EFlasher
Contents
1 Introduction to eFlasher
The eFlasher (eMMC-flasher) utility is released by FriendlyElec for users to install an OS image on a FriendlyElec board's eMMC easily.
The eFlasher utility provides users with a GUI with multiple OS options.
The eFlasher utility has two versions: eflasher-gui and eflasher-console:
1) eflasher-gui: a GUI based eFlasher utility. When a board is connected to an LCD or HDMI monitor users can use this utility to install an OS easily;
2) eflasher-console: a commandline based eFlasher utility. When a board is connected to a serial terminal or logged in with SSH users can use it to install an OS;
2 Install eFlasher
- Step 1: download an eflasher installation package
Go to the wiki page of the nano board you bought and download an eflasher file named as :XXXX-eflasher-YYYYMMDD-full.img.7z(the "XXXX" is the board type for the board you bought and "YYYYMMDD" is the release date of that eflasher file)
This package contains all the image files released by FriendlyElec such as Debian, Android5, Android4.4 and Ubuntu core(different boards may be provided with different OS image files)
Download a XXXX-eflasher-YYYYMMDD-full.img.7z file to a PC host and make an installation SD card with a windows utility: win32diskimager.rar
- Step 2: make an installation SD card with eflasher
Extract the eflasher file and you will get an ".img" file.Insert an SD card(at least 8G) into a Windows PC and run the win32diskimager utility as administrator. On the utility's main window select your SD card's drive, the wanted image file and click on "write" to start flashing the SD card.
You can use "dd" under a Linux PC to flash this ".img" to your SD card too
- Step 3: Start eFlasher
Insert this SD card to your board, press and hold the "BOOT" button, power on your board.
3 GUI Based eFlasher
By default after eFlash is started the GUI based version will be started. If your board is connected to an LCD or HDMI monitor you will see the following screen:
Select your wanted OS to start installation.
4 Commandline Based eFlasher
If your board is not connected to any display device you can login your board via SSH and start the eflahser by running "eflasher". Here is what you expect to observe:
5 Automate OS Installation at System Startup
You can automate OS installation with eFlasher at system startup in three ways:
- No.1:on the GUI based eFlasher select your wanted OS and check the "Start automatically at startup" option on the "Ready to Go" window.
- No.2:mount an SD card to a Windows PC and create an "eflasher.conf" file with notepad on the FAT section of your SD card(or open an existing "eflasher.conf") and type the following lines if you want to install a Debian OS:
[General] autoStart=/mnt/sdcard/debian
The "autoStart" field specifies the path to your ROM. In this example the ROM is a Debian OS image file.
- No.3:after your board starts open a terminal and create or edit "/mnt/sdcard/eflasher.conf" and type the lines presented in No.2 .
6 eMMC Flash的备份和恢复
这个功能类拟于电脑上面的 ghost 软件，可以将整个 eMMC Flash 的数据备份到 U盘 或 移动硬盘，或者从 U盘 恢复系统到 eMMC Flash，恢复系统时，可以恢复到 同一个开发板，也可以恢复到 同型号同规格的其他开发板。
为产品量产提供的便利：
在一块开发板上做好定制，比如预装好软件和设置，然后备份一份出来，恢复到其他开发板上，以达到量产的目的，由于是对eMMC Flash进行祼读和祼写，所以支持包括 Android和Linux 在内的所有系统及数据。
功能要求：
此功能要求你有一个容易大过 eMMC Flash 大小的U盘，或者移动硬盘，并且里面没有重要的数据，最好事先格式化为exFat或者ntfs格式，在必要时，EFlasher可能会对你磁盘进行重新分区及格式化 （会事先询问）。
6.1 图形界面上执行备份和恢复
在 EFlasher 界面上点击 Backup and Restore 进入备份菜单，根据提示操作即可，如下图所示：
6.2 命令行进行备份和恢复
在命令行终端执行以下命令启动命令行EFlasher，命令行终端可以是ssh或者串口终端：
# eflasher然后你会看到如下功能菜单项：
---------------------------------------------------------------------- eflasher-console running on NanoPC-T3 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Select an OS to Install: 1) UbuntuCore arm64 with QtE Backup eMMC Flash to removable disk: bk) Start backup, use "nanopc-t3-emmc.raw" as the file name Restore eMMC flash from backup file: No backup file was found ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> Please choose (1/bk) : bk
根椐菜单项前面插号的指示， 输入bk并按回车启动备份，在命令行模式下，EFlasher会立即开始备份数据到U盘，存储为扩展名为raw的文件，如下图所示：
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Backing up eMMC to /mnt/udisk/nanopc-t3-emmc.raw ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Speed: 15.01 MB/s Remaining Time: 00:12:53 [===========_______________________________________] 22% ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >>>If you want to cancel, input "c" then press <Enter> key.
