Raspberry Pi4 bootloader update package

[timg236]

We've recently published a Debian package which makes it easier to update the bootloader EEPROM when new features and bug fixes are available i.e. no need to swap sd-cards

EEPROM updates are delivered by apt updates (it doesn't poll the network) and the default behaviour is to update to the latest critical release at the next reboot.

If you'd like to try this then you just need to update the firmware to the latest revision then install the rpi-eeprom package:-

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sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install rpi-eeprom

"critical release" updates are infrequent and correspond to important hardware compatibility, security bug fixes or updates the default production version after beta testing.

It's also possible to the scripts from the command line and there's plenty of scope to enable/disable the service. See documenation

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rpi-eeprom-update -h

Pi4 bootloader documentation
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... teeprom.md

Release notes
https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eepr ... e-notes.md

Previous thread for beta-release of rpi-eeprom package
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 9&t=250368

[dickon]

Will 'critical release' cover ethernet booting? ie, if I just cron this, will I eventually get a message telling me an update is required and, upon installing it, magically gain proper netbooting?

[timg236]

Will 'critical release' cover ethernet booting? ie, if I just cron this, will I eventually get a message telling me an update is required and, upon installing it, magically gain proper netbooting?

Eventually.

New features will be released by 'beta' first then possibly a 'stable' tag (TBD) which would be picked up by rpi-update and then 'critical' and also be the default version at manufacture. The intention is to have a gradual rollout.

To actually activate network boot you need to update the EEPROM config (using rpi-eeprom-config) and set NET_BOOT to 1. Similar to the OTP flag on Pi3 but you can undo it

[dickon]

Well, that was easy. Thanks.

[figshta]

I know it's early days on EEPROM bootloader updates and documentation.
I hope I can be helpful and get some help at the same time.

I succeeded in updating my bootloader to the July 15th release.
I ran into some glitches and posted in the wrong thread (Raspberry Pi4 EEPROM update package - beta) where I learned that I still have an old "package".

Your rpi-eeprom package is old, the current one is 0.3-1, which is why you couldn't find any beta releases (what this thread is about).

In fact, I wasn't looking to update to a beta version (yet), and I don't think using the wrong thread had much to do with my update glitches ( I was following the documentation, after all) as much as my incorrect solution attempts.

My questions now are about the documentation and the terminology.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... teeprom.md

What is the difference between the rpi-eeprom package and the bootloader?
Did I somehow managed to update one but not the other?
I ran

Code: Select all

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install rpi-eeprom

Isn't that the "package"?
or
Is there another "package"?
Shouldn't I update this other "package" to 0.3-1?
How do I find that?

Please excuse any excessive noobishness.

[timg236]

I know it's early days on EEPROM bootloader updates and documentation.
I hope I can be helpful and get some help at the same time.

I succeeded in updating my bootloader to the July 15th release.
I ran into some glitches and posted in the wrong thread (Raspberry Pi4 EEPROM update package - beta) where I learned that I still have an old "package".

Your rpi-eeprom package is old, the current one is 0.3-1, which is why you couldn't find any beta releases (what this thread is about).

In fact, I wasn't looking to update to a beta version (yet), and I don't think using the wrong thread had much to do with my update glitches ( I was following the documentation, after all) as much as my incorrect solution attempts.

My questions now are about the documentation and the terminology.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... teeprom.md

What is the difference between the rpi-eeprom package and the bootloader?
Did I somehow managed to update one but not the other?
I ran

Code: Select all

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install rpi-eeprom

Isn't that the "package"?
or
Is there another "package"?
Shouldn't I update this other "package" to 0.3-1?
How do I find that?

Please excuse any excessive noobishness.

rpi-eeprom is an apt package which contains the bootloader EEPROM images plus scripts to update the EEPROM. Initially, a beta-release of the apt package was released to test the setup scripts as opposed to testing the EEPROM images. If you have edited /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list to include 'untested' then you should edit that file and remove the word 'untested' then
'sudo apt update' and 'sudo apt upgrade'

This will give you the latest, release version of the rpi-eeprom package.

Now that we are happy with the upgrade-scripts are are releasing updates of the bootloader firmware which will appear under /lib/firmware/raspberrypi/bootloader. The critical sub-directory contains the minimum recommended bootloader binaries and the beta sub-directory contains the latest experimental versions of the bootloader.

