BeagleBone Black

By Duane Ellis

Contributor from Texas Instruments

OpenThread Border Router (OTBR) provides support for the BeagleBone Black (BBB) platform.

Hardware requirements:

• External 5V AC adapter for power
• An 8 GB or larger microSD card ("SD card" in this guide)
• A supported OpenThread platform (such as the TI CC2652) for Thread network connectivity in an RCP design

To use BBB with OTBR:

1. Download firmware and write the image to the SD card.
2. Boot BBB from the SD card.
3. Expand the SD card image to create enough space to build and install OTBR.
4. Build and install OTBR.

Note: The BBB does not have built-in Wi-Fi support, and cannot be used as a Wi-Fi Access Point.

Download firmware

1. Recommended firmware is Stretch for BeagleBone via microSD card:
   • Debian 9.1 2017-08-31 4GB SD LXQT
   • Filename: bone-debian-9.1-lxqt-armhf-2017-08-31-4gb.img.xz
2. Write the image to an 8 GB or larger SD card using a tool such as Etcher or Win32 Disk Imager.

Boot from the SD card

BBB can boot from either the on-board flash memory or the SD card. To use BBB with OTBR, you must boot from the SD card, as the on-board flash memory is not large enough to build and install OTBR.

To boot BBB from the SD card:

1. Insert the SD card.
2. Disconnect the power.
3. Press and hold the BOOT button.
4. Connect the power.
5. When the LEDs start to blink, release the BOOT button.

Important: By default, the BBB boots from the on-board flash memory. You must repeat this boot process every time the BBB is power cycled.

Expand the SD card image

Linux images for Beagle Bone Black (BBB) are purposely created small so that the image can be placed on any 4 GB SD card (or the on-board 4 GB Flash Memory), then expanded as needed. In total there is about 300 MB of free space. That may not be enough space to install and build the OpenThread Border Router using the BBB.

To solve this problem:

1. Write the Linux image to a larger SD card (at least 8 GB).
2. Expand the ~4 GB Linux partition of the image to slightly less than the size of the entire SD card. For example, if using an 8 GB SD card, expand it to ~7 GB. For a 16 GB card, expand it to ~15 GB.
3. Boot the BBB from the SD card.

Note: Expanding the image to a size slightly less than the size of the entire SD card leaves unused space at the end of the card. This resulting image can be read back, truncated to size, and used to create other images as needed. See Clone a re-configured SD card for more information.

SD card partitions

Data on an SD card is effectively a continuous array of data sectors. The sectors are numbered starting with 0 and ending at Sector N somewhere around XX GB, the exact last number is dependent upon the actual SD card.

Sector 0 always contains an MS-DOS Partition table. An MS-DOS partition table can hold between 1 and 4 partition entries. Each partition is a continuous series of sectors from X to Y somewhere within the bounds of the SD card. This repeats for each of the 4 possible partitions. Typically, partitions are located in order, with some number (0 to N) of unused sectors at the end. This "some number of unused sectors" (SOME_N) can be used to your advantage later.

Caution: The largest partition should be a Linux partition, and it must be the last partition on the SD card. This process does not work if the Linux partition is not the last partition.

When writing an image to an SD card, writing begins at Sector 0 and progresses to SOME_N, depending on the size of the image. What you cannot do is stretch the partition around the image—that's not possible. Instead, think of a picture frame around a canvas. The picture frame is the partition and the picture is the data. What you can do is replace the existing picture frame with a larger one, and expand the canvas within:

1. Delete the existing Linux partition without deleting the data. You have removed the picture frame, but the picture is still present on the canvas.
2. Create a new Linux partition that starts exactly where the old one started, but ends close to the end of the SD card. You have created a larger picture frame. The picture—the data—is still there on the canvas. It has not moved and was not corrupted by this operation.
3. Use a file system-specific tool to grow the file system within the bounds of the new partition. The canvas is stretched to fill the new, larger picture frame.

Step 1: Identify the current data partition

1. Boot the BBB from the SD Card.
2. Log in as root:

   sudo bash
   

3. Identify the SD card data partition:

   root@beaglebone:/home/debian# df -hT /
   Filesystem     Type  Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
   /dev/mmcblk0p1 ext4  3.3G  2.8G  295M  91% /
   

   The p1 suffix on the Filesystem field is the naming convention for Partition 1. The device itself is /dev/mmcblk0. In this example, only 295 MB are free. This is not enough space to build and install OTBR.
   
   Note: This example image has a single partition, other images may have additional partitions.

Step 2: Create the new, larger partition

1. Run fdisk on the device (SD card):

   root@beaglebone:/home/debian# fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
   
   Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.25.2).
   Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
   Be careful before using the write command.

2. Print the current partition table to find the starting sector:

   Command (m for help): p
   Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 7.2 GiB, 7744782336 bytes, 15126528 sectors
   Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   Disklabel type: dos
   Disk identifier: 0xca52207f
   
   Device         Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
   /dev/mmcblk0p1 *     8192 6963199 6955008  3.3G 83 Linux
   

   The value of the Start field is the starting sector for the target partition. It should be listed with the same partition name as in Step 1, with a Type of Linux. In the output above, the starting sector is 8192.
3. Delete the existing partition:

   Command (m for help): d
   Selected partition 1
   Partition 1 has been deleted.
   

