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Jetson Cloning using L4T Backup and Restore

  • Updated

NVIDIA provides a helpful tool for cloning systems such that the entire system image is identical. The following method is compatible and tested with AGX Orin and Orin NX/Nano modules on JetPack 5 and JetPack 6+.

 

For L4T 35.4.1 and earlier, you may need to port the Linux_for_Tegra/tools/backup_restore scripts from a later L4T to add support for the -e flag, which allows cloning systems that are flashed to an external storage device.

 

For JetPack 6.0, you may need to update the nvbackup_partitions.sh file within Linux_for_Tegra/tools/backup_restore. The update involves replacing line 121:
(remove)   -  result="$( blkid "/dev/${1}" | awk '{ print $3 }' | sed -n 's|TYPE="\(.*\)"|\1|p' )"
(add)   +  result="$( blkid -o value -s TYPE "/dev/${1}" )"

 

Procedure

  1.  Connect the Jetson to be cloned to a Linux host in force recovery mode, with the same Linux_for_Tegra directory that you flashed from.

    $ cd <path>/Linux_for_Tegra/

  2. Run the l4t_backup_restore.sh script with -b to create the backup image. The board config should match what the board was originally flashed with (ex. cti/orin-agx/forge/base):

    # Image is on the eMMC
$ sudo ./tools/backup_restore/l4t_backup_restore.sh -b cti/<module>/<board>/<profile>

# Image is on an NVMe
$ sudo ./tools/backup_restore/l4t_backup_restore.sh -e nvme0n1 -b cti/<module>/<board>/<profile>

  3. The backup image will be stored in Linux_for_Tegra/tools/backup_restore/images:

    $ ls tools/backup_restore/images
gptbackup.img nvme0n1p10_bak.img nvme0n1p12_bak.img nvme0n1p14_bak.img nvme0n1p2_bak.img nvme0n1p4_bak.img nvme0n1p6_bak.img nvme0n1p8_bak.img nvpartitionmap.txt tmp
gptmbr.img nvme0n1p11_bak.img nvme0n1p13_bak.img nvme0n1p1.tar.gz nvme0n1p3_bak.img nvme0n1p5_bak.img nvme0n1p7_bak.img nvme0n1p9_bak.img QSPI0.img

  4. Connect the target unit to be flashed with the cloned image in force recovery mode and run l4t_backup_restore.sh with -r to restore the backup image stored in Linux_for_Tegra/tools/backup_restore/images:

    # Flash cloned image to the eMMC
$ sudo ./tools/backup_restore/l4t_backup_restore.sh -r cti/<module>/<board>/<profile>

# Flash cloned image to an NVMe
$ sudo ./tools/backup_restore/l4t_backup_restore.sh -e nvme0n1 -r cti/<module>/<board>/<profile

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