FAQ

My board only has an SD card

We boot the system using an SD card only. However, we need to merge firmware and root file system images into a single image and store it into the SD card. Luckily we provide a script for that:

$ gunzip <firmware image>.wic.gz
$ wget https://git.linaro.org/ci/job/configs.git/plain/ledge/ts/scripts/ts-merge-images.sh
$ chmod +x ts-merge-images.sh
$ ./ts-merge-images.sh <firmware image>.wic trs-image-trs-qemuarm64.wic

Verify the images are programmed correctly. Note that only “ESP” and “Root Filesystem” will be identical on your board. The number and nature of the preceding are vendor specific.

Here is an example from a RockPI4b board:

$ fdisk -l ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic
Disk ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic: 2.28 GiB, 2443199488 bytes, 4771874 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: gpt
Disk identifier: B9476BE0-8456-4A3B-98D4-75A91739819F

Device                     Start     End Sectors  Size Type
ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic1     64    8063    8000  3.9M unknown
ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic2   8064    8191     128   64K Microsoft basic data
ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic3   8192   16383    8192    4M Microsoft basic data
ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic4  16384   24575    8192    4M unknown
ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic5  24576   32767    8192    4M Microsoft basic data
ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic6  32768  557055  524288  256M EFI System           <------- ESP
ts-firmware-rockpi4b.wic7 557056 4751359 4194304    2G Linux filesystem     <------- Root Filesystem

Q: How to increase OP-TEE core log level?

Add CFG_TEE_CORE_LOG_LEVEL=3 to EXTRA_OEMAKE in meta-ts/meta-arm/recipes-security/optee/optee-os.inc and rebuild (kas build…)

Q: How to modify optee-os sources locally and rebuild?

  1. Remove line INHERIT += rm_work in ci/base.yml

  2. Run $ kas shell ci/rockpi4b.yml

    1. bitbake -c cleansstate optee-os # WARNING removes source in work directory

    2. $ bitbake optee-os

    3. Edit source files in build/tmp/work/rockpi4b-poky-linux/optee-os/<ver>/git $ bitbake -c compile -f optee-os # mandatory before kas build below it seems

  3. Exit kas shell and run $ kas build ci/rockpi4b.yml

Q: Why is the internal eMMC not detected?

Try a different USB-C power supply. We use a Dell one. I have another no-name PS supposedly rated PD 100W which doesn’t work reliably.

Q: How to skip initramfs and boot to rootfs directly?

$ efidebug boot add -b 1 TRS usb 0:1 Image -s 'panic=60 root=/dev/sda2 rootwait'; efidebug boot order 1; bootefi bootmgr

Q: On boot, the kernel logs warnings about GPT, how to fix them?

They are harmless, they are caused by the fact that the actual device (USB key) is larger than the image copied to it. The warnings can be removed by running gparted /dev/sdaX and accepting the prompt to fix the GPT info.

Q: On boot, the kernel logs “EXT4 … recovery complete”, what’s wrong?

Usually harmless. The board was not powered off or rebooted cleanly. Use systemctl halt or systemctl reboot.

Q: symbolize.py for TAs (on e.g., the fTPM TA) prints DWARF warnings and no source file/line info.

The default toolchains (aarch64-linux-gnu-*) is too old (7.2). Put a more recent one in your PATH before invoking symbolize.py (Note: some source/file line info are still missing, could be due to build flags)

Q: My board randomly hangs or crashes under system load.

Some boards are very picky about their PSU. Ensure you are using an official PSU. E.g for the RockPI4b https://shop.allnetchina.cn/products/power-supply-adapter-qc-3-0-for-rock-pi-4

Do not use a 5v only USB-C PSU (such as a USB port on your laptop), as you will hit random board stability issues.