Board Farm

Here is some information about board farms.

Community

At the Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2017 Andrew Murray held a BoF session titled Farming Together. The purpose of this BoF was to bring together people that are actively working on board farms to create a community, to knowledge share and to start a collaborative effort.

Add your name and contact information if you would like to be notified when an e-mail list is created, or are generally interested in this topic:

• Andrew Murray - <amurray (at) witekio.com> *
• Tim Bird - <tim.bird (at) sony.com> *
• Robert Schwebel <r.schwebel (at) pengutronix.de> *
• Arnout Vandecappelle - <arnout at mind dot be> -- doesn't have a board farm but is interested
• Mirza Krak - <mirza.krak (at) endian.se> *
• Alan Bennett - <alan (at) opensourcefoundries.com>
• Geert Uytterhoeven - <geert (at) linux-m68k.org> *
• Andrea Scian - <andrea.scian (at) dave.eu>
• Kieran Bingham - <kbingham (at) kernel.org> *
• Jan Lübbe - <j.luebbe (at) pengutronix.de> *
• Marco Cavallini - <m.cavallini (at) koansoftware.com>
• Kevin Hilman - <khilman (at) baylibre.com>
• Bill Mills - <wmills (at) ti.com>
• Tom Gall - <tom.gall (at) linaro.org>
• Stephano Cetola - <stephano.cetola (at) linux.intel.com>
• Mike Holmes - <mike.holmes (at) linaro.org>
• Matteo Vit - <matteo.vit (at) dev.starwaredesign.com>
• Attie Grande - <attie.grande (at) argentum-systems.co.uk>
• Roland Hieber <r <dot> hieber <at> pengutronix <dot> de>
• Tim Orling <ticotimo (at) gmail (dot) com>
• Ryan Arnold <ryan <dot> arnold <at> linaro <dot> org>
• Behan Webster <behanw (at) converseincode (dot) com> *
• Michal Simek <monstr (at) monstr (dot) eu>
• Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk (at) kernel (dot) org>
• Jagan Teki <jagan (at) openedev (dot) com>
• Heiko Schocher <hs (at) denx (dot) de>
• Khiem Nguyen <khiem.nguyen.xt (at) renesas.com>
• Amit Kucheria <amit.kucheria (at) verdurent.com>

* = have seen this person on the e-mail list, or already subscribed.

Mailing list

Discussions on this topic have started at on the "Automated Testing" mailing list of the Yocto Project

• See https://lists.yoctoproject.org/g/automated-testing
• (was https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/automated-testing)

Next meeting

To be determined.

Maybe at Plumbers 2018, Connect, or ELCE 2018

See Automated Testing Summit

Actions

• define API between test framework and DUT controller layer?
  • pduclient?
  • labgrid?
  • ebfarm?
  • ttypersist: provides an application a fake socket for misbehaving ttys
  • ttc
  • libvirt
  • r4d
• survey of existing tools, hardware, practices
• create a definition for an "automated testing" stack - see Automated Testing Stack
  • start with definitions from SLAV?
  • identify different areas of test automation operation

Presentations

If you know of a presentation on this topic, please add it below:

• "Test Standards - Can Fuego, Lava and others agree?" by Tim Bird at Linaro Connect SFO 2017
  • description: Tim proposes several areas of standardization collaboration between different Linux test initiatives
  • Slides and Video
• "Herd Your Boards, Become a Farmer" by Geert Uytterhoeven at ELCE2016
  • Slides and Video
• "Automation beyond Testing and Embedded System Validation" by Jan Luebbe (Pengutronix) at ELCE2017
  • Slides and Video
• Introduction to kernelCI.org
  • Blog Article and Video
• Piece of cake - testing remote embedded devices made easy with MuxPi by Paweł Wieczorek at FOSDEM 2018
  • Slides and Details

Misc / Tools

• New horizontally scalable CI system built with Containers and container orchestration technologies in mind - https://github.com/OpenSourceFoundries/jobserv / http://connect.linaro.org/resource/sfo17/sfo17-217/

Hardware

SD muxers

• USB-SD-Mux by Pengutronix, now available
• SD-MUX by Tizen (deprecated - see MuxPi)
• MuxPi by Tizen (MuxPi is the successor to SD-MUX)
• IO-CX by Timesys

