Trying to set up a non-supported x86 device / will not register properly

Product support balenaOS
1

Good morning,

the device I am trying to get running with balenaOS is this one:
https://www.pokini.de/de/fanless-pcs/pokini-f2
which looks quite similar to this one:
https://www.compulab.com/products/iot-gateways/iot-gate-apl-fitlet2-apollo-lake-gateway/
which I heard is successfully being used by other balena customers.

I flashed it with the nuc development image. While it goes online somehow, balenaCloud tells me:

  • host os version unknown
  • supervisor version empty
  • ip address empty

When I try to balena ssh, I get:

error: The device '2c4d2fd7f825348523bf535040ecc285' does not support direct host OS access,
please update the device to at least version balenaOS '2.7.5'
Connection to ssh.balena-devices.com closed.

Any help appreciated.
Bruno

3

Hello @bvetter,
Are you using the latest intel-nuc image from the balenaCloud dashboard?
Can you try to ssh into the device using ssh root@2c4d2fd.local -p 22222 using an ssh client(not balena ssh) ?
If you are able to ssh into it, you can retrieve the supervisor logs from the device using journalctl -u resin-supervisor --no-pager and paste it here so we have more context what is going on?

Thanks
Rahul

5

Hi Rahul,

the image I used is the latest image from the balenaCloud dashboard. I used a Debian based live USB image to boot the device and flashed the image using dd.

I cannot ssh into the device:

➜  aim-balena-aimbox git:(master) ssh root@25c7929.local -p 22222
ssh_exchange_identification: read: Connection reset by peer
➜  aim-balena-aimbox git:(master) ssh root@25c7929.local -p 22222
ssh: connect to host 25c7929.local port 22222: Connection refused

It seems the device is stuck in the middle of bootstrapping. Every time I power cycle it, the creates a new device in balenaCloud, but still with the OS info empty. The previously created devices stay orphaned.

6

Hi @bvetter
Just to rule out any issues with the installation media, can you try flashing the nuc image using etcher? https://www.balena.io/etcher/

7

Hi @lucianbuzzo,

my understanding is that, to do that, I either need to disassemble the SSD from the device, find a M.2 SATA to USB adapter and flash it from my PC

or

somehow get a running linux system with a Desktop environment booted on the device on an external storage media and flash the internal SDD from there,

correct?

8

I’m not familiar with the device you are trying to flash, but if it behaves in a similar way to the intel NUC then you can use etcher to flash your balenaOS image to a usb stick, and then boot the device from the usb stick (following the steps from the NUC getting started guide https://www.balena.io/docs/learn/getting-started/intel-nuc/nodejs/#provision-device ).
The balenaOS images for NUC will flash the internal storage on first startup from the USB stick.

9

Ok. If that is the standard installation procedure, maybe it was my fault. I flashed the image directly to the ssd. If the nuc image expects to re-install itself after boot, I probably got confused by what I did.

Interestingly, balenaCloud now displays a new error message for my faulty device: Failed to find any block devices.

I will now proceed as you suggested and give you a feedback.
Thanks
Bruno

10

Let us know how you get on!

13

Everything sorted out. I should have read the docs.
Thanks a lot.
Bruno

14

Glad it’s sorted out!
Don’t hesitate to write again if you need anything else though :slight_smile: it’s not that difficult to oversee something, even if it’s in the docs.