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Lab journey: Gitea → Poky → TFTP/NFS → netboot → first app

A command-oriented story: how this lab is wired, with example commands and representative output. Adjust IPs, paths, and MACHINE for your site.

Reference lab: Orange Pi One (orange-pi-one), host ws8, repo /data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI, Poky build often /data/projects/poky/build, LAN 192.168.126.0/23, services on 192.168.126.3.

1. Gitea and runners

Goal: keep the product in self-hosted Git and run Actions (build, publish to netboot, optional board reboot) without GitHub.

Gitea listens on the host LAN IP (e.g. http://192.168.126.3:3000). Use that URL from the board; do not confuse it with a Docker macvlan or other secondary address unless you route to it.

Register act_runner on the build PC (amd64) and optionally on an ARM board (linux-arm-7 artifact).

cd /data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI
export GITEA_INSTANCE_URL="http://192.168.126.3:3000"
export GITEA_RUNNER_REGISTRATION_TOKEN="<paste-from-gitea>"
# PC runner:
ARCH_LABEL=linux-amd64 ./infra/gitea/register-act-runner-nanopi.sh

Example console tail after registration (then run the daemon as documented):

Running in foreground. For production, create a systemd unit:
  cd /home/you/act-runner && ./act_runner daemon

Workflows live under .gitea/workflows/: simple-ci.yml, nanopi-app-ci.yml (SSH deploy; secrets NANPI_HOST, NANPI_USER, NANPI_SSH_KEY), yocto-netboot-publish.yml (copy kernel/dtb/rootfs to netboot dirs on the runner host).

2. Poky setup and build

Goal: Scarthgap image with core-image-minimal plus cryptowallet (meta-cryptowallet/recipes-core/images/core-image-minimal.bbappend).

Clone upstream layers (once):

cd /data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI
./scripts/bootstrap.sh

Typical transcript (layers already present):

[skip] poky already exists
[skip] meta-openembedded already exists
[skip] meta-sunxi already exists

Bootstrap complete.
Next:
  source poky/oe-init-build-env build
  cp conf/bblayers.conf.sample conf/bblayers.conf
  cp conf/local.conf.sample conf/local.conf
  bitbake core-image-minimal

Configure bblayers.conf so meta-cryptowallet points at this repo. local.conf excerpt (note: no ntpdate in Scarthgap — use ntp + sntp):

MACHINE = "orange-pi-one"
IMAGE_FSTYPES = "tar.bz2 ext4"
IMAGE_INSTALL:append = " bash openssh tzdata tzdata-europe ntp sntp"
EXTRA_IMAGE_FEATURES ?= "debug-tweaks"

If you still have ntpdate in IMAGE_INSTALL, BitBake fails:

ERROR: Nothing RPROVIDES 'ntpdate' (but ... core-image-minimal.bb RDEPENDS on or otherwise requires it)
ERROR: Required build target 'core-image-minimal' has no buildable providers.

Fix the line, then:

cd /data/projects/poky/build
source ../oe-init-build-env .
bitbake core-image-minimal

Successful runs end with task completion and images under:

ls /data/projects/poky/build/tmp/deploy/images/orange-pi-one/
core-image-minimal-orange-pi-one.rootfs.tar.bz2
sun8i-h3-orangepi-one.dtb
u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin
uImage
...

Host note: Ubuntu 24.10 may print a Host distribution … not been validated warning; builds often still work, or use infra/dev-shell.sh / an LTS host.

Hash equivalence / missing Unix socket: Poky sets BB_HASHSERVE ??= "auto" so BitBake talks to a local hash server over unix://…. If that socket is gone (crashed cooker, stale server, or bitbake reconnect issues), tasks can fail in sstate_report_unihash with:

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
  ... hashserv.create_client ... sock.connect

Fix (stable): in local.conf, BB_SIGNATURE_HANDLER = "OEBasicHash" so builds do not require that client. Alternative: bitbake --kill-server, then source poky/oe-init-build-env and rebuild so a fresh hash server and socket are created.

3. TFTP and NFS

Goal: stage kernel + DTB + boot.scr for TFTP and an NFS root tree; exports path must equal nfsroot= in the kernel cmdline (boot.cmd → boot.scr).