Kevin Hilman mentioned (at ELCE 2017) wifi SDCards as a way to handle the SD mux problem. Was he referring to something like these? http://techpp.com/2015/04/28/wifi-sd-cards-camera/

power control

• usb board with switchable power
  • ykush - 3 port USB power switcher - https://www.yepkit.com/products/ykush
• Web Power Switch by Digital Loggers
  • control program by Tim Bird: File:Powerswitch-set.sh
• Energenie Power Management System (USB controlled 4-way power switch +2 always on) (UK)
• uhubctl USB hub per-port power control

relays/buttons

• 8-Channel Opto-Isolator Board for Board Farm Control
• DIN Relay IV by Digital Loggers
  • This uses the same control protocol as the Web Power Switch mentioned above
• KMTronic 8-channel IP relay controller
• Raspberry Pi relay board
• Relays over ethernet

multi-function

• BayLibre ACME cape - power and temperature measurement with different probes (USB, Jack power cable, HE10)
  • See https://gitlab.com/baylibre-acme/acme-hardware-docs for design docs
• Sony_Debug_Assist_board - Open Hardware design by Sony for multi-function DUT controller (USB, serial, power, buttons)
  • connection to host = USB serial
  • elinux page about v2 of the board (how to use) is here: Sony_Debug_Assist_board
  • github page with source code, schematics, gerber files, etc. is at: https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/CDB-Assist
  • schematics here: https://github.com/sonyxperiadev/CDB-Assist/blob/master/Hardware/CDBAssist-v3.1-Schematics.pdf
• MuxPi by Tizen Open Hardware design by Samsung for multi-function DUT controller (serial, power, buttons, network?)
  • connection to host = network
• Remote Testing Environment - Open Hardware design by 3mdeb for multi-function DUT controller (power, programmer, serial)
  • connection to host = network
  • github page for RTE schematics (rev 1.0.0)
  • github page with meta-rte layer based on Yocto Project
  • github page for RTE REST API controller (beta)
• BCU/2 board - Open Hardware design by Geert Uytterhoeven for multi-function DUT controller(serial, power, buttons, gpio, i2c, etc.)
  • uses a teensy board
  • It's a small board to control and monitor the operation of two development boards.
  • hardware files: https://github.com/geertu/pcb-bcu2
  • software files: https://github.com/geertu/teensy3-bcu2
  • connection to host = USB
• IO-CX by Timesys (Multi-function DUT control: SD-MUX, USB-MUX, GPIO, I2C)

USB mega-ports

A few people are using these:

• Manhattan Mondohub 28-port USB hub

• PowerPad15S USB hub used by Lava

USB switchers

• LAVA-LMP USB - allows switching USB connections to a DUT
• Extron USB Switcher
• 2101 USB Connection Exerciser

HDMI testing

• SDI/HDMI grabber

unsorted LAVA hardware helpers

See https://lava.coreboot.org/static/docs/v1/lmp_test_guide.html

Possibly https://github.com/GlasgowEmbedded/glasgow to control various buses (via FPGA).

Software

• Labgrid  : http://labgrid.readthedocs.io - http://labgrid.org
• CI-RT  : https://ci-rt.linutronix.de
• R4D  : https://github.com/ci-rt/r4d - https://github.com/ci-rt/libr4d
• Libvirt  : https://github.com/ci-rt/libvirt-debian
• Jenkins plugin  : https://github.com/ci-rt/libvirt-slave-plugin
• ttc  : https://github.com/tbird20d/ttc - documentation at: Ttc_Program_Usage_Guide
• tbot  : https://github.com/hsdenx/tbot - http://www.tbot.tools/main.html
• SLAV stack : ??? (Pawel's thing - see Media:Piece_of_cake.pdf

Services

• TimeSys Board Farm Cloud: See https://www.timesys.com/pdf/Timesys-On-Premises-Board-Farm-Cloud.pdf
• Good Device Labs - CanaryQA

Notes

• spend money on USB serial adapter cables - cheap adapters sometimes drop connections and are a pain to debug
  • FTDI cables seem to work well.

Farm Survey

Tim Bird is conducting a survey of Farm hardware (DUT controllers). See this page: Board Farm Survey