Move EMMC to NVMe boot: step 10 clarification

[robotsgotmeso]

I am following the instructions provided from this Nvidia document to boot my Jetson Xavier AGX from EMMC to NVMe:

https://docs.nvidia.com/jetson/l4t/Tegra%20Linux%20Driver%20Package%20Development%20Guide/flashing.html#wwpID0E0QN0HA

There are 10 steps listed to move the OS from EMMC to NVMe. I understand steps 1-9 completely and why I have to complete those steps. The last step, however, has me confused.

If I had to ask in one sentence what I would like to know, this is what I would ask:

What are the assumptions and steps required to satisfy the ability to complete step 10?

I did not see U-Boot anywhere in the changing boot process instructions until the very end.

I do not see any options to boot to the U-Boot command prompt when I flash the AGX board.

I would greatly appreciate it if somebody could clarify how to actually complete step 10.

I did see that the Nvidia documentation mentions U-Boot, but I don’t know how it fits in to this 10-step process.

Disclosure: I am using a carrier board from a different OEM than Nvidia. The flashing/booting process is the same, however, the debug serial port uses a different physical configuration from the Nvidia carrier board. I have to use a DB-9 serial to USB adapter to get a serial terminal. Also, the Jetson is running Nvidia L4T 32.4.3, in case that matters.

[WayneWWW]

Because that section is for below devices, and T186(TX2) and T210 (TX1/NANO) are using uboot, so the document mentions uboot. For xavier, there is no uboot but only cboot.

Jetson Xavier NX, Jetson Nano devices, Jetson AGX Xavier series, Jetson TX2 series, and Jetson TX1 devices

But the true problem to you is the cboot in 32.4.3 does not support NVMe at all. This document only applies to rel-32.6.1.

[robotsgotmeso]

Okay, so, to be clear:

You cannot “move” the OS (root partition) to the NVMe drive. You can only make the NVMe drive an external storage drive. Am I understanding you correctly? If that is the case, then what processes should I follow to move large software onto the NVMe drive? Here is a thought: Can I mount the “/home/” directory on the external drive? That way, software like docker containers and git repos and dot files (like .gradle or .ssh etc.) won’t be on the main OS partition. After the OS install, there are only about 23 gigabytes left on EMMC for development and production sources.

I see that docker can be moved to an external drive here:

How to tell Docker to store and run containers on an external drive

How do I run a Docker container on a USB drive?

Change Docker root directory /var/lib/docker to another location

How do I move a docker container's image to a persistent disk?

I also see that the directories like the home directory can be moved here:

Install /usr directory to attached nvme drive

if the concern is just to have /usr folder at nvme it can be done with putting corresponding instruction into the /etc/fstab file for permanent use or it could be mounted manually with mount command for one time use On the other hand, as it has been pointed out the entire OS could be moved to nvme for fastest boot. I hope nvidia within time will incorporate the option to boot directly from nvme/ flash nvme directly with flash.sh as for now we have to use the proposed by Jim solution

Mapping the home folder to a different location in fstab

I have multiple docker containers and several aptitude packages to install for production (and development) so any methods to move data off of EMMC are greatly appreciated. Are any these methods attached supported by the Xavier AGX?

[WayneWWW]

Check this page.

Boot from external drive

Hello, I understand that there are lots of people asking about how to boot from external drive (e.g. usb/NVMe drive). And also lots of methods all around this forum. Thanks for everyone to share their steps to achieve that. This post is just to give some basic concepts about how jetson platform boots from external drive. And answer some frequently-asked questions. I believe every method shared on this forum uses the same idea but just in different forms. 1. Jetson is not able to “fully” b…

[robotsgotmeso]

For our use case, we will just have to re-configure the software we are using to refer to the external storage. The main OS will not be able to leave the current partition given our hardware/software constraints.