Loading Toradex Easy Installer
Introduction
The goal of this article is to guide you to the process of loading the Toradex Easy Installer tool to the RAM of your System on Module.
Why do I have to (re)load the Toradex Easy Installer?
As explained in the Toradex Easy Installer Overview, Tezi comes pre-installed in all new Toradex modules. It runs completely in memory so that the complete internal flash can be erased, (re)partitioned, formatted, or written.
You will need to load Tezi to your module again if you need to install a new operating system image and your module does not boot to Toradex Easy Installer by defaul. In other words, your system is already running a previously installed OS, for instance, Linux or Torizon OS instead. In this case, you must enter in recovery mode and load it in memory from a host computer, using the USB OTG approach or the external media approach.
Requirements
USB OTG Approach
- Regular USB to micro USB or USB to USB-C cable
- Carrier board that provides access to the USB OTG interface
External Media Approach
- A FAT formatted (e.g. FAT-32) USB Stick or SD Card.
- Carrier board with either an SD Card or USB host.
- Access to serial port debug UART (for booting via USB).
- Avoid using a USB Hub between the PC and the USB OTG port.
- Avoid using Virtual Machines.
1. Setup Cables
Connect all the cables to your Carrier Board, as demonstrated on the Quickstart Guide for your Carrier Board. Don't forget to connect the display/monitor to the carrier board before power on. HDMI hotplug is not supported.
If don't have a display/monitor available, you can access the user interface remotely over the network using VNC.
2. Download Tezi
Download a Toradex Easy Installer image from Download Toradex Easy Installer.
3. Loading Tezi
3.1 Loading through the USB OTG interface
3.1.1 Put your SoM in Recovery Mode
Don't expect any menu on the Display/Monitor at this moment. The Tezi GUI will only show up after the software be loaded on the next step.
Select your computer on module from the tabs below:
- Apalis iMX8
- Apalis iMX6
- Colibri iMX8X
- Colibri iMX6
- Colibri iMX7
- Colibri iMX6ULL
- Verdin iMX Family
- NVIDIA Tegra
If you are using SoMs based on NVIDIA Tegra SoCs, see the Txx Recovery Mode article for information about how to put the device on Recovery Mode.
Apalis iMX8
Follow precautions for handling electrostatic sensitive devices (ESD)
Connect the Module to your Development PC
Connect the Carrier Board USB OTG port to your Linux or Windows host machine
Apalis Evaluation Board
Connect X49 or X50 (USBO1_CL/USBO1)
Ixora Carrier Board
Connect to X9 on the underside of the Carrier Board. Be sure to remove JP2 in order to be able to use X9 in OTG Client mode. Be sure nothing is plugged into the lower connector of X8.
Enter recovery mode
Some rare cases with specific combinations of HW requires that you remove the USB or HDMI cables due to backfeeding to complete a proper power-cycle. If you cannot enter recovery mode for the second try in a row, consider disconnecting and reconnecting all of the cables or even remove the SoM from the carrier board and shorten all its pins.
Using hardware mechanism
Ixora Carrier Board
Make sure the board is turned off.
Connect the 2 pads as shown in the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the pads connected for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the pads.
Other boards
Make sure the board is turned off.
Shorten the pads on the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the short circuit for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the short circuit. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on.
Apalis iMX6
Follow precautions for handling electrostatic sensitive devices (ESD)
Connect the Module to your Development PC
Connect the Carrier Board USB OTG port to your Linux or Windows host machine
Apalis Evaluation Board
Connect X49 or X50 (USBO1_CL/USBO1)
Ixora Carrier Board
Connect to X9 on the underside of the Carrier Board. Be sure to remove JP2 in order to be able to use X9 in OTG Client mode. Be sure nothing is plugged into the lower connector of X8.
Enter recovery mode
Some rare cases with specific combinations of HW requires that you remove the USB or HDMI cables due to backfeeding to complete a proper power-cycle. If you cannot enter recovery mode for the second try in a row, consider disconnecting and reconnecting all of the cables or even remove the SoM from the carrier board and shorten all its pins.
Using hardware mechanism
Apalis Evaluation Board with Mezzanine
Make sure the board is turned off.
