Issues with building Armbian images

[TheAssassin]

I tried to build an Armbian image. As suggested by the variants directory, this is officially supported.

Issues I noticed:

• When picking a Debian image, there's dependencies missing which are not installed by default. Most prominently, adduser command is not available, preventing a console login as a whole. I have not invested too much time into debugging this, and am now running an Ubuntu build, which I hope will work better. But at least adduser should be installed by your scripts.
• Armbian images ship as 7-zip archives (.7z). Therefore, I replaced the unzip call with a 7za call. This should work fine for .zip archives as well. I'll create a PR soon.

Regarding the missing dependencies, someone has to invest some time into testing this, which I don't have at the moment. PRs welcome I guess.

(If the Ubuntu build shouldn't work either, I'll considering taking the time for further tests with Debian as well, but will try to fix at least the Ubuntu build.)

[guysoft]

Strange, it worked for me with the ExampleOS. See #2 where @huelvayork claims it works for them too.
It might be a specific build of Armbian.
Also, you can append stuff to the Armbian variant: https://github.com/guysoft/CustomPiOS/tree/CustomPiOS/src/variants/armbian

[TheAssassin]

Well, I had to at least change the BASE_ZIP_IMG setting to something more generic to make it work at all. Regarding https://dl.armbian.com/, many images use the .7z format, and don't follow the naming convention used at the moment.

The fix implemented in #8 doesn't harm any of the implemented at least, so it's good it's merged. Maybe you could try to build an image for one of those Armbian images? You will probably see the issues I experienced as well.

[guysoft]

I can't really test those images without the devices.
You can make it glob rhe conventions you need from the variant or with config.local

[TheAssassin]

Ok, I wasn't aware of the config.local option, but I'll think about improving the glob.

Meanwhile, you can test any built image from your computer as well. I've booted into mine from qemu without any issues, and reproduced the login issue. I'm not saying you should, but this is how it could be done.

[TheAssassin]

Next issue:

adduser: Only root may add a user or group to the system.

I am not quite sure yet why this occurs. This is the Ubuntu build. I'm going to fix it soon.

If you didn't guess already, I should mention I am trying to build OctoPi.

[guysoft]

How are you booting from qemu?
See: guysoft/FullPageOS#150
People there might wanna know how :)

[TheAssassin]

How are you booting from qemu?
See: guysoft/FullPageOS#150
People there might wanna know how :)

It's not very stable, and it's quite some work (you need to extract and provide the right kernels to qemu etc.), I'll have to test that a bit more in order to be able to provide instructions.

In the meanwhile, I found out what issues I had with the adduser command: I tried to log in as pi, but that user is added by your scripts, which I didn't realize in the first place. When logging in with the Armbian default credentials (root and 1234), the login process works fine. For Armbian, it'd be best if the pi user wouldn't be able to login by default, and function more like a system/daemon user (maybe use a completely different username without a password set), otherwise, this is a security issue. This requires some more investigation in my opinion.

As soon as I get to figuring out how to use the damn nmcli, I'll provide information about my experience with the image I built.

[guysoft]

Hey, I manage to run builds now using both Ubuntu and Debian Armbian builds. So if no problems I am going to close this.

[huelvayork]

fine! 2017-12-26 9:20 GMT+01:00 Guy Sheffer <notifications@github.com>:

…

Hey, I manage to run builds now using both Ubuntu and Debian Armbian builds. So if no problems I am going to close this. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAqjPxzsqhwCfW_tyS8oQrn239DjAt-Nks5tEKxTgaJpZM4P5JbF> .

-- Un saludo, David Prieto.

[guysoft]

Was waiting for @TheAssassin to reply who is OP. Closing if no reply

[TheAssassin]

Ah. I didn't think I would have to take any further action. I'll test it and report back.

[guysoft]

Well the issue is open, but it's also a free open source project. So I don't know if it's works unless test it. We are volunteers here :)

[TheAssassin]

There's information missing how to build Armbian images (i.e., what to call with which parameters). I think https://github.com/guysoft/CustomPiOS/wiki/Building needs some information on that.

What I did was:

• remove Raspbian image (not needed)
• download Armbian image, e.g., https://dl.armbian.com/orangepizero/Ubuntu_xenial_next.7z
• debug a bit to find out I need to mkdir image-variants && mv image/* image-variants/
• prefix image with Armbian-<...>, as the pattern isn't right (going to send a PR later)
• call ./build_dist armbian

Seems to work now, the image is extracted, I was quite happy about it. However, right after the fdisk calls, this happens:

++++ losetup -f --show -o 4194304 Armbian_5.35_Orangepizero_Ubuntu_xenial_next_4.13.16.img
losetup: Armbian_5.35_Orangepizero_Ubuntu_xenial_next_4.13.16.img: failed to set up loop device: Permission denied

Re-calling this script with sudo fixed the issues. But, as the script sudos itself in other places, that command should be prefixed with sudo as well, I'd say.

