Alternative flashing method for AGX Xavier on Jetpack 4.6

Robotics & Edge Computing Jetson & Embedded Systems Jetson AGX Xavier
1

Hello,

On the release notes of Jetpack 4.6 a new flashing tool was documented here: https://docs.nvidia.com/jetson/l4t/index.html#page/Tegra%20Linux%20Driver%20Package%20Development%20Guide/flashing.html#wwpID0E0PI0HA

It gives instructions to flash to USB external drives, but it seems that it will only work to boot from that drive and not to update the system. Is there any alternative to update the system from USB?

I am working on a project that requires to update the whole system image from the Jetson Xavier with the following conditions:

1- No internet connection (therefore OTA update is not an option)
2- No host machines available (therefore massflash or normal flash is not an option)
3- Updates to device tree might be required

I am aware kernel Image and modules can be simply copied to the target device, but since we need to update the device tree that requires flashing.

Is there a method to update kernel, device-tree and modules directly from an USB drive?

Regards,
Fabian
www.ridgerun.com

3

No, even the latest initrd flash method requires you to use the host…

4

Understood, thanks for the fast answer.

Is a host-less flash method in your roadmap? Will it be deployed soon?
We have some customers asking for it.

Regards,
Fabian
www.ridgerun.com

5

Actually, we already have BUP update mechanism here. That is how OTA updates the partitions.

You can use that to update the partitions with the pre-built BUP file you prepared. No internet is required.

6

Thanks, I will check it out.

Regards,
Fabian
www.ridgerun.com