It is time to upgrade default image on BBGW – BeagleBone Green Wireless board. This guide details out steps on Update Beaglebone Green To Latest Image. My default image on BBGW is “BeagleBoard.org Debian Image 2016-06-14”. The command dog cat will tell you what image you are at in BBGW. $cat /etc/dogtag
The default Wi-Fi access point password for latest flasher images is “BeagleBone-A490”. This image comes as default when you buy BBGW in India. Few of the reason to upgrade to new image is, Difficulty in connecting to internet with old image. New uEnv.txt format will not work on this image, and you will have difficulty while communicating with UART, I2C and other peripherals. There are quite guides on Writing a new Image to the Beaglebone black but very few about beaglebone green wireless.

If you are looking for answers to the question like, How do I update my BeagleBone? or How do you flash a BeagleBone green? Upgrade to latest image is very simple.

BBGW Preparation For Upgrade

Make a backup of your custom stuff. If you are working on BBGW for some time, then your custom stuff will in home folder. It’s good to have a backup. Once you re-flash you can install the packages you need and put custom stuff. I suggest to create shell script for the packages you install.

Steps – Update Beaglebone Green To Latest Image

Beagle bone green wireless board upgrade to latest flasher image is simple three step process.

Step 1 –

Easiest way to re-flash to the latest system is by downloading the latest firmware flasher image. The latest flasher image “AM3358 Debian 10.3 2020-04-06 4GB eMMC IoT Flasher” from the “Flasher Debian images” section.

Step 2-

Write this image to sd card using Etcher (etcher.io)

Step 3 –

Now insert this SD card and boot BBGW from this new image. If you boot the beaglebone from SD card, it will automatically proceed to erase and reflash the eMMC.
But wait, since the current system is very old, to get it to boot from the sd card it is required to power on with the S2 button held down (the one closest to the sd card) during power-on, you can let go of the button once any LED’s turn on. Once booting process starts, user LED’s will start blinking to create sequence.
After 20-25 minutes LED’s will stop blinking. Once upgrade is completed, all the LED’s on the BBGW including power LED will be off.

Troubleshooting BBGW Connection –

Unplug BBGW power, take out SD card and plug in power to BBGW. Once BBGW powers up login to BBGW using following command.

$ ssh debian@beaglebone
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: POSSIBLE DNS SPOOFING DETECTED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
The ECDSA host key for beaglebone has changed,
and the key for the corresponding IP address fe80::e615:f6ff:fefd:a492%59
is unknown. This could either mean that
DNS SPOOFING is happening or the IP address for the host
and its host key have changed at the same time.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@ WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the ECDSA key sent by the remote host is
SHA256:TregYNPVgnma80ovgoaiICs0rjjpHm4FwYt+90chs/Y.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /c/Users/Admin/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending ECDSA key in /c/Users/Admin/.ssh/known_hosts:10
ECDSA host key for beaglebone has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.

This was working with old image, since this is new image, login to begalebone using “beaglebone.local”

ssh debian@beaglebone.local

Once you are in check out dogtag and you should see the latest buster IoT image

debian@beaglebone:~$ cat /etc/dogtag
BeagleBoard.org Debian Buster IoT Image 2020-04-06

Now that you are connected to BBGW, lets try to update using – apt-get update.

debian@beaglebone:~$ ping google.com
ping: google.com: Temporary failure in name resolution
debian@beaglebone:~$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
Generated by Connection Manager

This implies that, BBGW is not connected to internet.

Setup WiFi on BBGW

We will be setting up WiFi using “connmanctl”, there are other ways, but since BBGW provides this utility lets use it.

debian@beaglebone:~$ connmanctl state
State = idle
OfflineMode = False
SessionMode = False  

Above command output confirms that BBGW is not connected to internet.

debian@beaglebone:~$ connmanctl
Error getting VPN connections: The name net.connman.vpn was not provided by any .connmanctl> enable wifi
Error wifi: Already enabled
connmanctl> scan wifi
Scan completed for wifi
connmanctl> services
SARVESH wifi_64694e0e8e55_53415256455348_managed_psk
Gowda wifi_64694e0e8e55_476f776461_managed_psk
wifi_64694e0e8e55_hidden_managed_psk
connmanctl> agent on
Agent registered
connmanctl> connect wifi_64694e0e8e55_53415256455348_managed_psk
Agent RequestInput wifi_64694e0e8e55_53415256455348_managed_psk
Passphrase = [ Type=psk, Requirement=mandatory, Alternates=[ WPS ] ]
WPS = [ Type=wpspin, Requirement=alternate ]
Passphrase? <your wifi password>
Connected wifi_64694e0e8e55_53415256455348_managed_psk
connmanctl> quit

Hope you have enjoyed reading on how to update Beaglebone Green To Latest Image.