Press and hold the Recovery Mode button (SW2)
- Power on the board while keeping the Recovery Mode button pressed for 6 seconds further.
Ixora Carrier Board
Make sure the board is turned off.
Connect the 2 pads as shown in the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the pads connected for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the pads.
Other Boards
Make sure the board is turned off.
Shorten the pads on the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the short circuit for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the short circuit. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on.
Using a command in the bootloader
Connect the serial port UART1 of the carrier board with your host computer.
- Apalis Evaluation Board
Depending on JP10/12 connect the serial debug console to the lower X28 using a null modem RS-232 cable or X29 using a regular USB cable.
- Ixora Carrier Board
Connect the serial debug console to X22 using a null modem RS-232 cable and a 10 pin IDC to 9 pin D-sub male connector (DTK or Intel standard).
Open a terminal on your host computer (115200 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, one stop, no hardware/software flow control).
Power cycle the board and immediately press [space] on the terminal
If you are using U-Boot you should see the U-Boot banner and the prompt
Apalis iMX6 #
, in this case, type on the U-Boot command line:> bmode usb
If you are using Eboot you should see a menu, in this case, type 'X' to enter the bootloader console, then on the Eboot command line:
> bootfrom USB
> reboot
Colibri iMX8X
Follow precautions for handling electrostatic sensitive devices (ESD)
Connect the Module to your Development PC
Connect the Carrier Board USB OTG port to your Linux or Windows host machine
Colibri Evaluation Board
Plug a USB 2.0 Type-B to Type-A cable into the X29 connector (USB_CL) or a USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X30 connector (USB_OTG).
Iris Carrier Board
Plug a USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X12 connector (close to the Ethernet input).
Aster Carrier Board
Plug a (second) USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X10 connector. Be sure that nothing is plugged at the lower connector of X9.
Make sure that no SD card is in the SD card slot
Enter recovery mode
Some rare cases with specific combinations of HW requires that you remove the USB or HDMI cables due to backfeeding to complete a proper power-cycle. If you cannot enter recovery mode for the second try in a row, consider disconnecting and reconnecting all of the cables or even remove the SoM from the carrier board and shorten all its pins.
Using hardware mechanism
Colibri Evaluation Board
- Make sure the board is turned off.
- Press and hold the Recovery Mode button (SW9)
- Power on the board while keeping the Recovery Mode button pressed for 6 seconds further.
Iris Carrier Board
Make sure the board is turned off.
Connect the 2 pads (Pins 1 and 2 from JP1) as shown in the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the short circuit for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the short circuit. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on.
Aster Carrier Board and Other Carrier Boards
Make sure the board is turned off.
Shorten the pads on the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the short circuit for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the short circuit. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on.
Colibri iMX6
Follow precautions for handling electrostatic sensitive devices (ESD)
Connect the Module to your Development PC
Connect the Carrier Board USB OTG port to your Linux or Windows host machine
Colibri Evaluation Board
Plug a USB 2.0 Type-B to Type-A cable into the X29 connector (USB_CL) or a USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X30 connector (USB_OTG).
Iris Carrier Board
Plug a USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X12 connector (close to the Ethernet input).
Aster Carrier Board
Plug a (second) USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X10 connector. Be sure that nothing is plugged at the lower connector of X9.
Make sure that no SD card is in the SD card slot
Enter recovery mode
Some rare cases with specific combinations of HW requires that you remove the USB or HDMI cables due to backfeeding to complete a proper power-cycle. If you cannot enter recovery mode for the second try in a row, consider disconnecting and reconnecting all of the cables or even remove the SoM from the carrier board and shorten all its pins.
Using hardware mechanism
Make sure the board is turned off.
Shorten the pads on the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
Power on the board and keep the short circuit for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the short circuit. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on
Using a command in the bootloader
Connect the serial port UART_A of the carrier board with your host computer.
Colibri Evaluation Board
Depending on JP17/19 (and JP20/JP21 if you use a Carrier Board with V3.2 and later) connect the serial debug console to the bottom X25 using a null modem RS-232 cable or X27 using a regular USB cable.