[ShiftPlusOne]

Shouldn't I update this other "package" to 0.3-1?

That should've worked. What's the output of just 'apt policy'?

Did you run 'sudo apt update' recently (in the last 24 hours)?

[pi-tastic]

Thank you!

[figshta]

Shouldn't I update this other "package" to 0.3-1?

That should've worked. What's the output of just 'apt policy'?

Did you run 'sudo apt update' recently (in the last 24 hours)?

I see. What a difference a day makes.
I ran the 'apt update' and 'upgrade' and now the 'apt policy' looks okay!

Thanks

[5t4n5]

I did the above update as stated.

Since doing this whenever i shut down the Pi4 the monitor shuts off as usual but the Pi Ethernet light starts flashing continuously and the blue and red leds on my SSD stay on continuously - not flashing.

I presume this means my Pi is not powering down properly any more.

It didn't do this before i applied this bootloader eeprom thing.

How do i fix the eeprom thing or how do i undo the eeprom update and put it back the way it was, please?

[Cyberjew]

Awesome! Thanks for making the process easier and more reliable!

Please ship USB boot support!!!

Thanks for all your hard work!

[W. H. Heydt]

To actually activate network boot you need to update the EEPROM config (using rpi-eeprom-config) and set NET_BOOT to 1. Similar to the OTP flag on Pi3 but you can undo it

So... In the fullness of time, when USB booting is available, will that follow this pattern as well? Will boot-from-USB be enabled by default, or will it be something that has to be enabled? I can think of reasonable arguments for either behavior.

[jamesh]

Awesome! Thanks for making the process easier and more reliable!

Please ship USB boot support!!!

Thanks for all your hard work!

It doesn't matter how many times you ask, it doesn't make the code writing process any faster.

[timg236]

To actually activate network boot you need to update the EEPROM config (using rpi-eeprom-config) and set NET_BOOT to 1. Similar to the OTP flag on Pi3 but you can undo it

So... In the fullness of time, when USB booting is available, will that follow this pattern as well? Will boot-from-USB be enabled by default, or will it be something that has to be enabled? I can think of reasonable arguments for either behavior.

The EEPROM config should allow more or less arbitrary ordering of boot modes. Since it's config.txt it's possible to use any gpio related filters to control this as well.

The default behaviour will likely always boot from the SD-CARD if it finds a start.elf file. However, it would be reasonably fail over to USB mass storage boot, assuming that the USB device responds quickly enough etc.

[timg236]

Awesome! Thanks for making the process easier and more reliable!

Please ship USB boot support!!!

Thanks for all your hard work!

It doesn't matter how many times you ask, it doesn't make the code writing process any faster.

Indeed

Something that will help is getting more feedback about whether people have installed the rpi-eeprom bootloader update package and whether it worked or not.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 3&t=251396

Making sure that update mechanism is robust so that bug fixes and power savings can be rolled to all users (who haven't blocked updates) takes priority over new features. Raspbian doesn't collect any form of usage statistics so it's rather difficult to determine how many people have tried a beta version.

[jcyr]

I did the above update as stated.

Since doing this whenever i shut down the Pi4 the monitor shuts off as usual but the Pi Ethernet light starts flashing continuously and the blue and red leds on my SSD stay on continuously - not flashing.

I presume this means my Pi is not powering down properly any more.

It didn't do this before i applied this bootloader eeprom thing.

How do i fix the eeprom thing or how do i undo the eeprom update and put it back the way it was, please?

I've reported this issue (Ethernet LED rapidly flashing indefinitely after shutdown). You can fix this by editing your eeprom bootloader with the following parameters: WAKE_ON_GPIO=0 and POWER_OFF_ON_HALT=1. Apparently this can cause problems with some hats, but I haven't seen any.

[5t4n5]

You can fix this by editing your eeprom bootloader with the following parameters: WAKE_ON_GPIO=0 and POWER_OFF_ON_HALT=1. Apparently this can cause problems with some hats, but I haven't seen any.

Thanks, but, how do i get into the eeprom to edit it, please?

