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Pandaboard Results from 2012-10-26 VFAD of Fedora 18 Alpha RC1

Results

Test Result Notes
1 Download image
Pass pass jbastian
2 Verify checksum
Pass pass jbastian
F18-panda-xfce-20121025.img.xz: OK
3 Image size
Pass pass jbastian
4294967296 bytes
4 Write image to SD card
Pass pass jbastian
5 Do all default services start?
Fail fail jbastian [1]
NetworkManager and firewalld sometimes fail to start on boot if you create ifcfg-eth0. It appears to be a timing problem. See details below.
6 Boot results
Pass pass jbastian
Fedora release 18 (Spherical Cow)
Kernel 3.6.3-3.fc18.armv7hl.omap on an armv7l (ttyO2)
panda-f18-v7hl login:
7 yum
Pass pass jbastian
yum -y install sl; yum check-update; yum -y update wget all worked ok
8 System logging
Pass pass jbastian
[root@panda-f18-v7hl ~]# tail /var/log/messages
Oct 26 14:25:46 panda-f18-v7hl yum[1135]: Updated: wget-1.14-3.fc18.armv7hl
9 Shutdown
Pass pass jbastian
[ 1927.908233] System halted.
10 Audio not tested
11 Release notes
Pass pass jbastian
/usr/share/doc/HTML/fedora-release-notes/index.html file exists
Note: VNC server used for GUI tests since my Pandaboard is headless
12 Midori and Terminal
Pass pass jbastian
Midori is installed instead of Firefox, but it appears to work fine. Terminal is fine.
13 Fedora artwork
Pass pass jbastian
14 Desktop panels
Pass pass jbastian
15 Media
Pass pass jbastian
Since I was using VNC it was not automatic, but I could see the new media in the file manager and mount it.
16 Shutdown from desktop VNC desktops are not on the console so do not have authority to shutdown or reboot. Log Out did correctly end the Xfce session, though.
17 GUI Panel elements
Pass pass jbastian
18 Menu sanity Ran out of time to test every application
19 Desktop keyring Xfce does not have a keyring (that I'm aware of), but ssh-agent was running, so I ran ssh-add from a terminal, and then I could ssh to a remote host using my key.
  1. RHBZ #871122

Persistent MAC Address

The Pandaboard lacks an EEPROM to store a MAC address, so the smsc95xx driver generates a random MAC address on each boot. One method to get a persistent MAC address is to create a /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file with contents:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
MACADDR=3A:21:74:D3:48:6A

The MACADDR variable is used to set your MAC address (not to be confused with the HWADDR variable!).

With this file in place, however, NetworkManager and firewalld fail to start on Fedora 18 Alpha RC1:

[root@panda-f18-v7hl ~]# systemctl status NetworkManager.service
NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
          Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled)
          Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri, 31 Dec 1999 19:01:07 -0500; 26s ago
         Process: 463 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
          CGroup: name=systemd:/system/NetworkManager.service

Dec 31 19:00:47 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: ifcfg-rh: Couldn't acquire D-Bus service: Connection was disconnected before a reply was received
Dec 31 19:00:47 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: ifcfg-rh: Acquired D-Bus service com.redhat.ifcfgrh1
Dec 31 19:00:47 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: <info> Loaded plugin ifcfg-rh: (c) 2007 - 2010 Red Hat, Inc.  To report bugs please use the NetworkManager mailing list.
Dec 31 19:00:47 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: <info> Loaded plugin keyfile: (c) 2007 - 2010 Red Hat, Inc.  To report bugs please use the NetworkManager mailing list.
Dec 31 19:00:47 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: ifcfg-rh: parsing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 ...
Dec 31 19:00:47 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: <warn> failed to allocate link cache: (-10) Operation not supported
Dec 31 19:00:47 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: ifcfg-rh:     read connection 'System eth0'
Dec 31 19:00:47 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: ifcfg-rh: parsing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo ...
Dec 31 19:00:48 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[463]: <warn> NameHasOwner request failed: Disconnected from D-Bus (or argument error during call)
Dec 31 19:01:07 panda-f18-v7hl systemd[1]: Failed to start Network Manager.

Restarting NetworkManager works, i.e., it starts ok the second time:

[root@panda-f18-v7hl ~]# systemctl restart NetworkManager.service
[root@panda-f18-v7hl ~]# systemctl status NetworkManager.service
NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
          Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled)
          Active: active (running) since Fri, 31 Dec 1999 19:03:22 -0500; 12 years and 9 months ago
        Main PID: 852 (NetworkManager)
          CGroup: name=systemd:/system/NetworkManager.service
                    ├ 852 /usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon
                    └ 866 /sbin/dhclient -d -4 -sf /usr/libexec/nm-dhcp-clie...

Dec 31 19:03:29 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info>   nameserver '192.168.1.254'
Dec 31 19:03:29 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info>   domain name 'gateway.2wire.net'
Dec 31 19:03:29 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info> Activation (eth0) Stage 5 of 5 (IPv4 Configure Commit) scheduled...
Dec 31 19:03:29 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info> Activation (eth0) Stage 5 of 5 (IPv4 Commit) started...
Dec 31 19:03:29 panda-f18-v7hl dhclient[866]: bound to 192.168.1.82 -- renewal in 32627 seconds.
Dec 31 19:03:30 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info> (eth0): device state change: ip-config -> secondaries (reason 'none') [70 90 0]
Dec 31 19:03:30 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info> Activation (eth0) Stage 5 of 5 (IPv4 Commit) complete.
Dec 31 19:03:30 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info> (eth0): device state change: secondaries -> activated (reason 'none') [90 100 0]
Dec 31 19:03:32 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info> Policy set 'System eth0' (eth0) as default for IPv4 routing and DNS.
Dec 31 19:03:32 panda-f18-v7hl NetworkManager[852]: <info> Activation (eth0) successful, device activated.

You may need to restart firewalld also. After NetworkManager starts successfully, I still cannot ssh into my Pandaboard. Restarting firewalld fixes that problem.

[root@panda-f18-v7hl ~]# systemctl restart firewalld.service

Note: Changing SELinux mode from Enforcing to Permissive (and rebooting) appeared to fix it, but it continued to work after changing back to Enforcing.

Note 2: It appears to be a timing-related issue. After rebooting multiple times, it sometimes works, and it sometimes fails.