BeagleBone Black Debian 13.6 2026-07-15 IoT (v6.18.x) USB ethernet is not getting stablished

General Discussion
1

hii

i flashed this latest image on the SD card using balena Etcher … and tried to boot-up my board. generally booting the board with Debian 10.0 image, its automatically establish the Ethernet connection and in my Ubuntu host PC i used to get two ip addresses 1st is 192.168.7.2 and 2nd is 192.168.6.2 … but when im using Debian 13.6 image .. im not getting any ip addresses and frequently one popup is appearing on my host pc with this message: “Connection Failed.. activation of network connection failed”.

after boot-up with older version my pc used to detect the beagle bone file system. with new image it also not appearing after boot.

2

just so i can test locally, did you leave the sysconf.txt file alone, or did you enable the usb-dhcp option?

PC:

[ 4675.005133] usb 3-3.4.4.2: new high-speed USB device number 15 using xhci_hcd
[ 4675.094830] usb 3-3.4.4.2: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0104, bcdDevice= 1.00
[ 4675.094842] usb 3-3.4.4.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[ 4675.094845] usb 3-3.4.4.2: Product: TI_AM335x_BeagleBone_Black
[ 4675.094848] usb 3-3.4.4.2: Manufacturer: BeagleBoard.org
[ 4675.124010] cdc_ncm 3-3.4.4.2:1.0: MAC-Address: 34:03:de:a2:c0:c3
[ 4675.124682] cdc_ncm 3-3.4.4.2:1.0 eth1: register 'cdc_ncm' at usb-0000:00:14.0-3.4.4.2, CDC NCM (NO ZLP), 34:03:de:a2:c0:c3
[ 4675.126445] cdc_acm 3-3.4.4.2:1.2: ttyACM1: USB ACM device

BBB

voodoo@bbb-usb-test:~$ cat /etc/dogtag 
BeagleBoard.org Debian Trixie Base Image 2026-07-15
voodoo@bbb-usb-test:~$ sudo ifconfig -a
[sudo] password for voodoo: 
eth0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether 34:03:de:a2:c0:c1  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536
        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0
        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>
        loop  txqueuelen 1000  (Local Loopback)
        RX packets 99  bytes 9215 (8.9 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 99  bytes 9215 (8.9 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

usb0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.7.2  netmask 255.255.255.252  broadcast 192.168.7.3
        inet6 fe80::3603:deff:fea2:c0c4  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 34:03:de:a2:c0:c4  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 40  bytes 7764 (7.5 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 43  bytes 8124 (7.9 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

PC:

voodoo@la-i5-1135G7:~$ sudo ifconfig -a eth1
eth1: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet6 fe80::e8c9:676b:ca67:b227  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 34:03:de:a2:c0:c3  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 46  bytes 6276 (6.1 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 45  bytes 9298 (9.0 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

BBB:

voodoo@bbb-usb-test:~$ sudo cat /etc/systemd/network/usb0.network 
[Match]
Name=usb0

[Network]
Address=192.168.7.2/30
DHCP=no
RequiredForOnline=no

[DHCPServer]
PoolSize=1
MaxLeaseTimeSec=20min
EmitDNS=no
EmitRouter=yes
EmitTimezone=no

Got it… some of our other changes complely broke this:

[Match]
Name=usb0

[Link]
RequiredForOnline=no

[Network]
Address=192.168.7.2/30
DHCP=no
DHCPServer=true

[DHCPServer]
PoolSize=1
MaxLeaseTimeSec=20min
EmitDNS=no
EmitRouter=yes
EmitTimezone=no
PersistLeases=runtime

Fix pushed.. bb-usb-gadgets (1.20260722.0) · beagleboard/repos-armhf@184cf83 · GitHub

Going to regenerate all images today…

3

7-22 for am335x devices is now out in bb-imager-rs: am335x: 13.6-iot/13.6-xfce/12.15-iot 2026-07-22 · beagleboard/distros@7f4c1fc · GitHub

7-22 image as is:

voodoo@la-i5-1135G7:~$ ssh 192.168.7.2
Debian GNU/Linux 13

BeagleBoard.org Debian Trixie Base Image 2026-07-22
Support: https://bbb.io/debian
default username is [voodoo]

voodoo@192.168.7.2's password: 

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Wed Jul 22 10:35:42 2026 from 192.168.7.1
voodoo@bbb-usb-test:~$
4

The newer images are a bit different but do make this a lot easier. I use an image with a local address alias (beaglebone.local instead of the IP addresses) and DHCP enabled. On my main laptop the Beagle is to be tethered to (connected over USB), I find I do have to manually “unshare” and then “share” its own internet connection (a wifi accesspoint in my case). But after a minute or so, the Beagle usually notices the new connection and the DHCP sets everything up automatically.

5

with this link im getting bmap file …. how should i integrate this file with my image?

and one more doubt … after these changes will it give Cloud9 access like it gives in debian 10 version?

6

i didn’t touched those files and not enabled usb-dhcp..

actually i recently started learning beagle bone black, and i dont have much idea about this much core settings.

7

Our flasher software BeagleBoard Imaging Utility :: BeagleBoard Imaging Utility

8

As the older Debian image still gives you the expected 192.168.7.2/192.168.6.2 connections, I’d first check whether the USB gadget Ethernet configuration changed in the newer image rather than assuming it’s a physical USB problem. On the BeagleBone, check ip link and ip addr to see whether the USB network interface is actually being created. On the Ubuntu host, ip link and journalctl -b | grep -i usb should also show whether the USB Ethernet gadget is being detected. If the interface exists but has no address, then DHCP/network configuration is the next thing to investigate. The fact that the board USB filesystem also stopped appearing with Debian 13.6 makes me suspect a change in the USB gadget configuration or kernel/device-tree setup. Comparing the gadget configuration between the working Debian 10 image and the new image would probably narrow it down quickly.