[MinnowBoard] Headless Operation

Sun Nov 27 19:56:43 UTC 2016

Hello John,

I've looked into all of these suggestions and I don't think any of them
will work. Here's why:

> 1) jump into the firmware (type exit at the shell prompt) and change
> the default boot order:
> 	http://wiki.minnowboard.org/UEFI#Change_Boot_Order

This isn't a boot order problem. Even booting manually fails when
auto-booting fails. Also, Ubuntu is already the first boot option.

> 2) add a startup.nsh to your UEFI partition that will default to
> running the appropriate boot program on the UEFI partition (like
> bootx64.efi) in the off chance it falls through to the boot shell.

When I get "No mapping found.", the startup.nsh also is not found.

If I reset the system at this point using the 'reset' command, it boots
as expected. I tried to find a reset boot entry, but I didn't have any
luck with that. I also tried to see if I could save a startup.nsh in
some CMOS storage, but that does not appear to be an option.

I'm pretty sure this is either a hardware or firmware error. I'm not
really sure it is worth my time to try various older firmware versions
to see if that fixes my issue. I could probably mitigate most of this by
purchasing a UPS so the device will not randomly power off.
Alternatively, I could also just buy a device which is actually intended
to be run headless.

I'm still open to new troubleshooting suggestions if anyone has them.

Thanks,
eviljoel

On 11/26/2016 09:50 PM, John 'Warthog9' Hawley wrote:
> Basically there's two ways to solve what you are hitting (which is
> basically that your UEFI on your board doesn't know where to boot to).
> 
> 1) jump into the firmware (type exit at the shell prompt) and change the
> default boot order:
> 	http://wiki.minnowboard.org/UEFI#Change_Boot_Order
> 
> 2) add a startup.nsh to your UEFI partition that will default to running
> the appropriate boot program on the UEFI partition (like bootx64.efi) in
> the off chance it falls through to the boot shell.
> 
> You could manually boot it as well, but that doesn't seem useful to you.
> 
> Slightly more detailed, the reason this happens, is by changing the
> devices present can, possibly, confuse the UEFI system on what it should
> boot, so it defaults to going to the shell.
> 
> - John
> 
> On 11/26/2016 07:16 PM, eviljoel wrote:
>> Hello Jon and Michael,
>>
>> OK, I kinda figured it out (but not completely). It wasn't the display
>> that was keeping the Minnowboard from booting, it was the lack of a
>> keyboard. More specifically, the lack of a device in the USB 2.0 slot. I
>> suspect this is related to the fact that I am booting the operating
>> system from the USB 3.0 slot. Having no device in the USB 2.0 slot
>> causes the boot loader to not find the boot device.
>>
>> To get around this issue, I'm just going to plug an old flash drive into
>> the USB 2.0 slot when I'm not using the keyboard. That said, if anyone
>> has any ideas about how to get the firmware to boot the USB 3.0 device
>> without a USB 2.0 device, I'm all ears.
>>
>> Unfortunately, even with the flash drive in the USB 2.0 slot, I'm having
>> a little trouble getting the device to boot consistently. I've had it
>> abruptly stop about 3 times with the following screen (over serial):
>>
>> UEFI Interactive Shell v2.1
>> EDK II
>> UEFI v2.50 (EDK II, 0x00010000)
>> Mapping table
>>      BLK0: Alias(s):
>>           PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(0x1,0x0)
>> Press ESC in 1 seconds to skip startup.nsh or any other key to continue.
>> Shell>
>>
>> I also sometimes get this screen:
>>
>> UEFI Interactive Shell v2.1
>> EDK II
>> UEFI v2.50 (EDK II, 0x00010000)
>> map: No mapping found.
>> Press ESC in 1 seconds to skip startup.nsh or any other key to continue.
>> Shell>
>>
>> I tend to get this "error" when the devices has been powered off for
>> several minutes. I'm currently researching UEFI boot options to see if
>> there is something I can do. Unfortunately, I'm finding that UEFI
>> documentation is hard to come by.
>>
>> BTW, thanks for the serial port tip. That helped a lot.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> eviljoel
>>
>> On 11/26/2016 01:04 AM, eviljoel wrote:
>>> Hello John,
>>>
>>> Good to hear someone has it working headlessly. Can you tell me the
>>> version of Linux you are using? Can you also tell me your firmware version?
>>>
>>> I'm trying to run it headless over SSH. If I run into problems, I don't
>>> mind plugging it into a monitor from time to time, but generally I was
>>> hoping to run it without a monitor.
>>>
>>> I'll likely try using the serial console later this weekend. It will be
>>> a good way to see if Linux is even starting.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> eviljoel
>>>
>>> On 11/25/2016 11:27 PM, John 'Warthog9' Hawley wrote:
>>>> On 11/25/2016 08:18 PM, eviljoel wrote:
>>>>> Greetings,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've been trying to run the Minnowboard headless with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
>>>>> with the latest Minnowboard firmware. On subsequent boots with a monitor
>>>>> plugged in, the system logs record no boot attempts while headless. It
>>>>> appears that the Minnowboard is not booting Ubuntu or Ubuntu does not
>>>>> get far enough into the boot process to start logging. Plugging in the
>>>>> monitor after the Minnowboard has been powered on does not result in any
>>>>> video output. I'm starting to think the Minnowboard is not capable of
>>>>> headless operation.
>>>>>
>>>>> So what's the story? Is the Minnowboard capable of headless operation?
>>>>> So far, Google hasn't turned up anything but I can't imagine I'm the
>>>>> first one to run into this issue.
>>>>
>>>> I run the board headless, using only the serial console, quite a bit -
>>>> so it is possible.  Not sure how you are trying to run headless, but the
>>>> firmware will output information to the serial port, and assuming you
>>>> have your Linux distro setup correctly (usually by adding
>>>> `console=ttyS0,115200 console=tty0` to your kernel boot parameters, but
>>>> I'm unfamiliar with how Ubuntu does it for sure), you should get serial
>>>> console data out.  Not entirely sure what you are seeing, but if you are
>>>> running headless can you confirm your setup with your serial port?
>>>>
>>>> - John 'Warthog9' Hawley
>>>>
>>>
>>
> 

-- 
Let me teach you encrypted e-mail. eviljoel's PGP fingerprint:
A2BE 2D12 24D1 67CA 8830  DDE7 DFB3 676B 196D 6430

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 836 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.elinux.org/pipermail/elinux-minnowboard/attachments/20161127/61a5abe7/attachment.asc>