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 -  *
 * Tim Bird -  *
 * Robert Schwebel  *
 * Arnout Vandecappelle - -- doesn't have a board farm but is interested
 * Mirza Krak -  *
 * Alan Bennett - 
 * Geert Uytterhoeven -  *
 * Andrea Scian - 
 * Kieran Bingham -  *
 * Jan Lübbe -  *
 * Marco Cavallini - 
 * Kevin Hilman - 
 * Bill Mills - 
 * Tom Gall - 
 * Stephano Cetola - 
 * Mike Holmes - 
 * Matteo Vit - 
 * Attie Grande - <attie.grande (at) argentum-systems.co.uk>
 * Roland Hieber <r hieber <at> pengutronix de>
 * Tim Orling <ticotimo (at) gmail (dot) com>
 * Ryan Arnold <ryan arnold <at> linaro 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>
 * Harish Bansal <harish.bansal (at) timesys.com>
 * Chris Paterson <chris.paterson2 (at) renesas.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
 * [[Media:Herd_Your_Boards.pdf | Slides]] and Video
 * "Automation beyond Testing and Embedded System Validation" by Jan Luebbe (Pengutronix) at ELCE2017
 * [[Media:PRE-trunk-ELCE-Automation-beyond-Testing.pdf | 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

= Best Practices =

= Issues/Requirements =

= 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
 * https://hackaday.com/2022/08/08/automated-microsd-card-swapping-helps-in-embedded-shenanigans/

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
 * Ethernet controlled IEC320 PDU from Lindy

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

Here is some information from a discussion in October 2022 about a simple relay used as part of board bootup process:

Shelly relays
Cliff Brake: I've used the Shelly relays to do simple automation projects here (cycle power to boards under test, etc): See https://shelly.cloud/

They are low cost, and are very open and have documented REST, MQTT, etc APIs, so I think it would be pretty easy to trigger one of these from a script using curl or something ...

https://shelly-api-docs.shelly.cloud/

USB relays
Andrew Murray: We often use USB relays (less than £10) - for example this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B081JLWK9X - they're typically controlled via a very simple hidraw interface. Applications are available for controlling them (e.g. https://github.com/darrylb123/usbrelay)

However that particular brand appears to have been removed from Amazon - though I've noticed this one which looks like it would be suitable - https://www.amazon.co.uk/HALJIA-Module-Control-Intelligent-control/dp/B075F6J6WL/

These are all slightly overkill as these relays can switch mains voltage and currents, however they are cheap. It is possible to buy solid state relays for lower voltages, but I haven't found a cheap board with one on.

Slightly related, thepihut.com has a lot of useful boards - for example their "USB Switch and Multiplexer" - this appears to be sourced from 8086.net which also has lots of other goodies.

Michal Sojka: If you can use USB, I'd recommend cheap USB relays found on Ebay, e.g. https://www.ebay.com/itm/363777314013. I use https://github.com/darrylb123/usbrelay to control them. Over the years, I had about 20 boards controlled with these relays and it always worked well. One such board can be seen at https://lwn.net/Articles/820571/.

Bill Mills: If I only need a couple relays I use these: https://a.co/d524vO1 (NOYITO 2-Channel Micro USB Relay Module USB Smart Control Switch USB Intelligent Control Switch)

* The FTDI GPIO or HID ones are a PITA IMHO
 * Available from Amazon with free one day shipping. $15
 * USB bus powered with a micro USB connector (I hate full sized B).
 * Uses a simple serial port based protocol
 * Works with anything, Linux PC or a BBB or RPI etc.

gpio relays
Heiko Schocher: If you already have a hw and only need a "gpio relay" ... I use for example:

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B07LB2RQYP/?coliid=I17MGE1UL4U7DA&colid=SY29AF3OT28X&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

around 9 euros each or

https://www.amazon.de/AZDelivery-4-Relais-Optokoppler-Low-Level-Trigger-Arduino/dp/B078Q8S9S9/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_3?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&keywords=AZDelivery%2B4-Relais%2BModul%2B5V%2Bmit%2BOptokoppler%2BLow-&qid=1556783223&s=computers&sr=1-3-fkmrnull&pldnSite=1&th=1

Works fine for me to switch for example bootmode on imx6 based boards...

And may this is also interesting, if you need a cheap standalone solution

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/D1-Mini-NodeMCU-Lua-ESP8266-ESP_60747111728.html?spm=a2700.7724838.2017115.59.4ecc50bbbUP7eU

You will find similiar on amazon to ... you can run Tasmota on it

https://tasmota.github.io/docs/

custom electronics
Geert Uytterhoeven: There are two approaches to handling this:

1. Automatically trigger a button press after power is applied. I.e. you want to generate a delayed pulse of N ms that happens M ns after the power comes up. I guess than can be implemented with a 555 timer. This will require some (fun? ;-) elektronics work, though. See [1] https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/245753/generating-a-delayed-pulse-with-one-555-timer-upon-powering-up-the-circuit

2. Control the button remotely. As several people, this can be handled through a relay, but IMHO that's overkill. As you already have spare pis and bones, all you need is a resistor (e.g. 220 or 270 Ohm) and an opto-coupler (e.g.    HCPL-181), to be driven from 3.3V GPIO.

Personally, I'd go for the second approach, as such a button is typically also used for other purposes (power-off, suspend, wake-up), so you probably want to have full control over it.

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