[graphicw]

I have installed and it works as advertised. I am running the July 15 image. I attempted the September 10 image but ended up with non booting Pi (4 long flash with 4 short flash). Recovered without issue, so not a big deal at all. May have had a corrupted Bin so will try again.

[graphicw]

I am willing to BETA and ALPHA test because I can get myself back out of trouble if it fails.

[jamesh]

I am willing to BETA and ALPHA test because I can get myself back out of trouble if it fails.

Follow instructions in first post to try this stuff out.

[jcyr]

I did the above update as stated.

Since doing this whenever i shut down the Pi4 the monitor shuts off as usual but the Pi Ethernet light starts flashing continuously and the blue and red leds on my SSD stay on continuously - not flashing.

I presume this means my Pi is not powering down properly any more.

It didn't do this before i applied this bootloader eeprom thing.

How do i fix the eeprom thing or how do i undo the eeprom update and put it back the way it was, please?

I've reported this issue (Ethernet LED rapidly flashing indefinitely after shutdown). You can fix this by editing your eeprom bootloader with the following parameters: WAKE_ON_GPIO=0 and POWER_OFF_ON_HALT=1. Apparently this can cause problems with some hats, but I haven't seen any.

I used a hex editor on my laptop. I believe there are complete instructions here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... teeprom.md

[5t4n5]

I used a hex editor on my laptop. I believe there are complete instructions here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... teeprom.md

Thanks jcyr, but that's not very helpful for someone who just wants to use a Pi and not have to learn to rewrite everything in hex.

I'm left wondering what is this the official Raspberry Pi foundation answer to this issue? They still haven't replied to this issue. Are they going to fix it or not?

Is RPF answer that all Pi users affected in this way should get another computer with a hex editor, learn to use a hex editor, know exactly what all that means, just to have the up to date bootloader running on the Raspberry Pi and get it powering down properly?

Or is the RPF official answer to simply not care that their new bootloader stops the Pi powering down properly and leaves USB hard drives and ethernet all powered up?

Is this going to damage my Pi, my ethernet, my SSD, my USB peripherals as the only way i can power them down now is to simply turn off the power supply - which i seem to remember being told not to do as it will probably mess everything up.

Or should i just say screw it and do a complete reinstall of the whole thing and never update my Pi again because when things don't work after an update RPF aren't going to do anything to fix it?

Seriously, i'm confused about this and would like an official answer from RPF on this matter.

Thanks.

[rpdom]

I'm left wondering what is this the official Raspberry Pi foundation answer to this issue? They still haven't replied to this issue. Are they going to fix it or not?

Did you read the documentation on the link provided?

It gives clear instructions on how to read the configuration on the current image, write that to a text file (that can be edited any any standard text editor on the Pi), and use it to update the image file before writing it back out to the eeprom.

[jamesh]

I used a hex editor on my laptop. I believe there are complete instructions here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentati ... teeprom.md

Thanks jcyr, but that's not very helpful for someone who just wants to use a Pi and not have to learn to rewrite everything in hex.

I'm left wondering what is this the official Raspberry Pi foundation answer to this issue? They still haven't replied to this issue. Are they going to fix it or not?

Is RPF answer that all Pi users affected in this way should get another computer with a hex editor, learn to use a hex editor, know exactly what all that means, just to have the up to date bootloader running on the Raspberry Pi and get it powering down properly?

Or is the RPF official answer to simply not care that their new bootloader stops the Pi powering down properly and leaves USB hard drives and ethernet all powered up?

Is this going to damage my Pi, my ethernet, my SSD, my USB peripherals as the only way i can power them down now is to simply turn off the power supply - which i seem to remember being told not to do as it will probably mess everything up.

Or should i just say screw it and do a complete reinstall of the whole thing and never update my Pi again because when things don't work after an update RPF aren't going to do anything to fix it?

Seriously, i'm confused about this and would like an official answer from RPF on this matter.

Thanks.

Of course we are not ignoring issues. We keep a very close eye on stuff like this. But right now, it's the weekend, and even raspberry pi engineers need a break now and again.

Official bug reporting should be via the appropriate GitHub repo. That way stuff doesn't get lost as can happen with forum threads.

[FPSychotic]

if I'm working under a SSD installation but booting from SD Card, how I should prrocced to upgrade without ruin my installation? update and install in both or only in SD Card?