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Plug a micro USB cable to the ‘console’ micro USB connector and run a terminal emulator like minicom or putty pointing to the USB tty running at 115200,8N1.

booting from SD-Card: configure the boot switch SW1 to be [1:off,2:on,3:on,4:on,5:nc]

Plug NVME M.2 or SATA drive to one of the ports.

Plug the micro SD into the HoneyComb / ClearFog CX mini ITX board and power it up; you should see the board booting. Stop the u-boot count down by clicking any key –

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To flash to eMMC run the following commands (it will wipre your data on the eMMC device). For this to work eMMC distroboot support is required (patch is here – https://github.com/SolidRun/lx2160a_build/commit/75891e5cb4d2171a2094c1e35087374b1f47acdd  )

load mmc 0:1 0xa4000000 ubuntu-core.img
mmc dev 1
mmc write 0xa4000000 0 0xd2000

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To flash to NVME M.2 run the following (it will wipe your data on the drive) –

load mmc 0:1 0xa4000000 ubuntu-core.img
mmc dev 1
mmc write 0xa4000000 0 0xd2000

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To flash the image into SATA drive run the following commands (it will wipe your data) –

load mmc 0:1 0xa4000000 ubuntu-core.img
nvme scan
nvme write 0xa4000000 0 0xd2000

Final stages

Boot the machine by running ‘boot’ in u-boot.

The following stages needs to be done in order to finalize the imaging :

1. Run ‘fdisk /dev/nvme0n1’ if using NVME M.2 or ‘fdisk /dev/sda’ if using a SATA drive or ‘fdisk /dev/mmcblk1’ if using eMMC.

2. Recreate the first partition by deleting it and then creating a new partition that starts at block 131072 and extends to the end of the drive (or less depending on your needs).

3. Write the new partition, when prompt about ‘Do you want to remove the signature?’ then answer with yes.

4. Run ‘resize2fs /dev/nvme0n1p1’ if using NVME M.2 or ‘resize2fs /dev/sda1’ if using a SATA drive or ‘resize2fs  /dev/mmcblk1p1’ if using eMMC.

5. In this stage the root partition should be big enough to start populating it; but first update the RTC clock.

6. Connect the RJ45 to your network with internet access (and DHCP server); and then run ‘dhclient’

7. Update the RTC clock by running ‘ntpdate http://pool.ntp.org ’ and then ‘hwclock -w’.

8. Run ‘apt update’ and then populate the root filesystem as you wish

Using the built-in NICs

In case of SERDES configuration of 8 (default build) then dpmac.3 to dpmac.10 can be exposed. Those are 8x10Gbps interfaces where first 4 dpmac.3 to dpmac.6 can be obtained by using a 40G to 4x10G splitter cable (or so called octopus cable) when connected to HoneyComb / ClearFog CX QSFP28 port and dpmac.7 to dpmac.10 are on the 2×2 SFP+ connector cage.

For example – dpmac.9 is the SFP+ port on the upper row and left towards PCB edge –

ls-addni dpmac.9

and then a new ethX ethernet interface is attached to the kernel.

For SERDES SD1 config 20 which is dual 40G, then dpmac.1 and dpmac.2 are to be used where dpmac.1 is achieved directly by using the QSFP port and dpmac.2 by using an 40G to 4x10G splitter cable where the splitter cable is connected to HoneyComb.

For different dpmac configuration please refer to the reference manual on different SERDES configuration and how it’s map to the different dpmacs.

Packet Generator using DPDK

Following is an example instructions that demonstrates using the DPDK framework that is built in the lx2160a_build project under build/dpdk/ directory –

1. Make sure that the kernel is booted with the following variables in the command line –

   Code Block
   language bash
   default_hugepagesz=1024m hugepagesz=1024m hugepages=2 isolcpus=1-15 iommu.passthrough=1

   If using the above installation of Ubuntu then the /extlinux/extlinux.conf file should look as follows (the default installation with the addition of isolcpus=1-15 iommu.passthrough=1) –

   Code Block
   TIMEOUT 30 DEFAULT linux MENU TITLE linux-lx2160a boot options LABEL primary MENU LABEL primary kernel LINUX /boot/Image FDT /boot/fsl-lx2160a-cex7.dtb APPEND console=ttyAMA0,115200 earlycon=pl011,mmio32,0x21c0000 default_hugepagesz=1024m hugepagesz=1024m hugepages=2 isolcpus=1-15 iommu.passthrough=1 pci=pcie_bus_perf root=PARTUUID=30303030-01 rw rootwait

2. From build/dpdk directory under the lx2160a_build project, search for dynamic_dpl.sh and testpmd files and copy them over to the LX2160A Ubuntu root filesystem

3. Run the following that will generate 10Gbps traffic on dpmac.10 using only a single core. Can be used to generate traffic on dpmac.1 and other interfaces –

dynamic_dpl.sh dpmac.10
export DPRC=dprc.2
testpmd -c 0x3 -n 1 -- --txd=1500 --txpkts=1500 --tx-first --auto-start --forward-mode=txonly --stats-period=10

Notice that DPRC variable in this case holds the output of dynamic_dpl.sh

An alternative way to run testpmd in interactive mode is as follows –

dynamic_dpl.sh dpmac.10
export DPRC=dprc.2
<span style="font-size: 11.2px;">testpmd -c 0x3 -n 1 -- --txd=1500 -i
set fwd txonly
set txpkts 1500
show port info 0
show config txpkts
start
</span>

GPUs

GPUs that were briefly tested –

1. AMD RX550 2GB – requires installing the kernel modules first and then ‘linux-firmware’ package. Running ‘glmark2’ under X results 4633 and ‘glmark2 –fullscreen’ results 3983.

2. GeForce GTX 1050 2GT OCV1 – requires instsalling the kernel modules (simply untar on the root filesystem root directory) then the GPU is recognized and initialized. windowed glmark2 result is 150; which is very poor and most probably related to the OSS drivers (no binary drivers for ARM as for the time writing this article).

Tips

1. sshd is disabled by default for root access. Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and set ‘PermitRootLogin yes’

2. ssh to the machine might take long time after boot. To accelerate that install ‘rng-tools’ where it’s main daemon increases the kernel’s entropy and accelerates random number key generation (which used by libssl and sshd afterwards).

Example to install Gentoo from the Ubuntu

Gentoo is a free and open-source distribution with a rolling-release model.
The bootloader and kernel provided are recent enough to install Gentoo from the eMMC Ubuntu to the NVMe or SATA device.

 apt install btrfs-progs
 mkfs.btrfs /dev/nvme0n1p1
 mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt
 cd /mnt
# change 20200609 with what's available here http://distfiles.gentoo.org/experimental/arm64/
 wget http://distfiles.gentoo.org/experimental/arm64/stage3-arm64-20200609.tar.bz2
 mount --rbind /dev dev
 mount --make-rslave dev
 mount -t proc /proc proc
 mount --rbind /sys sys
 mount --make-rslave sys
 mount --rbind /tmp tmp
 cp /etc/resolv.conf etc
 chroot . /bin/bash
 env-update && . /etc/profile
 emerge-webrsync
 emerge superadduser openssh vim
# Set the root password
 passwd 
# enable root login
 vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config 
# or create your user
 superadduser your_user
 ln -s /etc/init.d/net.{lo,eth0}
 rc-update add sshd default
 reboot