At least I got a file called /workspace-armbian/Armbian_5.35_Orangepizero_Ubuntu_xenial_next_4.13.16.img with a size of 1.8G, which looks quite valid to me. I couldn't test it yet (took my printer and its electronics apart, which the Orange Pi Zero is part of), but so far, so good.

As you might have seen, there's a few minor issues which are still left. But it's much better than when I first tried it, so thanks for improving this so far.

[guysoft]

We could add a page in the wiki with this info. Because ot seems there is a guide needed for armbian builds

[TheAssassin]

Yeah. The "actual" official build guide is in the wiki, too (although that should IMO be moved into the README, or be highlighted better in the README, I had some trouble finding it).

[guysoft]

We can link to it from the readme

[TheAssassin]

... or move this to the README. I guess this is what everyone is interested in, it's literally the most essential part of the documentation of this project. Half of this is in there anyway, so moving it to the README entirely would eliminate those duplicate docs, too. Also, in my experience, it's easier to keep a README up to date with the code than a wiki page, everything's available offline from the same directory.

[guysoft]

Ok, will also accept a pull request for the readme.
The reason I moved it to the wiki was that I had duplication in OctoPi, FullPageOS and every other distro I made

[TheAssassin]

Well, you can still link to the README from those places, it doesn't really matter whether it's in the wiki or in the README. But well, I'll stop argumenting about semantics. I'll try to send a PR.

[ChrisP-Git]

Hi,

I think I will share my exeprience here. I'm trying to build a distribution based on Debian based armbian for an Odroid C1.
I created a headless vm from scratch, based on Debian 8.2 64, for compilation.
During netinst phase, I created a standard user named octopi. Here is my step by step:

After installation, logged as root:

apt-get install sudo 
sudo adduser octopi sudo

Then logged as octopi:

sudo apt-get install gawk util-linux realpath qemu-user-static git p7zip-full 

git clone https://github.com/guysoft/CustomPiOS.git 
git clone https://github.com/guysoft/OctoPi.git 

cd CustomPiOS/src/variants/armbian
sudo modprobe loop

cd OctoPi/src/
mkdir image-variants
cd image-variants
wget https://dl.armbian.com/odroidc1/archive/Armbian_5.35_Odroidc1_Debian_jessie_default_3.10.107.7z

cd ..
../../CustomPiOS/src/update-custompios-paths 

python 3 is not available by default, I had to add it to avoid build error, with:
apt-get install python3

Then the strange thing is I cannot launch the build without sudo, or I get errors of fsdisk not available.
So I used:
sudo ./build_dist armbian

img is fully created, the odroid c1 boot, but I can't get it by network (no DHCP lease requested).
However while connected physically, I can login using pi/raspberry but just after login that a new user is requested but failed due to adduser unavailable, and process just loop here.

I could go to the Ubuntu flavor, but I prefer if possible to stay on headless Debian.

[ChrisP-Git]

Regarding the adduser issue, I think it's implemented by this script:
https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/a36c0f137507e41caf7371d0d4d6cc49d464ebec/packages/bsp/common/etc/profile.d/check_first_login.sh

So probably it could be bypassed by removing the file /root/.not_logged_in_yet, does that make sense ?
Where could this command be added ? I will test it but do not know how and where to implement it.

[TheAssassin]

@ChrisP-Git I remember a similar issue, which was solved by installing adduser, and I believe I had sent a PR back then...

I won't get to testing this with real hardware any soon, but I will let you know once I do. Maybe check the commit history? All that is needed is something to install the adduser command.

[ChrisP-Git]

@TheAssassin thanks for the head-up. I tried to find a PR concerning adduser but didn't find any (maybe I missed it).
Anyway I'm not sure this is really needed, as it's just required by the first connection on the device, and the image allready have 2 users, root and pi. However I tried to remove the file /root/.not_logged_in_yet from the sd card and it successfully bypassed this.

The issue I have now is that eth0 is not started by default. tried something on a fork but it didn't fixed it.

[TheAssassin]

The idea is to get rid of the default username/password combination. There's 1000s of similar devices with SSH servers available on the internet (via port forwardings). The only way to get rid of those, though, is to force people to add another user with different values on first use. A lot of users would otherwise not change either value for convenience.

