIO is used. Some reference links:

Note: all this is for basic integration into home-assistant. I have to find the tutorial which shows how to build a native/simple esphome file with the basics.

Loading Files onto an ESP8266 with esptool

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Fri, 05 May 2023 17:21:53 +0000

VirtualKeypad-Web.ino requires some files to be loaded into the ESP8266's local file space in order to show a virtual keypad for the DSC PowerSeries style panels and keypads.

It suggests using ESP8266FS tools to create a file system and upload files.

However, this is a .jar file and is only compatible with the older 1.8 flavours of the arduino-ide. The flavour I have have running currently is 2.1.1.

In addition, the ESP8266FS is deprecated, and has been superseded by LittleFS file system API. The LittleFS tool also does not appear to function in the v2 IDE, as it also is a .jar file (Java related?)

The modern way appears to be a two step process:

use the hidden mklittlefs to create a filesystem with resident files
use ElegantOTA to upload the blob to the ESP8266's file system area (http://local/update)
or use esptool to upload via the command line

In my Linux install of the Arduino IDE install, there is a tools directory called ~/.arduino15/packages/esp8266/tools/ which has several tools:

$ ls -al ~/.arduino15/packages/esp8266/tools/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 1 rpb rpb 90 May  5 11:50 .
drwxr-xr-x 1 rpb rpb 26 May  1 21:03 ..
drwxr-xr-x 1 rpb rpb 42 May  1 21:03 mklittlefs
drwxr-xr-x 1 rpb rpb 42 May  1 21:03 mkspiffs
drwxr-xr-x 1 rpb rpb 22 May  1 21:03 python3
drwxr-xr-x 1 rpb rpb 42 May  1 21:03 xtensa-lx106-elf-gcc

Source for mklettlefs is found on earlephilhower/mklittlefs github

Anyway, a command line from mklittlefs might look like this for the required files. This creates a .bin (binary) file which is a representation of the the file system.

libraries/DSC_Keybus_Interface/examples/esp8266/VirtualKeypad-Web$ \
  ~/.arduino15/packages/esp8266/tools/mklittlefs/3.1.0-gcc10.3-e5f9fec/mklittlefs \
  -b 4096 -p 256 -s 294912  -c data image.bin
/favicon-16x16.png
/style.css
/favicon-32x32.png
/fonts/dsc_icons.ttf
/fonts/dsc_icons.eot
/fonts/dsc_icons.woff
/fonts/dsc_icons.svg
/index.html

This binary file needs to be copied over to the filesystem partition of the ESP8266. I encountered three ways to do this:

Using add-ons with the v1.8 of the Arduino IDE. Since the current version is v2, those add-ons no longer work
Installing ElegantOTA or incorporating library calls to do so (which then presents a web page from the ESP8266 for uploading)
Using the command line tool esptool for copying the file over via the serial port (this document is mostly about this method)

FireBeetle-ESP32 and mklittlefs parameters was a resource for the parameters. That site also referenced a python tool called esptool. Maybe I won't need the ElegantOTA tool after all.

esptool source has documentation.

esptool can be installed with:

$ python3 --version
Python 3.11.2
$ mkdir esptool
$ cd esptool
$ python3 -m venv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ pip3 install esptool
Collecting esptool
  Using cached esptool-4.5.1.tar.gz (252 kB)
  Preparing metadata (setup.py) ... done
$ source venv/bin/activate

Ensure no other application is running on the port (like the Arduino IDE), and perform a test:

$ esptool.py -p /dev/ttyUSB0 --chip esp8266 flash_id
esptool.py v4.5.1
Serial port /dev/ttyUSB0
Connecting....
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
Crystal is 26MHz
MAC: c8:c9:a3:66:93:14
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Manufacturer: 20
Device: 4016
Detected flash size: 4MB
Hard resetting via RTS pin...