Iris Carrier Board
Connect the serial debug console to X13 using a null modem RS-232 cable and a 10 pin IDC to 9 pin D-sub male connector (DTK or Intel standard).
Open a terminal on your host computer (115200 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, one stop, no hardware/software flow control).
Power cycle the board and immediately press [space] on the terminal
If you are using U-Boot you should see the U-Boot banner and the prompt
Colibri iMX6 #
, in this case, type on the U-Boot command line:> bmode usb
If you are using Eboot you should see a menu, in this case, type 'X' to enter the bootloader console, then on the Eboot command line:
> bootfrom USB
> reboot
Colibri iMX7
Follow precautions for handling electrostatic sensitive devices (ESD)
Colibri iMX7 Solo/Dual 256/512MB V1.1A and older are not supported by Toradex Easy Installer.
Colibri iMX7 Dual 1GB V1.1A and newer are using an eMMC flash and are supported by Toradex Easy Installer 1.2, 1.3 and 1.6 or newer.
Toradex Easy Installer 1.4 and 1.5 did now work reliably with these modules.
Connect the Module to your Development PC
Connect the Carrier Board USB OTG port to your Linux or Windows host machine
Colibri Evaluation Board
Plug a USB 2.0 Type-B to Type-A cable into the X29 connector (USB_CL) or a USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X30 connector (USB_OTG).
Iris Carrier Board
Plug a USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X12 connector (close to the Ethernet input).
Aster Carrier Board
Plug a (second) USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X10 connector. Be sure that nothing is plugged at the lower connector of X9.
Make sure that no SD card is in the SD card slot
Enter recovery mode
Some rare cases with specific combinations of HW requires that you remove the USB or HDMI cables due to backfeeding to complete a proper power-cycle. If you cannot enter recovery mode for the second try in a row, consider disconnecting and reconnecting all of the cables or even remove the SoM from the carrier board and shorten all its pins.
Colibri Evaluation Board
- Make sure the board is turned off.
- Press and hold the Recovery Mode button (SW9)
- Power on the board while keeping the Recovery Mode button pressed for 6 seconds further.
Iris Carrier Board
Make sure the board is turned off.
Connect the 2 pads (Pins 1 and 2 from JP1) as shown in the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the pads connected for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the pads. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on
Aster Carrier Board and Other Carrier Boards
- Make sure the board is turned off.
- Shorten the pads on the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the short circuit for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the short circuit. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on
Colibri iMX6ULL
Follow precautions for handling electrostatic sensitive devices (ESD)
Colibri iMX6ULL 512MB Wi-Fi/Bluetooth are only supported by Toradex Easy Installer 1.3 and newer.
Connect the Module to your Development PC
Connect the Carrier Board USB OTG port to your Linux or Windows host machine
Colibri Evaluation Board
Plug a USB 2.0 Type-B to Type-A cable into the X29 connector (USB_CL) or a USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X30 connector (USB_OTG).
Iris Carrier Board
Plug a USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X12 connector (close to the Ethernet input).
Aster Carrier Board
Plug a (second) USB Micro B to Type-A cable into the X10 connector. Be sure that nothing is plugged at the lower connector of X9.
Make sure that no SD card is in the SD card slot
Enter recovery mode
Some rare cases with specific combinations of HW requires that you remove the USB or HDMI cables due to backfeeding to complete a proper power-cycle. If you cannot enter recovery mode for the second try in a row, consider disconnecting and reconnecting all of the cables or even remove the SoM from the carrier board and shorten all its pins.
Using hardware mechanism
Colibri Evaluation Board
- Make sure the board is turned off.
- Press and hold the Recovery Mode button (SW9)
- Power on the board while keeping the Recovery Mode button pressed for 6 seconds further.
Iris Carrier Board
Make sure the board is turned off.
Connect the 2 pads (Pins 1 and 2 from JP1) as shown in the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the pads connected for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the pads. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on
Aster Carrier Board and Other Carrier Boards
- Make sure the board is turned off.
- Shorten the pads on the picture: you can use scissors, tweezers, a paper clip or whatever you have at hand to short circuit the pads. You should not make a permanent short-circuit by e.g. soldering the pads together.