6.3 扩展功能
EFlasher允许你编写一些 Linux shell 脚本，来对 eMMC 的 boot分区或者根文件系统分区进行内容更改，比如：
1）增加个性化的开机LOGO
2）为板子分配静态的IP地址，或者MAC地址
3）通过网络更新数据，软件
4) 等等
EFlasher在完成对 eMMC 的恢复操作之后，自动执行你的脚本。
你的脚本需要放在一个单独的目录下，这个目录需要与备份文件同级，目录名称的命令规则是: 备份文件名+.d，例如 备份文件名是 xxxx.raw，则脚本目录名应为 xxxx.raw.d。
EFlasher 在默认情况下，会为你的备份文件生成一个清理脚本，其作用是对文件系统做一些常规的清理工作，例如清理 tmp 目录下的临时文件、var目录下的log等等。
你可以通过参考 EFlasher 生成的清理脚本来了解应该如何访问 eMMC 的boot分区和根分区。
root@NanoPC-T3:/mnt/udisk/nanopc-t3-emmc.raw.d# tree . |-- cleanup.sh `-- README.txt 0 directories, 2 files root@NanoPC-T3:/mnt/udisk/nanopc-t3-emmc.raw.d#
7 Make Your Own eFlasher
7.1 Manage Multiple OS Images with eFlasher
The eFlasher utility reads image files from the FAT section of an SD card. After an SD card is inserted to a Windows PC you can manage multiple OS images that exist in the SD card with eFlasher.
Under the FAT section of an SD card with multiple OS images each directory under the root directory contains an OS image. The name of such a directory should be named with letters or numbers
If the FAT section is not big enough to hold your multiple OS images you can store them in a USB drive with the same structure
For example there are four directories under the FAT section:
They stand for four OS:
Files under an OS directory:
Configuration File:
env.conf environmental variables for setting up uboot and kernel parameters info.conf system information:
title=Android 5 ---> OS name: Android 5
require-board=s5p4418 ---> SoC: S5P4418, options including S5P6818, H3, A64 etc
version=2016-11-17 ---> ROM's version number(or release date)
icon=androidos.png ---> icon
Here is a screenshot:
Image File:
2ndboot.bin Second Boot boot.img image file for boot section bootloader U-Boot cache.img image file for Android Cache section system.img image file for system section userdata.img image file for user data section partmap.txt description file for partition map
These image files by default are included in an eFlasher file. These files can be downloaded from a board's corresponding wiki site. Usually an image file is located at the images-for-eflasher directory of a server. Here is how a S5P6818's directory looks like:
You can download its image file and extract it to the FAT section of an SD card.
7.2 Make eflasher File with Your OS
Note: this only applies for 4418 and 6818 based boards
Here are the steps for making an eFlasher card with UbuntuCore for 4418 based boards:
git clone https://github.com/friendlyarm/sd-fuse_nanopi2.git cd sd-fuse_nanopi2 sudo ./mkimage.sh eflasher DEV=`sudo losetup -f` sudo losetup ${DEV} s5p4418-eflasher-sd8g-$(date +%Y%m%d).img
If you make an eflasher card for 6818 based boards you need to change "sd-fuse_nanopi2.git" to "sd-fuse_nanopi3.git" and rename "s5p4418" to "s6p6818".
After these commands are successfully run an eflasher image named "s5p4418-eflasher-sd8g-YYYYMMDD.img" will be generated. But this image doesn't contain an OS file. Running the following commands will generate a UbuntuCore image file. You can use your OS image's file name to replace the "core-qte-images.tfz" to the following commands to insert your OS to the eflasher file:
sudo partprobe ${DEV} sudo mkfs.vfat ${DEV}p1 -n FRIENDLYARM sudo mkdir -p /mnt/fat sudo mount -t vfat ${DEV}p1 /mnt/fat sudo wget -qO- http://112.124.9.243/dvdfiles/S5P4418/images-for-eflasher/core-qte-images.tgz | tar xvz -C /mnt/fat sudo umount /mnt/fat sudo losetup -d ${DEV}
For 6818 based boards change "http://112.124.9.243/dvdfiles/S5P4418" to "http://112.124.9.243/dvdfiles/S5P6818".
After these commands are successfully run an "s5p4418-eflasher-sd8g-YYYYMMDD.img" file with a Ubuntu core OS image will be generated. You can use the "dd" command to flash it to an SD card and flash your OS to your board's eMMC.
7.3 Make Your Own OS Image
7.3.1 Make Android Image for 4418/6818
First of all you need to compile your Android source code. After compilation is finished enter the "out/target/product/XXXXX" directory ("XXXXX" stands for a product's name. For example 4418 SoC's name is "nanopi2" and 6818 SoC's name is "nanopi3") and replace the following file with the one under the Android directory of the FAT section of your SD card:
8 Update Log
8.1 July-26-2017
- Released English Version
8.2 August-22-2017
- Added section 6.2
8.3 March-10-2018
- Updated sections 6.2 and 6.3