If there is something connected you may see an error like:

Serial port /dev/ttyUSB0
A fatal error occurred: Could not open /dev/ttyUSB0, the port doesn't exist

However, in looking at the source for VirtualKeypad-Web.ino, there is a line which states:

$ grep serveStatic VirtualKeypad-Web.ino
  server.serveStatic("/", SPIFFS, "/").setDefaultFile("index.html");

As a result, this requires the Spiffs file system. And this can be created with the tool at ~/.arduino15/packages/esp8266/tools/mkspiffs/3.1.0-gcc10.3-e5f9fec/mkspiffs:

$ ~/.arduino15/packages/esp8266/tools/mkspiffs/3.1.0-gcc10.3-e5f9fec/mkspiffs -b 4096 -p 256 -s 294912  -c data spiffs.bin
/favicon-16x16.png
/style.css
/favicon-32x32.png
/fonts/dsc_icons.ttf
/fonts/dsc_icons.eot
/fonts/dsc_icons.woff
/fonts/dsc_icons.svg
/index.html

The -s parameter 294912 is a number which is a multiple of 4096 and larger that then size of the files combined. The tool will complain if not enough space has been allocated.

This can them be uploaded to the ESP8266 with:

$ esptool.py --chip esp8266 --port /dev/ttyUSB0  \
  write_flash  --flash_mode dio \
  --flash_freq 80m --flash_size 4MB 0x200000 \
  ../libraries/DSC_Keybus_Interface/examples/esp8266/VirtualKeypad-Web/spiffs.bin
esptool.py v4.5.1
Serial port /dev/ttyUSB0
Connecting....
Chip is ESP8266EX
Features: WiFi
Crystal is 26MHz
MAC: c8:c9:a3:66:93:14
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Configuring flash size...
Flash will be erased from 0x00200000 to 0x00247fff...
Compressed 294912 bytes to 34730...
Wrote 294912 bytes (34730 compressed) at 0x00200000 in 4.0 seconds (effective 590.6 kbit/s)...
Hash of data verified.

Leaving...
Hard resetting via RTS pin...

My ESP8266 has 4M of flash, and in the arduino tools menu, the board is set to a 2M filesystem size, so the offset is 2MB: 0x200000

Extras:

ESP8266 Arduino Core’s documentation
espressif esp32 forums
esptool.py docs - note the dropdown with hardware specific selections
espressif technical documents
ESP8266 NodeMCU OTA (Over-the-Air) Updates – AsyncElegantOTA using Arduino IDE with a websockets tutorial

Small Cameras and c-mounts

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Tue, 17 May 2022 22:15:42 +0000

From Using a "proper" camera as a webcam there were some references to some interesting inexpensive high resolution cameras and lenses. I can't vouch for quality, but I intend to give them a try.

C920/C922/C930 enclosure kit for CS-type lens mk2 - with some references to lenses and IR-cut filters
IMX477 Full Report – Datasheet, Specs, Technologies and Camera Modules - f you are considering the Sony IMX477 or IMX477R, then this is for you. datasheets, specs, and related informaiton
ArduCam embedded camera solutions on Amazon

There are suggestions for teleprompters in there as well.

BeagleBoard Green

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 04:01:27 +0000

I recently picked up some BeagleBoard Green devices to act as temperature/pressure/humidity/gas sensors with the BME680 sensor.

To prove functionality, I connected the BeagleBone green to my linux box with the USB cable, and used the following command to run a terminal:

screen /dev/ttyACM0

After proving everything works with an 'out-of-the-box' unit, the next step is to see how far this can be upgraded. The units I received are running Debian Buster (the now previously stable release).

There is a list of BeagleBoard.org Latest Firmware Images, which currently has newer Buster images, but with the GUI removed. This provides for more drive space for an upgrade cycle. (there was not enough space with the factory loaded image).

