Inquiry about Using nvme_csd on Rock 5B Board

[dmitry663]

(I'm not good at English, so I used a translator.)

Dear Author,

I came across your project nvme_csd and was very interested in trying it out. To do so, I purchased a Rock 5B board, as it is listed as a supported and tested platform in the /Platforms/README.md file. However, I could not find documentation in the /Platforms/ directory explaining how to use it.

Would it be possible to share any existing documentation or guidelines for using nvme_csd on the Rock 5B board?
If there are no official documents available, could you kindly provide some guidance on how to configure the Radxa OS for this project? Specifically, I am interested in what to consider and how to modify the .dtsi files for compatibility, as outlined in Radxa’s kernel documentation (https://docs.radxa.com/en/rock5/rock5b/low-level-dev/kernel).

Additionally, I am considering testing nvme_csd on other boards. Could you recommend a board that would be easier to work with for this purpose?

Thank you for your time, and I appreciate your assistance. I look forward to your response.

[rick-heig]

Hello,

There is no documentation for the Rock 5B because I don't have that board, but I know it works and supports the project as while co-developing the "non-computational" NVMe endpoint code, other developers have ran the NVMe code on that board.

Luckily as the Rock5B and T6 are very similar, you should be able to follow the documentation for the T6 here, all the steps should be the exact same, with the minor difference that during the build step you should run make rock5b_ep_defconfig instead of make friendlyelec_nanopc_t6_ep_defconfig.

This should allow to run the nvme_csd project on the Rock5B board. Let me know how it goes so I can add a README for the Rock5B.

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Note that you cannot use RadxaOS as it is based on a much older 5.10 custom kernel and nvme_csd uses Linux 6.7. Because of this some things will not be supported, e.g., HDMI, as HDMI support for the RK3588 is not yet in mainline, see status, but you can build nvme_csd with either a minimal RootFS or a full Ubuntu OS as described in the T6 instructions, but both will be command line only through UART or SSH because of the missing HDMI support.

We are working on getting the "non computational" NVMe PCI endpoint code merged in mainline Linux, which is planned for Linux 6.14, see LKML. Once Linux 6.14 is out and if I have time I will rebase the nvme_csd code to work with Linux 6.14 (there were numerous changes to the PCI endpoint framework / NVMe subsystems). This will improve compatibility with most boards, and maybe some day in the future RadxaOS might update their kernel to a Linux 6.xx, but this is a large amount of work so it is unlikely to be soon.

Note: If you are interested in the "non-computational" NVMe code there are branches for buildroot for the Rock5B here. But these are not directly compatible with nvme_csd and only do standard NVMe.

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Please let me know how it goes with the Rock5B, as you already have purchased that board, give it a try, I'll see if I can help, and update the documentation based on how it goes.

If you are considering other boards, I would recommend one of the FriendlyElec's boards, either the NanoPC T6 or the CM3588 + NAS Kit. However as the Rock5B is so similar and should work with the instructions given above I would try that first.

Best regards,
Rick

[dmitry663]

Dear Author,

Thank you very much for your kind and detailed response. My apologies for the delay in expressing my gratitude.

Thanks to your guidance, I successfully built the project on the Rock 5B board and was able to access it via SSH. Your additional advice about the lack of HDMI support also helped me confirm that the board is functioning properly.

I haven’t been able to proceed further as the cable I ordered has not yet arrived. Once it does, I will continue testing and share the results along with my thanks once again.

Thank you very much for your help and support.

Best regards,
dmitry(Han)