It is explicitly recommended to not "solve" this problem like you suggest, but rather fix the dependency issue.

[ChrisP-Git]

I get your point, and preventing end user to simply redirect ssh port is a way to go.
But the first adduser triggered is not replacing the 'pi' user already present in the image, it's just adding another one if I'm not mistaken by the process.
And by the way, by default SSH is enabled for root user on armbian image.

[guysoft]

I suggest we start with a basic guide how to do it at all and then expand it. Before changing the default security in Armbian.

[ChrisP-Git]

Well, it's a bit tricky as the standard initialisation phase on Armbian should be to logon as root, change the root password as requested, then create a new standard user.

However for OctoPi a prepopulated user (pi) is required to run the OctoPrint processes then created by the build process. And this is the process for the standard Raspbian image, and the others variants, right ?

So should this creation of user 'pi' inside the build be reverted and finding a way to use the user created during first run to execute the OctoPrint processes ?

I'm not saying that a way is better than the other, but I am a bit confused.

[TheAssassin]

@guysoft to users of this project, it won't matter whether the default Armbian behavior is changed or not, in my opinion. I would say they prefer it to be consistent across distros, actually.

[arthurwolf]

I've read this thread and the previous one, and i'm very confused what the status of this is.
Let's take the most basic thing : I have a Orange Pi and I want an Octopi setup. What do I do ? I found an image but it's from 2016. What if I want a recent image ? Is there somewhere I can download it ? If there is no pre-made image ( you really should make them like for the normal octopi ), what do I need to do ? Build it myself is what I would guess, but where are the instructions to do that ? I can't find them easily.
Sorry if this is located somewhere obvious, I didn't find.

[indrora]

Just tried to build for Armbian.

1. the DNS server that is used no longer exists.
2. The image generation fails in multiple places. for instance, Avahi can't be installed because the user for Avahi can't be added:

You are required to change your password immediately (root enforced)
chfn: PAM: Authentication token is no longer valid; new one required
adduser: `/usr/bin/chfn -f Avahi mDNS daemon avahi' returned error code 1. Exiting.
dpkg: error processing package avahi-daemon (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.24-11+deb9u3) ...

and for some reason, pip fails:

+ pip install pip --upgrade
Collecting pip
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/46/dc/7fd5df840efb3e56c8b4f768793a237ec4ee59891959d6a215d63f727023/pip-19.0.1-py2.py3-none-any.whl (1.4MB)
Installing collected packages: pip
  Found existing installation: pip 9.0.1
    Not uninstalling pip at /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages, outside environment /usr
Successfully installed pip-19.0.1
+ pip install virtualenv --upgrade
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/pip", line 9, in <module>
    from pip import main
ImportError: cannot import name main
+ exit 1

[guysoft]

@indrora Can you please provide the base images you are using to build?

[indrora]

It's Debian for Orange Pi Zero: https://dl.armbian.com/orangepizero/Debian_stretch_next.7z The DNS server issue isn't tied to a specific image, so I'll go put in a PR for that.

On Mon, Jan 28, 2019, 01:56 Guy Sheffer ***@***.*** wrote: @indrora <https://github.com/indrora> Can you please provide the base images you are using to build?

On Jan 28, 2019 01:56, "Guy Sheffer" <notifications@github.com> wrote: @indrora <https://github.com/indrora> Can you please provide the base images you are using to build? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAcuOLPajp8U6c7irZFA4ITXaVwkLXQnks5vHrtEgaJpZM4P5JbF> .

[indrora]

Reference on Pip: This is a known thing and we should not be installing Pip like this?

see here: pypa/pip#5599

[indrora]

Just noticed something: Pip gets installed, upgraded, virtualenv installed, then pip immediately removed. This leaves things in an inconsistent state.

This generally isn't safe and it's generally safer to use the distribution provided version of pip, virtualenv.

[guysoft]

@indrora I can change it to:

wget https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py -O - | python3

Would that work?

[guysoft]

Looking at it, I think the pip install was there from either legacy code or something with the iptables, I suggest you just remove all of that, confirm it works without it, and then we commit that bit out.