Installing consists of downloading the 'flasher' image, installing to an sdcard, power cycling the beagleboard, and allowing time for the re-flash to proceed. The notes indicate that:

flashing takes power
remove any sensors / attachments
remove the ethernet as it has a power overhead
connect to a power supply (I was attempting to use POE, and I'm not sure if that was adequate)

The programming notes suggest downloading an application called etcher to write the image to the sdcard. A much simpler way (from Instructions to flash an image to an SD card):

xzcat bone-eMMC-flasher-debian-10.3-iot-armhf-2020-04-06-4gb.img.xz \
  | dd of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=64k \
  oflag=dsync \
  status=progress

To flash:

install the SDCard,
hold down the button by the SDCard,
connect to power, wait for the LEDs to come on
release the button.
initial boot software will load, and ultimately the LEDs should show a Cylon circulating pattern.
once that pattern finishes, power can be removed,
remove the card,
re-attach power to boot into new version
connect to network and run any necessary upgrades

After the reflash, and a reboot, I found that quite a few packages could be updated.

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

There is a note about Debian 11 (bullseye) Testing Images where the suggestion is to do an in-place dist-upgrade, or fall back to downloading an image from a testing repository.

It might be faster to download the image that it would be to download 651 packages and perform an installation.

It took a while, but the dist-upgrade worked. It did require a download only retrieval with a forced install for some firmware::


# apt -d install firmware-brcm80211         
# dpkg -i --force-overwrite firmware-brcm80211_20210315-3_all.deb 
(Reading database ... 88560 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack firmware-brcm80211_20210315-3_all.deb ...
Unpacking firmware-brcm80211 (20210315-3) over (20190717-2rcnee1~buster+20200305) ...
dpkg: warning: overriding problem because --force enabled:
dpkg: warning: trying to overwrite '/lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob', which is also in package bb-bbai-firmware 1.20210923.2-0~buster+20211007
Setting up firmware-brcm80211 (20210315-3) ...

Then, to bring the kernel up to date:


# apt-get autoremove
#
# cd /opt/scripts/tools/
# git pull
# ./update_kernel.sh 
# ./update_kernel.sh --lts-5_10

The update is performed twice: once to perform a simple upgrade (which will provide options), and then use the latest option to get current

Something to try later is to run a script to flash, rather than using a special image to self-flash: Flash Debian Bullseye on your BeagleBone Black, with more info at Beagleboard:Updating The Software.

2023/06/24 There is a note about Debian 12 (aka bookworm) is now released. It seems BeagleBoard is falling behind a bit in momentum. I see the espressobin and related families seem to have current releases. I may need to obtain new boards in a line somewhere.

2024/02/17 Go to Debian 12.x (Bookworm) - Monthly Snapshot - 2023-10-07 for Debian 12 image. For BeagleBone Green, download Debian 12.x (Bookworm) Minimal Snapshot for flashing to EMMC. balenaEtcher is not necessary when performing the write to SDCard from Linux. Use the instructions listed earlier in this post. This is probably faster than performing the dist-upgrade I mentioned.

Raspberry Pi

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Fri, 21 May 2021 00:06:01 +0000

Guide: Installation of *VANILLA* Debian 11 (or later) on a Raspberry Pi 4 - check Debian Bug#985956

iMX8 SoC Implementations

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Thu, 20 May 2021 23:50:59 +0000

Nitrogen 8M - boundarydevices.com/product/nitrogen8m/
Solidrun Cubox M - shop.solid-run.com/product/SRMP8QDWB1D04GE008X00CE/
Hummingboard Pulse - shop.solid-run.com/product-category/embedded-computers/nxp-family/hummingboard-m/
Purism Librem 5 Phone - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librem_5
Compulab SBC-iMX8X - www.compulab.com/products/sbcs/sbc-imx8x-nxp-i-mx-8x-single-board-computer/ - (supported since 5.4.24)
Toradex Apalis iMX8 CoM - www.toradex.com/computer-on-modules/apalis-arm-family/nxp-imx-8

Enabled with CONFIG_ARCH_MXC=y in debian/config/arm64/config

Reflected in Debian Bug#985862

Random Hardware Entry - FT4232H - Hi-Speed Quad USB UART IC

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 17:17:57 +0000

I can't remember the source of this, probably some sort of Debian bug entry:

FT4232H - Hi-Speed Quad USB UART IC is FTDI’s 5th generation of USB devices. The FT4232H is a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed (480Mb/s) to UART IC. It has the capability of being configured in a variety of industry standard serial or parallel interfaces.

