Need to clone eMMC from one R5C to many R5C

[StefanA]

Hi,
How would I clone the eMMC to get it installed onto the next boards using eflasher?
Or how would I clone one eMMC to the next board (using an SD card or a PC to jump)?


I need to set up several hundreds of devices with a modified Debian 11 (started from the official minimal).
With similar single board computers, we prepare the OS on one SBC.
If it is on SD, we simple clone the SD
If it is on eMMC, we gain access to the eMMC (depending on board vendor) and then clone what we get.

The clone then gets shrunken and waits for a rollout.
These clones are then getting copied to new SD cards or devices using etcher, win32imager or dd.

[StefanA]

Hi,

with ASUS Tinker board, I can just USB-C connct it to my PC and it provides a disk device, which I can clone and transfer to the next system.

Any idea how this works with the R5C?

[dermiscurious]

Connect the eMMC chip on the source board to the eflasher.
When you use the eflasher program, read the whole eMMC to a binary image file.
Remove the eMMC chip from the source board and connect it to the target board.
Repeat steps 3–4 for as many eMMC chips on the target board as you need, flashing each one with the same source image.
Using sfdisk, you can also dump the partition table information and then make matching partitions on the destination boards.

[Ratatui]

Just started playing with these devices as I've been using openwrt for many years.
It's been very hard to find information on exactly what you're talking about here.

First, I created my own custom image which I can write to SD Cards.
I'd like to write that to eMMC so that no SD Card is needed.

However, once the devices are installed, I have no more physical access to them so SD Cards are useless from remote.

1: I'd love to know exactly what steps/commands, how to accomplish what is mentioned here, how to make a copy of the OS running on the eMMC.

2: I'd love to know exactly what steps/commands, tools are needed to write my image to eMMC as that has been very difficult to find. There is a LOT of information out there but many of those articles have lead to nothing in terms of how to write my own customized Ubuntu OS to eMMC.

Wondering if you could share a link, url or information on what I need to get this done.

[StefanA]

Connect the eMMC chip on the source board to the eflasher.
When you use the eflasher program, read the whole eMMC to a binary image file.
Remove the eMMC chip from the source board and connect it to the target board.
Repeat steps 3–4 for as many eMMC chips on the target board as you need, flashing each one with the same source image.
Using sfdisk, you can also dump the partition table information and then make matching partitions on the destination boards.

Hi dermiscurious

How would I actually 'connect the eMMC chip' to eflasher?
On my R5C, the eMMC is soldered on the borad.

I was hoping to find something using an SD card, which carries the image, which will be copied to the eMMC and then resized to it. User must then shut down the board, remove the SD and reboot the board...

I need to clone 300 boards ...

Best
Stefan