How do I boot Off External Media with CTI Jetson Carriers?

Introduction

The popular NVIDIA Jetson TX2 and AGX Xavier are populated with 32GB of internal eMMC to build the base image off of. With the release of the newer NVIDIA Jetson Nano and Xavier-NX products, the internal eMMC has been limited to only 16GB instead of the previous 32GB. When the full image is installed with the additional SDK components, the total size can be up to 14GB, leaving very little space left for general use and development. This procedure will allow the Jetson module to boot off external media to allow for larger storage sizes. 

Compatibility

Compatible Modules:

• Xavier NX, up until JetPack 4.4
• Nano, up until JetPack 4.4.1

Compatible CTI Carriers:

• Photon
• Quark
• Rudi-NX

Compatible Media Devices:

• NVME
• microSD card

*USB is not supported

Instructions

1. Install our BSP:

Instructions to install our BSP can be found here.

2. Download the script:

Download the following script into your Linux_for_Tegra folder.

create_sd_image

wget https://connecttech.com/ftp/dropbox/create_sd_image.sh 

3. Make the script Executable:

Add executable permissions to the script using the following command.

chmod +x create_sd_image.sh

4. Find media device name:

Plug in external media that you would like to use.

To find the device name there are a few solutions.

• Ubuntu has an application called ‘disks’ that can be used to find the device name.
• The following command can be used to list all storage device partitions.

sudo fdisk -l

The device name should be one of the following:

/dev/sdX         where X is [a-z]
/dev/mmcblkX         where X is [0-9]
/dev/nvmeX         where X is [0-9]

Please make sure you choose the correct device. If you choose the incorrect device, it will erase the entire filesystem and you will not be able to recover the data.

5. Run the script:

With the device name of the external media, run the script with the device name as the argument and follow the prompts. This will write the rootfs to the device so it will take some time.

sudo ./create_sd_image.sh /dev/<device name>

For example:
sudo ./create_sd_image.sh /dev/sda

6. Get system ready for flashing:

After this script completes successfully, remove your external media and plug it into your CTI carrier. With your external media in your CTI carrier, power the system on and put the system in forced recovery mode.

7. Flash the device:

Once your system is in forced recovery mode, use the following command to flash your device.

sudo ./flash.sh <carrier profile> external

For Example:
sudo ./flash.sh cti/Xavier-NX/photon external

8. Setting up the device:

For the compatible Jetpack versions, you can proceed with the system setup as normal.

In Jetpack 4.4.1+ there are currently issues where the default value for the partition size during the OEM configuration will not work. The default value should be the maximum size, but you need to enter “0” or else your system will fail to bootup. Entering 0 should still use the maximum size available.

For more information on booting off external media for your CTI Jetson carrier, please contact support@connecttech.com