SoPine SPI booting

[aww]

Let me know if you get that built. I have switched to working on other projects in my spare time as I am a _bit_ frustrated with the Sopine clusterboard and how much it is a pain to do anything.

[pfeerick]

Let me know if you get that built. I have switched to working on other projects in my spare time as I am a _bit_ frustrated with the Sopine clusterboard and how much it is a pain to do anything.

Same here... it's sat on the other side of the room in disgrace until either the issue is resolved or I have time to poke around and hopefully get it working... I don't have enough spare time to waste on it atm

[jcw]

I've a working v2019.01 u-boot with SPI and network here if anyone is interested: https://github.com/janwillies/u-boot/rel...19.01-cb-1

[jgullickson]

I've a working v2019.01 u-boot with SPI and network here if anyone is interested: https://github.com/janwillies/u-boot/rel...19.01-cb-1

Thank-you for this!

Is there a good reference for setting up the BOOTP server side of this?  I'm pretty green with netboot and looking for a place to get started.

[lbruno]

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PXE#DHCP_+_TFTP is one way, but that's the mechanism that uses TFTP.

I see @aww mentioning iSCSI in comment #15, of which I haven't found much docs myself. I've been reading https://www.xypron.de/projects/u-boot/iscsi.html.

[Pine]

I've a working v2019.01 u-boot with SPI and network here if anyone is interested: https://github.com/janwillies/u-boot/rel...19.01-cb-1

Thank-you for this!

Is there a good reference for setting up the BOOTP server side of this?  I'm pretty green with netboot and looking for a place to get started.

Did you succeed in BOOTP/PXE booting your SOPINEs?

[Pine]

Has anyone built an iPXE chainloading binary for the SOPINE? I'm using a Docker repo to perform the build on the mainline iPXE repo, but serial console is unresponsive when I try to enable it. Has anyone had success?

Ref: https://github.com/omi-uulm/arm64_ipxe_netboot

[lbruno]

Hey @Pine I was indeed successful. Have only tested with a single Sopine but I have stored both U-Boot and iPXE in the SPI flash, and I have chainloaded iPXE. I've then tried to chain http://boot.alpinelinux.org/boot.ipxe (without HTTPS*), but failed to boot: requests are going over the wire though, and kernel images are being downloaded. Something else failed in the boot process.

When you say "unresponsive", what do you mean? There's a well-known issue with iPXE and U-Boot, in which iPXE tries to put the processor to sleep -- and relies on an interrupt to wake it up as needed (2sec timer, or keyboard input) -- but U-Boot has no interrupt support, so the processor never wakes up again. If you see the iPXE banner, and then it's unresponsive, then that's probably the bug. To fix, search for NAP_NULL in this page and follow the instructions:

https://u-boot.readthedocs.io/en/v2020.1....html#ipxe

If it's something else, you'll need to be more precise -- I'm not sure I understood what problem you are seeing.

* due to imcompatible crypto between iPXE and that website's config -- whole different story.

[Pine]

Hey @Pine I was indeed successful. Have only tested with a single Sopine but I have stored both U-Boot and iPXE in the SPI flash, and I have chainloaded iPXE. I've then tried to chain http://boot.alpinelinux.org/boot.ipxe (without HTTPS*), but failed to boot: requests are going over the wire though, and kernel images are being downloaded. Something else failed in the boot process.

When you say "unresponsive", what do you mean? There's a well-known issue with iPXE and U-Boot, in which iPXE tries to put the processor to sleep -- and relies on an interrupt to wake it up as needed (2sec timer, or keyboard input) -- but U-Boot has no interrupt support, so the processor never wakes up again. If you see the iPXE banner, and then it's unresponsive, then that's probably the bug. To fix, search for NAP_NULL in this page and follow the instructions:

https://u-boot.readthedocs.io/en/v2020.1....html#ipxe

If it's something else, you'll need to be more precise -- I'm not sure I understood what problem you are seeing.

* due to imcompatible crypto between iPXE and that website's config -- whole different story.

That NAP_NULL was just the thread I needed to pull on. All is well now. Thanks again, my friend.

[poVoq]

https://pine64.com/product/sopine-a64-compute-module/

Says now: "Note: SOPINE module no longer includes SPI Flash chip"

So if I buy a new Sopine these days I can no longer netboot it without any additional storage?

That is very unfortunate 

Is there some easy way to figure out if a used Sopine still has SPI?