hi friends - just getting around to taking a deep dive on my TP2...and im sorry to say that the BMC really disappoints. heres are some notes: 1) settings dont persist. im trying to use an LTE modem but the USB seems to get assigned to node 1 on boot, which kicks off the modem. basically need to boot, assign USB to some other node, reboot, and then use the modem 2. no way to set default states. for my use case, i need the unit to boot nodes when power is applied...but in the current config the BMC needs to boot (slloooowww) and then i have to come back and hit the power button 3. tpi command cant address individual nodes for power on / off 4. BMC takes longer to boot than the compute modules 5. BMC is a vector for malware / other attacks...also it seems to be scripted to check for internet connectivity on boot...why!? 6. rebooting BMC also powers off all nodes i see the potential for a linux BMC - but i really miss the simple micro controller of the tp1 that delivered these features on day 1. i feel like this is a solution to a problem we didnt have. fwiw i did try and script the tpi command through init.d as suggested elsewhere in the forum but it just didnt work for me. 🤷‍♂️

The firmware is pretty much at works now. The team has hired the devs to start working on much better firmware. The current one is what we call an alpha

sure....but if its the mod to S99hello it didn't work for me :/ i coud get it to echo to a file to make sure it was firing off...but no joy with TPI

A good start might be: https://discord.com/channels/754950670175436841/754950670175436848/1099879646096531526 - multiple people confirmed this working

yup, thats the one i followed. it works if i do something like echo > /root/test but no joy with the tpi command

But this is also your design choice. You can use a Micro USB cable and

adb

or USB to UART and log in to the BMC this way (so these are 2 additional possibilities)

sure, but then you need some out of band host

I'm not fully sure about your network setup

...? node 1 is providing DHCP

Why are you using Node 1 for DHCP?

no

Cellular?

yup

Well, ideally, how would you like it to work?

LTE is my WAN to node 1, node 2-4 and anything on ethernet route through node 1

OK, now I see where your issue is

its just a looooot of steps to boot...and theres no chance i can rely on power recovery

The script from above must work. If it does not, you're likely doing something incorrectly

...it doesnt 🙂

Yeah, I get it

i wonder if theres some dependence on network being up?

I mean I understand it does not for you, but I don't know the reason. In general it should since this is how things work there 🙂

youd think it would be using localhost...which shoullld be up

I think someone made a PR to the CE (community edition) of the firmware fixing this, but I did not merge it yet

word

OK, for now this was just an ability to turn the nodes on and off individually: https://github.com/daniel-kukiela/turing-pi-2-community-edition-firmware/pull/2

i have a feeling there some dependcy with tpi thats broken in my use case

I think it'd work better with static IPs for now

ill give it a whack

And all the things you mentioned, they'll be fixed in the firmware with time

...i want to believe... 🛸

I mean I can assure you. I know how serious the team and the dev are about the firmware

you rolled CE, right?

Correct

maybe we can chat offline about how you got buildroot working

The instruction list on my GH page is exactly what I'm using. I'm running this on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS running in a VMWare Player

ah swell! mind sharing a link?

A link to what exactly?

i know the offical wiki steps dont work out of the box, so any tips are deeply appreciated

🙏

The development of the CE is temporarily paused because of some bigger changes going to the official firmware and I'll re-fork it to the new official firmware repo and keep it close to the official firmware so both firmwares can benefit form each other and be easier to switch between them.

swell and no stress

One some things are clear, the development will re-start again 🙂

appreciate your contributions!

i just want to get it rolling so i can get some personal debug tools, etc in to help me tune my use case...and those may turn into PRs

There's not much space left for additional binaries, just a few MBs

been doing it on tp1 for two years with oddles of success

The CE will move the root onto the SD card to make all the space you need for tinkering

hopefully tcpdump and screen at minimum dont break the bank

yeah, this is frequently asked feature and we're not yet sure if can be done. Is on the list, tho

im in docker, so i also had to install rsync, bc, file, wget, and cpio...but build root is building 🙂 thanks again!

Could you share your setup to https://discord.com/channels/754950670175436841/1054931312298971156 ?

ja will do when i have a moment