- Power on the board and keep the short circuit for more than 6 seconds, only after that, remove the short circuit. The short circuit should be held only while the board is turning on
Using a command in the bootloader
Connect the serial port UART_A of the carrier board with your host computer.
Colibri Evaluation Board
Depending on JP17/19 (and JP20/JP21 if you use a Carrier Board with V3.2 and later) connect the serial debug console to the bottom X25 using a null modem RS-232 cable or X27 using a regular USB cable.
Iris Carrier Board
Connect the serial debug console to X13 using a null modem RS-232 cable and a 10 pin IDC to 9 pin D-sub male connector (DTK or Intel standard).
Open a terminal on your host computer (115200 baud, 8 data bits, no parity, one stop, no hardware/software flow control).
Power cycle the board and immediately press [space] on the terminal
If you are using U-Boot you should see the U-Boot banner and the prompt
Colibri iMX6ULL #
, in this case, type on the U-Boot command line:
> bmode usb
Verdin SoM Family
Follow precautions for handling electrostatic sensitive devices (ESD)
The Verdin Family Specification defines an always compatible recovery mode pin on the edge connector of the SoM. The method for entering recovery mode on all Verdin SoMs is the same.
Connect the Module to your Development PC
Connect the Carrier Board USB OTG port to your Linux or Windows host machine
Verdin Development Board
Plug a USB Type-C to Type-A cable into the X34 connector.
Dahlia Carrier Board
Plug a USB Type-C to Type-A cable into the X3 connector.
Yavia Carrier Board
Plug a USB Type-C to Type-A cable into the J7 connector.
Mallow Carrier Board
Plug a USB Type-C to Type-A cable into the X8 connector.
Enter recovery mode
Some rare cases with specific combinations of HW requires that you remove the USB or HDMI cables due to backfeeding to complete a proper power-cycle. If you cannot enter recovery mode for the second try in a row, consider disconnecting and reconnecting all of the cables or even remove the SoM from the carrier board and shorten all its pins.
Using hardware mechanism
For the Verdin Computer on Modules, there is just one way to enter Recovery Mode, which is by the dedicated recovery pin (SODIMM pin 246), which needs to be pulled down with ≤1kΩ during the initial power on (cold boot) of the module.
Toradex carrier boards for Verdin come with a dedicated button to manipulate the Recovery Mode mechanism, which is described in detail below for each available model.
Verdin Development Board
Make sure the board is turned off.
Press and Hold the Recovery Mode Button (SW3)
- Power on the board, pressing the ON/OFF Button (SW2) while keeping the Recovery Mode button pressed for a further 10 seconds. Only after that, release the Recovery Mode Button (SW3)
Dahlia
Make sure the board is turned off. Make sure that the JP3 jumper is opened.
Press and hold the Recovery Mode Button (SW5).
- Power on the board, pressing the ON/OFF Button (SW3) while keeping the Recovery Mode button pressed for a further 10 seconds. Only after that, release the Recovery Mode Button (SW5).
Yavia
Make sure the board is turned off.
Press and hold the Recovery Mode Button (B3).
- Power on the board, plugging the power supply cable into the power input (J1) while keeping the Recovery Mode button pressed for a further 10 seconds. Only after that, release the Recovery Mode Button (B3).
Mallow
Make sure the board is turned off.
Pull down the SODIMM Pin 246 (
CTRL_RECOVERY_MICO#
) with ≤1kΩ. For this, short-circuit pins 1 and 2 of the Secondary Extension Header (X16).
- Power on the board, plugging the power supply cable into the terminal block connector (X6) while keeping the Recovery Mode pins pulled down for a further 10 seconds. Only after that, remove the short circuit.
- It is also possible to solder a switch on the
RCVRY
slot (SW3) instead of pulling down the SODIMM Pin 246. In this case, press and hold the button, plug the power supply cable, and after 10 seconds release the switch. For more information related to soldering the switch, please find them in the schematic and datasheet in the Mallow Carrier Board article.