Prepare dirs and print host hints:

./infra/nanopi/netboot/scripts/setup-netboot-host.sh

Sync Yocto deploy into repo staging (paths match create_fs.sh defaults):

sudo /data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI/infra/nanopi/netboot/scripts/create_fs.sh

Example fragments:

[1/3] Sync TFTP artifacts
.../uImage -> .../infra/nanopi/netboot/tftp/uImage
.../sun8i-h3-orangepi-one.dtb -> .../tftp/sun8i-h3-orangepi-one.dtb
[2/3] Refresh NFS rootfs
[3/3] Normalize ownership
Done:
  TFTP -> /data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI/infra/nanopi/netboot/tftp
  NFS  -> /data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI/infra/nanopi/netboot/nfsroot

/etc/exports.d/cryptowallet-netboot.exports (example — must match setenv nfsroot in boot.cmd):

/data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI/infra/nanopi/netboot/nfsroot 192.168.126.0/23(rw,sync,no_subtree_check,no_root_squash)

Apply:

sudo exportfs -rav
showmount -e localhost

Loopback NFS check (mountpoint must exist):

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/nfs-selftest
sudo mount -t nfs -o nfsvers=3,tcp,nolock \
  192.168.126.3:/data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI/infra/nanopi/netboot/nfsroot /mnt/nfs-selftest
ls /mnt/nfs-selftest/sbin/init
sudo umount /mnt/nfs-selftest
/mnt/nfs-selftest/sbin/init

If you skip mkdir, you get:

mount.nfs: mount point /mnt/nfs-selftest does not exist

4. Netboot bring-up and debugging

SD card: SPL/U-Boot only (typical Allwinner offset):

cd /data/projects/poky/build/tmp/deploy/images/orange-pi-one
sudo dd if=u-boot-sunxi-with-spl.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=1024 seek=8 conv=fsync
sync

boot.scr from infra/nanopi/netboot/tftp/boot.cmd:

cd /data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI/infra/nanopi/netboot/tftp
sudo mkimage -A arm -O linux -T script -C none -a 0 -e 0 -n 'netboot nfs' -d boot.cmd boot.scr
Image Name:   netboot nfs
Image Type:   ARM Linux Script (uncompressed)
Data Size:    ... Bytes

Copy boot.scr to the FAT partition, e.g.:

sudo mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt
sudo cp boot.scr /mnt/
sync
sudo umount /mnt

Pitfalls we saw (UART 115200):

Symptom Cause Fix
ipaddr not set` before TFTP tftp before DHCP/static in U-Boot Add dhcp or set ipaddr/netmask/gatewayip before tftp
ARP Retry count exceeded to .126.3 Board /24 while LAN is /23 setenv netmask 255.255.254.0, same in kernel ip=
Long hang → Unable to mount root NFS; No working init nfsroot= path ≠ exported path Align boot.cmd and /etc/exports
Kernel warns Unknown ... nfsrootdebug Not a valid 6.6 boot arg Remove nfsrootdebug from bootargs

Success kernel lines (abbreviated):

Kernel command line: ... root=/dev/nfs nfsroot=192.168.126.3:/data/projects/CryptoWallet-NanoPI/infra/nanopi/netboot/nfsroot,nfsvers=3,tcp,nolock ip=192.168.127.166::192.168.126.1:255.255.254.0::eth0:off rw
IP-Config: Complete:
VFS: Mounted root (nfs filesystem) on device 0:13.
Run /sbin/init as init process

More detail: infra/nanopi/netboot/README.md, infra/nanopi/netboot/docs/uart-boot-success-excerpt.md.

5. First application / service start

Goal: cryptowallet recipe (meta-cryptowallet) installs cryptowalletd, /etc/init.d/cryptowallet, and a small cryptowallet CLI.

On the board after login:

cryptowallet
cryptowallet 0.2 (placeholder)
Service: /etc/init.d/cryptowallet {start|stop|restart}
Log:     /var/log/cryptowalletd.log (after daemon start)

tail -n 5 /var/log/cryptowalletd.log
2026-03-25T12:00:00Z cryptowalletd heartbeat

With debug-tweaks, root often has an empty password at the serial login.

Benign messages on NFS root (static ip= already applied):

Configuring network interfaces... ip: RTNETLINK answers: File exists
ifup skipped for nfsroot interface eth0
run-parts: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/nfsroot: exit status 1

Product loop: edit files/ or add a real SRC_URI build in cryptowallet_0.2.bb → bitbake core-image-minimal → create_fs.sh (or yocto-netboot-publish) → reboot → verify /var/log/cryptowalletd.log.

Further reading

Topic Location
Repo layout (English index) README.md
Board + netboot layout infra/nanopi/README.md, infra/nanopi/netboot/README.md
UART success excerpt infra/nanopi/netboot/docs/uart-boot-success-excerpt.md
Migration context docs/migration-plan-stm32-to-yocto.md