[Bela] Beagleboard Black not showing up as network inteface on Gentoo Linux 6.1.28

Good day.

I hope you can help me.

I have a Bela board. It’s a realtime audio extension for the Beaglebone Black.

Based on documentation of both Bela and Beaglebone Black, when I plug the device into my notebook with a USB cable, it’s suppose to show up as a USB networking interface, which will allow me to SSH onto the device or access a web GUI.

Thus far I have tried enabling a number of kernel build flags without success.

Posting some output from commands, which I hope will prove useful. Would appreciate any help or guidance.

> dmesg

Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: usb 3-1: new high-speed USB device number 13 using xhci_hcd
Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: usb 3-1: New USB device found, idVendor=1d6b, idProduct=0104, bcdDevice= 1.02
Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: usb 3-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: usb 3-1: Product: Bela
Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: usb 3-1: Manufacturer: Augmented Instruments Ltd
Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: usb 3-1: SerialNumber: __bela__
Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: usb-storage 3-1:1.4: USB Mass Storage device detected
Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: scsi host8: usb-storage 3-1:1.4
Jun 11 22:08:48 tpw540 kernel: cdc_acm 3-1:1.5: ttyACM0: USB ACM device
Jun 11 22:08:49 tpw540 kernel: scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Linux    File-Stor Gadget 0414 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
Jun 11 22:08:49 tpw540 kernel: sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
> ifconfig -a

enp0s25: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet6 fe80::56ee:75ff:fe12:962b  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether 54:ee:75:12:96:2b  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
        device interrupt 20  memory 0xb2a00000-b2a20000  

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 134  bytes 19911 (19.4 KiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 134  bytes 19911 (19.4 KiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

sit0: flags=128<NOARP>  mtu 1480
        sit  txqueuelen 1000  (IPv6-in-IPv4)
        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

wlp3s0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        inet 192.168.8.125  netmask 255.255.255.0  broadcast 192.168.8.255
        inet6 fe80::c066:70fe:1647:b634  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>
        ether e8:2a:ea:60:37:e0  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 79335  bytes 72631515 (69.2 MiB)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 49324  bytes 20883793 (19.9 MiB)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
> lsusb

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:8000 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:8008 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 138a:0017 Validity Sensors, Inc. VFS 5011 fingerprint sensor
Bus 003 Device 004: ID 29ea:0102 Kinesis Corporation Advantage2 Keyboard
Bus 003 Device 012: ID 046d:c077 Logitech, Inc. Mouse
Bus 003 Device 008: ID 0765:5010 X-Rite, Inc. X-Rite Pantone Color Sensor
Bus 003 Device 007: ID 5986:026a Bison Electronics Inc. Integrated Camera
Bus 003 Device 006: ID 8087:07dc Intel Corp. Bluetooth wireless interface
Bus 003 Device 013: ID 1d6b:0104 Linux Foundation Multifunction Composite Gadget
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
> lsmod

Module                  Size  Used by
wireguard              81920  0
nvidia_drm             61440  5
curve25519_x86_64      36864  1 wireguard
libcurve25519_generic    49152  2 curve25519_x86_64,wireguard
libchacha20poly1305    16384  1 wireguard
nvidia_modeset       1155072  7 nvidia_drm
chacha_x86_64          28672  1 libchacha20poly1305
libchacha              16384  1 chacha_x86_64
poly1305_x86_64        28672  1 libchacha20poly1305
iwlmvm                385024  0
mac80211              827392  1 iwlmvm
iwlwifi               368640  1 iwlmvm
x86_pkg_temp_thermal    20480  0
uvcvideo              110592  0
videobuf2_vmalloc      16384  1 uvcvideo
cfg80211              831488  3 iwlmvm,iwlwifi,mac80211
videobuf2_memops       16384  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
btusb                  45056  0
btrtl                  20480  1 btusb
videobuf2_v4l2         28672  1 uvcvideo
btbcm                  20480  1 btusb
videobuf2_common       57344  4 videobuf2_vmalloc,videobuf2_v4l2,uvcvideo,videobuf2_memops
cdc_acm                32768  0
btintel                36864  1 btusb
thinkpad_acpi         110592  0
platform_profile       16384  1 thinkpad_acpi
nvidia              34836480  403 nvidia_modeset
fuse                  131072  3
efivarfs               16384  1
> grep "USB_NET" /usr/src/linux/.config

CONFIG_USB_NET_DRIVERS=m
CONFIG_USB_NET_AX8817X=m
CONFIG_USB_NET_AX88179_178A=m
CONFIG_USB_NET_CDCETHER=m
CONFIG_USB_NET_CDC_EEM=m
CONFIG_USB_NET_CDC_NCM=m
# CONFIG_USB_NET_HUAWEI_CDC_NCM is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_CDC_MBIM is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_DM9601 is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_SR9700 is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_SR9800 is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_SMSC75XX is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_SMSC95XX is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_GL620A is not set
CONFIG_USB_NET_NET1080=m
# CONFIG_USB_NET_PLUSB is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_MCS7830 is not set
CONFIG_USB_NET_RNDIS_HOST=m
CONFIG_USB_NET_CDC_SUBSET_ENABLE=m
CONFIG_USB_NET_CDC_SUBSET=m
CONFIG_USB_NET_ZAURUS=m
# CONFIG_USB_NET_CX82310_ETH is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_KALMIA is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_QMI_WWAN is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_INT51X1 is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_CH9200 is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_AQC111 is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET_RNDIS_WLAN is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET2272 is not set
# CONFIG_USB_NET2280 is not set
> grep "GADGET" /usr/src/linux/.config

CONFIG_USB_GADGET=m
# CONFIG_USB_GADGET_DEBUG_FILES is not set
# CONFIG_USB_GADGET_DEBUG_FS is not set
CONFIG_USB_GADGET_VBUS_DRAW=2
CONFIG_USB_GADGET_STORAGE_NUM_BUFFERS=2
CONFIG_GADGET_UAC1=y
# CONFIG_GADGET_UAC1_LEGACY is not set
CONFIG_USB_GADGETFS=m
CONFIG_USB_MIDI_GADGET=m
CONFIG_USB_RAW_GADGET=m

Quick update.

I have managed to get it to work, thanks to a response on the Gentoo forum

In a nutshell…

Loaded required module with the following command:

modprobe rndis_host

Also, I installed the sys-apps/usb_modeswitch package.

Will spend some trial-and-error time tonight to:

  • remove unneeded kernel config flags
  • check whether the usb_modeswitch package is necessary
  • get rndis_host module to autoload for the Beaglebone Black.