[luxflow]

@guysoft
which armbian distro version does CustomPIOS target for?
I think it should be noted somewhere (currently jessie?, it seems armbian download page consider jessie legacy)

I have to remove NetworkManager to get wifi work becuase NetworkManager control network after armbian buster. (systemctl disable NetworkManager)

armbian has option for changing boot filesystem other than ext4
CustomPiOS may provide similar experience like raspberry pi to change settings (fat partition for /boot)
what do you think about it?
https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/1bf608e1ca21ef2c3c650689f3645832ec728da9/lib/configuration.sh#L88
https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_User-Configurations/#user-provided-configuration

[guysoft]

@luxflow So since this issue has been open. I've been playing around with the idea of making armbian stuff as a variable rather than a variant (and have the variant just set the variable).

In latest devel there is support for Ubuntu like this.

export BASE_DISTRO=ubuntu

There is a new variable BASE_DISTRO where the default is:

BASE_DISTRO=raspbian

Then we could have

BASE_DISTRO=armbian_debian

and

BASE_DISTRO=armbian_ubuntu

Do you have an image you are building? I could test it and start implementing the new way to build, which should be easier to maintain.

[luxflow]

@guysoft
here is what I have done to images, just try it, works well for me

https://github.com/luxflow/CustomPiOS/releases/tag/buster
https://github.com/luxflow/OctoPi/releases/tag/0.17.0

[guysoft]

@luxflow Cool, we should really merge your changes in to mainline.
Why are you disabling network manager?
Any chance you will set up a PR?

[luxflow]

@guysoft
IMO, network manager is useless for our case
As I know, it is originally intended for laptop or desktop usecase. raspbian don't use NM by default
armbian use NM because it is good choice for inexperienced users. https://forum.armbian.com/topic/6104-network-manager-woes/
armbian has NM based headless "onetime" wifi setup (armbian_first_run.txt) luxflow@2979c8a#diff-d41311dfd21fdaa3fcceec5294fa29acR34
but I prefer wpa_supplicant.conf method which can change wifi setup multiple times

So why not disabling it?

I will PR soon

[indrora]

Fedora Server uses NetworkManager on ARM as well, as does CentOS. They've advised against networkd for a lack of maturity. Raspbian uses others because of any number of reasons, including long standing compatibility things? I would advise against removing it, given other distributions usage.

…

On Sun, Jan 26, 2020, 21:00 luxflow ***@***.***> wrote: @guysoft <https://github.com/guysoft> IMO, network manager is useless for our case As I know, it is originally intended for laptop or desktop. raspbian don't use NM by default armbian use NM because it is good choice for inexperienced users. https://forum.armbian.com/topic/6104-network-manager-woes/ armbian has NM based headless "onetime" wifi setup (armbian_first_run.txt) ***@***.***#diff-d41311dfd21fdaa3fcceec5294fa29acR34 <luxflow@2979c8a#diff-d41311dfd21fdaa3fcceec5294fa29acR34> but I prefer wpa_supplicant.conf method which can change wifi setup multiple times So why not disabling it? I will PR soon — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#7?email_source=notifications&email_token=AADS4OHGCI3YQT73STZ35RLQ7ZS6PA5CNFSM4D7ES3C2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOEJ6J2ZY#issuecomment-578592103>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AADS4OHZTRS5FX44MU3P5B3Q7ZS6PANCNFSM4D7ES3CQ> .

[luxflow]

systemd-networkd seems off-topic thing isn't it?
I prefer ifupdown than NetworkManager since it gives similar user experience like raspbian.
And as I said earlier, armbian only support onetime headless setup. whenever change wifi ssid, password. this was quite nuisance for me
I'm not strongly against NM, so using armbian default behavior is OK for me

and I found why armbian drop fat boot partition and use ext4 by default
https://salsa.debian.org/cklein-guest/dpkg/merge_requests/1
so whenever kernel update, dpkg hard link old file for backup, but fat doesn't have hard link.
raspbian solve this problem using dpkg-divert hack.
I didn't noticed this since I didn't upgrade kernel for orange pi
should have to freeze armbian packages, preventing from user accidentally break system

personally, I think we should have to deal with all of these problems from a practical point of view

1. do we need to prefer NetworkManager at the expense of similar user experience of raspbian?
2. do kernel upgrade matter than fat bootfs easy setup for 99% user?

I'm not sure which way is better

[guysoft]

I rather stuff stay similar to the Raspberry Pi initial configuration (well with the CustomPiOS edition that is part of the network module, such as having a wifi text file with presets)..
So if they don't have network manager by default its legit. It could be added as an optional module in CustomPiOS if others need it. So the Armbian base setup should remove it.

So I vote:

1. no
2. I am not suer I understand that question - I think kernel upgrades should not be default. We could have a upgrade-kernel module that would take care of that.

[guysoft]

#68 just went it, it might solve some of your issues.