Some Notes on Building AOSP

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Mon, 11 Feb 2019 18:22:06 +0000

Building from Android Source Code -- Android Open Source Project

The repo init command doesn't like some forms of NAT. A command like:

$ repo init  --depth 1 --no-clone-bundle  -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest

may stick at the following with 100% cpu:

 * [new tag]         v1.9.5     -> v1.9.5
 * [new tag]         v1.9.6     -> v1.9.6
Get https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest

When performing a debug, this is the stage where it is stuck (no idea how to fix it, ended up bypassing NAT):

$ repo --trace init  --depth 1 --no-clone-bundle  -u https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest
Geta https://gerrit.googlesource.com/git-repo
remote: Counting objects: 142, done
remote: Total 4158 (delta 2038), reused 4158 (delta 2038)
Receiving objects: 100% (4158/4158), 4.69 MiB | 519.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2038/2038), done.
From https://gerrit.googlesource.com/git-repo
 * [new branch]      maint      -> origin/maint
 * [new branch]      master     -> origin/master
 * [new branch]      stable     -> origin/stable
 * [new tag]         v1.0       -> v1.0
 * [new tag]         v1.0.1     -> v1.0.1
 * [new tag]         v1.0.2     -> v1.0.2
 * [new tag]         v1.0.3     -> v1.0.3
...
 * [new tag]         v1.8.2     -> v1.8.2
 * [new tag]         v1.9.0     -> v1.9.0
 * [new tag]         v1.9.1     -> v1.9.1
 * [new tag]         v1.9.2     -> v1.9.2
 * [new tag]         v1.9.3     -> v1.9.3
 * [new tag]         v1.9.4     -> v1.9.4
 * [new tag]         v1.9.5     -> v1.9.5
 * [new tag]         v1.9.6     -> v1.9.6
: git --version 1>| 2>|
: parsing /home/rpb/.gitconfig
Get https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest
: export GIT_DIR=/home/rpb/aosp/.repo/manifests.git
: git init 1>| 2>|
: git config --file /home/rpb/aosp/.repo/manifests.git/config --null --list 1>| 2>|
: git config --file /home/rpb/aosp/.repo/manifests.git/config --replace-all filter.lfs.smudge git-lfs smudge --skip -- %f 1>| 2>|
: git config --file /home/rpb/aosp/.repo/manifests.git/config --unset-all core.bare 1>| 2>|
: git config --file /home/rpb/aosp/.repo/manifests.git/config --replace-all remote.origin.url https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest 1>| 2>|
: git config --file /home/rpb/aosp/.repo/manifests.git/config --replace-all remote.origin.fetch +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* 1>| 2>|
: git fetch --progress origin --tags +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/* +refs/heads/master:refs/remotes/origin/master 1>| 2>|
^Caborted by user

A few different sync command styles from AOSP repo sync takes too long:

$ repo sync  -f --force-sync --no-clone-bundle --no-tags -j$(nproc --all)
$ repo sync -c --no-tags --no-clone-bundle -j2
$ repo sync -c --no-clone-bundle

where -j2 is number of parallel processes to use, the other parameters require some description.

