I have below questions with respect to Jetson Nano B01 production board.
Does it support the overlay file system?
When the sudden power goes off, can boot file system get corrupted often?
Do I need to put the Jetson device into UPS power? what NVIDIA advice on this?
This is absolutely required because Jetson nano is being deployed on real embedded systems, where the possibility of sudden power outage exists very truly. We have been hit and have had to reflash the whole system. Compare this to the more mature platforms like Pi, where this option exists and has been brought in exactly for this reason. It is time Jeson nano folks take their own platform seriously and fix this issue,it is no longer a toy to play with for learning or for fun now.
Just to complete: This fix needs to be in the Jetpack release and has nothing to do with the board version. This enablement of the OverlayFS has be in the Kernel. Clearly this is a “To do” item for the Jetpack developers.
As @sudhir.brahma mentions, a lot of people have worked on OverlayFS (adding this to the kernel is not difficult, but using it involves boot, and so I don’t know if anyone has actually been successful at using this yet). Because OverlayFS depends on boot software it becomes difficult.
Assuming there is a power loss, then yes, filesystems can be corrupted. A Jetson is small, but it is still a full computer system. Imagine you are working on your PC and pull the power cord to shut it off: The same things going wrong with that can go wrong with the Jetson, e.g., power surges can destroy hardware, and power loss can lose parts of the filesytem. The filesystem has a journal, which means to some extent unwritten changes can be reverted and not cause corruption, but content will be lost. Should the loss exceed the size of the journal, then recovery won’t be possible without manual intervention, and manual intervention does not always work. An UPS would be of benefit.
Thank you @linuxdev . Yes I understand adding overlayFS officially at Jetpack may need the chaps there to work on it. Bottom line is if this platform is to be taken seriously (Like the Pi is today), this is a MUST have feature. Reason: It is finding its way in REAL embedded projects where downtime is a NO, due to file system corruption and “power-yank off” is a reality. Pi has enabled it and I dont see any reason why Jetpack cannot. It is part of the maturity process and has to be done .
I agree with you. Some progress is being made in newer Jetsons since the newer Jetsons now use UEFI boot (which is a more object-oriented and standardized boot, versus custom boot without abstraction). Unfortunately, this is only in L4T R34.x+ (JetPack 5.x+), and anything earlier than Xavier reached end-of-life (so far as new features go) and stopped with R32.x or earlier (JetPack 4.x), so Nano won’t get UEFI. UEFI is a wonderful design should you ever decide to switch to either Xavier or Orin (sorry, definitely more expensive, but definitely worth it in many ways if you have the budget for it).
I suspect that the issues of OverlayFS could be solved in an initrd, but I don’t know yet if anyone succeeded.
Plz dont mark this as being “solved” . The issue is NOT SOLVED YET plz…I am amazed someone marked it as “solved”. There are suggestions and thoughts and probable directions ONLY. I am still waiting for a functional solution that can be used. Plz see how it is implemented in Pi OS. That is how it ought to be if u want us to take this Nano hardware seriously in real solutions.
I personally don’t have a solution. I can suggest though that OverlayFS is probably something worth NVIDIA’s time to provide a working implementation example.
What amazes me is the Jetson guys managing this forum are just too eager to close this discussion, even when they know the solution is NOT yet there.
To me it seems like the Jetpack itself and all of such efforts are slated for closure…its a shame considering that people are planning to put this (especially the Jetson nano) into real life solutions…they let go and let it roll down the hill…much like the mythological Greek king Sisyphus, who was forever destined to push a large rock up on a steep hill, only to find it rolling back on nearing the top. Ever since, he has been known for pushing the rock tirelessly till eternity.
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