Other Boards
Custom-made carrier boards for Verdin SoMs shall expose in its design access to the SODIMM Pin 246 present in the module in a way that, if necessary, this signal can be pulled down with ≤1kΩ during the initial power on (cold boot) of the module. For further information, check the Recovery Mode section of your SoM datasheet.
With that, a process similar to the ones presented previously can be followed:
Make sure the board is turned off.
Pull down SODIMM Pin 246 with ≤1kΩ
Power on the board and keep the pull-down at SODIMM Pin 246 with ≤1kΩ for more than 10. seconds. Only after that, remove the pull-down at SODIMM Pin 246.
There are no available pads on the Verdin SoMs to enter Recovery Mode. SODIMM Pin 246 is the only supported method, so your design may take this into consideration!
To check if your Computer on Module has entered recovery mode correctly, you can compare the output of lsusb
on your computer before and after entering recovery mode. A new entry will be present if the procedure has been successful.
3.1.2 Run the Recovery Mode Script
Unzip the Toradex Easy Installer package you downloaded at the beginning of the article, change to this directory, and use one of the following scripts on the host machine to load and execute the tool through USB OTG interface:
$ cd <unzipped directory>
$ ./recovery-linux.sh
$ cd <unzipped directory>
$ recovery-windows.bat
Apalis TK1 does not have a script for Windows. If you want to load Toradex Easy Installed on an Apalis TK1 module, use a Linux PC.
This process might cause multiple device detections on Windows. Avoid using virtualization since the individual re-enumerated USB devices get not routed through to the virtual machine guest automatically.
During the recovery process, the module connected via USB may re-enumerate several times.
If downloading gets stuck or fails with an error, try starting over from the recovery mode article.
3.2 Loading from External Media (SD Card/USB Stick)
This section describes an alternative method, not officially supported by Toradex, as we technically cannot guarantee that this works all the time and also across different versions. This method relies on Distro Boot, which is configured to boot in the following order on our BSP:
- SD Card
- internal eMMC
- USB Stick
Why would you use an unsupported method, though? Because you are in a situation that does not meet the requirements above or, in other words:
- You have a carrier board that does not allow you to enter recovery mode, or the product enclosing makes it inviable on the field.
- Your product does not allow one to easily use a desktop PC to load Toradex Easy Installer into the SoM on the field.
3.2.1 Prepare the External Media
Unzip Easy Installer into the root directory of the external media (USB stick or SD Card). You will see the following contents, or similar:
$ tree
.
├── boot-tezi.scr
├── image.json
├── imx-boot
├── imx-boot-v10b
├── overlays.txt
├── recovery
│ ├── uuu
│ ├── uuu.auto
│ ├── uuu.auto-v10b
│ └── uuu.exe
├── recovery-linux.sh
├── recovery-windows.bat
├── tezi.itb
├── tezi.png
├── u-boot.bin
└── wrapup.sh
Rename the file boot-tezi.scr
to boot.scr
. This is the name used by the U-Boot bootloader in our BSP.
3.2.2 Boot Easy Installer
Booting Easy Installer with an image based on our BSP Layers and Reference Images for Yocto Project should work, but keep in mind to match the versions of Tezi and the BSP image. If you mismatch the versions things may still work, but the likelihood is lower.
You might need to adapt the boot.scr
to make things work. For this, refer to Distro Boot or ask for help from our developers in the Toradex Community.
And as soon as you have boot.scr
in place you can boot Tezi:
From the SD Card:
- Insert the external media on the carrier board.
- power on the carrier board.
From the USB Stick:
- Set up the access to the U-Boot console through the serial port debug UART.
- Insert the USB stick on the carrier board.
- Power on the carrier board.
- Stop U-Boot from booting by pressing any key on your keyboard.
- Run the command
run bootcmd_usb0
. It will skip trying to boot from the SD Card and internal eMMC flash, and try to boot directly from the USB.
4. Using Toradex Easy Installer
After loading the Toradex Easy Installer into the module's RAM memory, the Tezi GUI will show up in your Display/Monitor.
This process does not write the Toradex Easy Installer to flash. You will have to redo these steps if you power off your module.
You are ready to install images using the tool. See the Toradex Easy Installer article for instructions on how to proceed.