4. Create the new partition, using a partition number of 1, the same starting sector of the previous partition (8192 in this example), and a size that's 1 GB less that the SD card size. For example, if using an 8 GB SD card, specify a size of +7G. For a 16 GB SD card, specify a size of +15GB.

   Command (m for help): n
   Partition type
   p   primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
   e   extended (container for logical partitions)
   Select (default p): p
   Partition number (1-4, default 1): 1
   First sector (2048-15126527, default 2048): 8192
   Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (8192-15126527, default 15126527): +7G
   
   Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 7 GiB.
   

5. Newer versions of fdisk prompt you to erase the old disk ext4 signature. Do not erase this signature. Otherwise, data is corrupted and the entire image becomes useless.

   Partition #1 contains a ext4 signature.
   
   Do you want to remove the signature [Y]/No: n
   

6. Write the new partition table to disk and quit fdisk:

   Command (m for help): w
   The partition table has been altered.
   Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
   Re-reading the partition table failed.: Device or resource busy
   
   The kernel still uses the old table. The new table will be used at the next
   reboot or after you run partprobe(8) or kpartx(8).
   

Step 3: Resize the file system

Use resize2fs to resize the image file system to the newly-expanded partition size. This tool expands or shrinks a file system.

1. Reboot the BBB.

   1. Some images may throw an fsck error upon reboot. fsck runs automatically on boot and checks for file system consistency.

      Loading, please wait...
      [    4.873285]  remoteproc1: failed to load am335x-pru0-fw
      [    4.918852]  remoteproc1: request_firmware failed: -2
      [    4.924046] pru-rproc 4a334000.pru0: rproc_boot failed
      [    5.052414]  remoteproc1: failed to load am335x-pru1-fw
      [    5.069652]  remoteproc1: request_firmware failed: -2
      [    5.074889] pru-rproc 4a338000.pru1: rproc_boot failed
      fsck: error 2 (No such file or directory) while executing fsck.ext4 for /dev/mmcblk0p1
      fsck exited with status code 8
      

   2. If you get this error, ignore it and wait about 20 seconds for the login prompt to appear.

2. Log in as root:

   sudo bash
   

3. Resize the file system for the target partition:

   root@beaglebone:/home/debian# resize2fs /dev/mmcblk0p1
   resize2fs 1.43 (17-May-2016)
   Filesystem at /dev/mmcblk0p1 is mounted on /; on-line resizing required
   old_desc_blocks = 1, new_desc_blocks = 1
   The filesystem on /dev/mmcblk0p1 is now 1835008 (4k) blocks long.
   

4. Reboot the BBB.

5. If you encountered the fsck issue, rebuild the initramfs, which is the initial RAM file system used when Linux boots.

   sudo update-initramfs -u
   update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.4.54-ti-r93
   

6. Reboot the BBB. It should boot without the fsck error.

Build and install OTBR

See Build and Configuration for instructions on building and installing OTBR.

Clone a re-configured SD card (optional)

An SD card re-configured with the resized Linux partition for BBB can be cloned for easier distribution.

The problem: Many GUI tools read the entire SD card—including the free area after the end of the partition and up until the last sector—and do not offer a way to read only a portion of the image. Each SD card has a different number of good and bad sectors, and the total byte size of the new SD card may be smaller (7.999 GB) than the resized image (8.0 GB). In this case, the resized image cannot fit on the new SD card.

The solution: Use a partition size that's slightly smaller than the full size of the SD card. The Expand the SD card image procedure uses +7G as the new partition size for an 8 GB SD card. This produces an image that is small enough to safely fit on any comparable 8 GB SD card (regardless of bad sectors) while still being large enough to build and install OTBR.

Use the ending sector of the data partition to calculate the entire byte size of the "data image" and truncate the IMG file at that byte offset. The simplest method is to use the truncate command. The truncate command is a standard Unix command line tool, and it is also present in the MS-Windows Git Bash distribution of MSYS.

1. As root, run fdisk on the device (SD card):

   root@beaglebone:/home/debian# fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
   
   Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.25.2).
   Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
   Be careful before using the write command.
   

2. Print the current partition table to find the ending sector:

   Command (m for help): p
   Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 7.2 GiB, 7744782336 bytes, 15126528 sectors
   Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
   Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
   Disklabel type: dos
   Disk identifier: 0xca52207f
   
   Device         Boot Start      End  Sectors Size Id Type
   /dev/mmcblk0p1       8192 14688255 14680064   7G 83 Linux
   

   In this example, the ending sector is 14688255.

3. Quit fdisk and calculate the total size of the image:

   1. The last partition ends at sector 14688255.
   2. Each sector is 512 bytes.
   3. The starting sector of an SD card is always 0. Add 1 byte to account for this sector.
   4. The total size is: (14688255 + 1) * 512 = 7520387072

4. Read the SD card image into an .img file, using a tool such as Etcher or Win32 Disk Imager.

5. Truncate the image file to the calculated total size:

   root@beaglebone:/home/debian# truncate -s 7520387072  myimage.img
   

6. Copy the truncated image file to other SD cards for distribution.