Android for Enterprise

Android for enterprise in Platform Developers
Build for Enterprise - overview
Enterprise - Device Administration
Android Enterprise Recommended
Android Enterprise devices and service providers
DevicePolicyManager - in developers

Sensors - Some IR Array Sensors

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 17:13:45 +0000

Melexis at Mouser
Melexis MLX90640 Far Infrared Thermal Sensor is a fully calibrated 32 x 24 pixel thermal IR array in a compact
Excelitas CoolEYE IR Imagers
AMG88x3,4 Grid-EYE® Sensor Datasheet
16 x 4 Infra-Red Array by McLaren Technologies

EspressoBin First Boot

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 19:49:10 +0000

2023/06/23 - espressobin v5 notes has updated installation instructions for the recent iteration of operating system

2018/11/09 - Three ports, even though they are labelled as wan, lan0, and lan1, all three exist on the same Topaz switch. Layer 3 functions on each port will probably work, but trying to make something like Open vSwitch handle packet switching between ports will not work (unless the hardware offload works, which I doubt). The Topaz switch takes care of all mac-learning and line forwarding. The three ports are not independent of each other.

2019/01/08 - I believe the Esspressobin has a Marvell® Link Street®-88E6341 switch. The switch has a Linux DSA configuration. This means that the Linux IPRoute2 utilities shouild be able to set VLAN parameters for each port. By setting each port to different VLAN, or set of VLANS, then all traffic should be forwarded to the CPU for routing/switching. If using open vswitch, ingress/egress vlans can be remapped to a common bridge if so desired.

Back to the original article:

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

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.

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:

P9 Header		P8 Header
left column	right column	left column	right column
20: 477 (default 1.8V) 24: 494 (default 1.8V) 26: 495 (default 1.8V) 28: 493 (default 1.8V)	15: 484 (default 0.8V) 19: 476 (default 1.8V) 23: 485 (default 0.8V) 25: 486 (default 0.8V) 35: 481 (default 1.8V) 37: 482 (default 0.8V) 39: 483 (default 0.8V) 41: 491 (default 1.8V)	6: 504 (default 1.8V) 20: 507 (default 1.8V) 22: 506 (default 1.8V)	5: 503 (default 1.8V) 7: 492 (default 1.8V) 23: 505 (default 1.8V)

Electronics For Embedded Systems

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sun, 02 Sep 2018 20:07:31 +0000

Symmetry Electronics has Powered Equipment POE modules by SilverTel

Physical Network Chips

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 21:31:09 +0000

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

Interesting Networking Boards

nospam@example.com (Raymond P. Burkholder) — Sun, 19 Aug 2018 00:23:57 +0000

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.
PC Engines - APU2 board with four ports and wifi/lte. And in the $100 - $200 price 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
CorpShadow BizStore - selling PCEngines network boards, among other things.

Embedded systems reviews:

Linux Gizmos
CNXSoft – Embedded Systems News

Embedded Linux Wiki

search engines for electronic parts

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

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

2018/10/20

PC Engines - an international dealer network, boards with 1, 2, 3, 4 ethernet ports
board db - SoC search engine

2018/12/24 - not networking, but clustering - need to find a multiport switch

Pine64

2019/03/18 - switch chips (but looking for openflow or xdp hardware off-loading)

MicroChip Ethernet Switches - KSZ series with IEEE 1588v2 PTP
Silicon Labs PoE+ Devices
Micro Semi Ethernet Solutions as well as PoE

2019/06/25 - Protection Systems

OPNsense - 'BSD solution, fork of pfsense - A good firewall for a small network - installation notes.

2020/01/10 - HoneyComb LX2K - is a robust embedded Mini ITX platform designed for the COM Express type 7 form factor, features an array of 4 x 10GbE SFP+ connectors and 1 x 1GbE RJ45 port, based on NXP’s outstanding 16 core LX2160A Arm Cortex A72 (2GHz) offering up to 64GB DDR4 (dual channel) and up to 40GbE. Debian bug #948576: linux: please enable support for the layerscape SoCs and the Honeycomb workstation board