ARM Support

[orangana]

This time? Maybe?

Context:

17.1: https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=2441.msg29897#msg29897
18.1: https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=7741.msg35479#msg35479
19.1: https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=10937.msg50053#msg50053

[lattera]

So, take what I'm about to say with a bit of a grain of salt. In this case, I'm not speaking on behalf of the OPNsense project here. I'm just providing a little bit of background info.

With OPNsense 19.1, OPNsense will have switched fully to HardenedBSD as the base operating system. Yay! I've committed to providing basic 32-bit Intel (i386) support to OPNsense for 2019. Outside of this limited scope, HardenedBSD does not support 32-bit architectures. In 2020, OPNsense will drop i386 support as they migrate to HardenedBSD 12 (I will be guiding them along this process, of course).

It would make much more sense for OPNsense to start targeting arm64. The problem, though, is that all these little arm64 SoC dev boards require a slightly different version of U-Boot. So OPNsense would have to generate installation media for each board, whether it be the Raspberry Pi 3, Pine64, Pine64-LTS, Rock64, etc. This is very quite painful, because it takes a lot of resources. Now, OPNsense may deem it worthwhile, so that's not my place to say.

I'd be interested to see more arm64 systems like what SoftIron and Cavium provide, where UEFI is used instead of U-Boot. That would make it really easy for OPNsense to support arm64. It would be possible for OPNsense to do that regardless of the state of these SoC dev boards.

[orangana]

to bad ...this one here would make another wonderful road warrior in a neat little metal case - if opensense would just support it... 

NanoPi R1 is an Allwinner H3 Gateway with Dual Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth






Source: https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/02/20/nanopi-r1-allwinner-h3-gateway-dual-ethernet-wifi-bluetooth/

[tsgan]

OPNsense on NanoPI R1 works.

[orangana]

OPNsense on NanoPI R1 works.

Wait! What?

Got some more information and a download link maybe? 

[franco]

We're upping ARM build support in tools.git at the moment. No official images but several ready-to-try images here:

https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=12186.0

Eventually we want to offer official images but the core team agrees that ARM64 is a better target to wait for in order to support a device or a class of devices which brings us into 2020 or so where we have to replace the to-be-discontinues i386 track anyway.

So for now all building is on the user, but the tools do a great job of automatic cross-building now thanks to the help and contributions of Neko.


Cheers,
Franco

[chemlud]

Very cool, make it official asap! :-D

[nekoprog]

Currently depending on Das U-Boot and FreeBSD-Ports to update their defconfig for newer arm boards, so it will be easy for user to use OPNsense/Tools later, no manual labour for editing source code. So that has to wait for certain amount of time. Meanwhile arm64 image is uploading and using EFI not older ubldr. Once the image is ready, I will mention it on 1st page here.

Got Raspberry Pi3 and OrangePi PC2 in upload queue. Don't know whether the image will boot or not, it all depends on the tester with the boards mentioned above.

[chemlud]

...will download and burn raspi 3 image happily when available... :-)

[chemlud]

PS: Remark to raspi 2 image I tested:

I can see the console output on the serial console (GPIO-to-USB adater for raspi), and in the end I get a login, as usual. However, I can't enter any characters at all, is the TX not functional on the console or an error on my side?

[orangana]

Really, there is something happening! Great! 

@chemlud: raspberry pi 3 image is up

[tsgan]

OPNsense on NanoPI R1 works.

Wait! What?

Got some more information and a download link maybe? 

Here is the image one can try:

https://people.freebsd.org/~ganbold/OPNsense-201903201231-OpenSSL-arm-armv7-nanopi-r1.img.xz

[abidkhan]

OPNsense on NanoPI R1 works.

Wait! What?

Got some more information and a download link maybe? 

Hi,

is there a working image available? any link?

[origin]

OPNsense on NanoPI R1 works.

Wait! What?

Got some more information and a download link maybe? 

Hi,

is there a working image available? any link?

OPNsense on NanoPI R1 works.

Wait! What?

Got some more information and a download link maybe? 

Here is the image one can try:

https://people.freebsd.org/~ganbold/OPNsense-201903201231-OpenSSL-arm-armv7-nanopi-r1.img.xz