Difficulties with Pocketbeagle 2

General Discussion
1

I am more of a hobbyist with such things and purchased a PB2 hoping the quick research I did would be enough to get it going. The actual experience was disappointing, however.

I tried tethering the PB2 via USB on both a MacBook Air (Monterey) and an i5 running Windows 11. Neither worked to establish a network connection between the PB2 and computer. I then found out most of the information online assumed this connection was present. Any write-ups discussing troubleshooting the connection quickly became CLI based exploration. I was able to connect the MacBook but the experience was non-trivial. Note also the command line commands are quite different for MacOS and Windows and I found no specific descriptions of what was required.

Not available to everyone is the availability of a deal on a Techlab board. I inserted a TP-Link Nano in the USB port and it worked to establish a permanent network connection (Not on the 192.168.7.1 - 2 documented network but another that worked fine via SSH and could be used to see the onboard website for development.)

Is this failure to work as described recognized in the community? Online materials typically assume the connection works out of the box and quickly move on to development. Fighting to reach that point with very basic CLI networking research is interesting but not what was expected -

2

Hello Cliff.

Good to have you and we’re sorry you had a struggle getting stuff to work.

You mention information you’ve been looking at several times,
but provide no reference, so it’s a little hard to say if any of those are any good…

We’re always striving to make it easier to use Beagles,
so please consider helping us, helping others, by providing those sources.

If I’m not mistaken, the 7.2 network is generated by the “gadget” through USB-C,
so I think it’s fair to assume that a separate USB WiFi dongle
won’t be using that particular network. Again, please provide that source that gave you that idea.

Granted, the PB2 can be a little daunting to get up and running,
but to be fair, I don’t know how people expect it when you have something
that really needs a baseboard of some kind to really let loose all of that awesome power.
Perhaps that’s just me, idk…

3

Lars -

Thank you so much for your reply.

The requirement for a reliable memory card and a known working data-capable usb cable cannot be over-emphasized With these a USB serial console on the PB2 worked for both Mac and PC.

My intent is to point out the difficulty a new user might have if tethering doesn’t provide the 192.168.7.1 - .2 networking. I found no resource that provides console commands to establish the connection if it doesn’t work in auto for your operating system.

The Wifi Alternative

I did find one page where a simple USB interface is wired to the correct PB2 pins to connect a wifi dongle. The Techlab board is another solution. I used TP-Link Nano and found it a simpler and faster solution than serial line networking.

New users should be encouraged to pursue this option.

4

For what it’s worth, I thought the pb2 brough the Ethernet up on the usb, using most of the available ways, and think it did a dhcp on the ethernet. Can’t be sure, as I changed it to be inline with what the rest of my beagle farm do - e.g. Bring up the ethernet with all the farm on different I’m numbers. And able to know how to send stuff to the ethernet. Only hassle is enabling the pc the beagle farm attached, to forward the up packets to the right place, and in a way routing so Ethernet packets can be routed.

5

IIRC, connecting to PB2 was plug and play for me using the latest image from a few months ago.

I was able to plug my board into my laptop and easily ssh in over the virtual network setup over USB, USB-NCM.

With the board connected to my laptop over ssh, I ran ssh debian@192.168.7.2. I was able to connect in from both Windows11 and Fedora43. I was able to ssh back into my laptop from the PB2 doing ssh <my-username>@192.168.7.1

With Windows 11, I may have had to do some firewall stuff. I do not fully remember anymore… From Windows10, I had to do some fancy stuff to enable the USB-NCM driver.

6

Thank you Kevin -

On Windows 11 I had to install the driver for USBNcm Host Device. Upon plugging in the Pocketbeagle2 (without the Techlab / wireless dongle) the Network Communications Panel shows the Pocketbeagle with Unidentified Network as a USBNCM Host Device. It is DHCP enabled but has no IP Address or other IP information.

SSH or Ping simply time out as there is nothing at 192.168.7.1 or .2.

(edited) I DO have a console for the Pocketbeagle2 on a Com port.

I believe I could fill in the IP address on the Windows side but isn’t the Pocketbeagle supposed to respond to the connection and provide the correct addresses?

The Pocketbeagle2 also shows up on File Explorer as a small hard drive.

7

On windows 11, its’ best to enable Internet Connection Sharing.. Then thru ‘bb-imager’

Toggle this option:

image
image686×125 5.32 KB

It still doesn’t always work on windows thou..

Regards,

8

In the systemd-networkd think you just set up the interface to be a server - I’ll send the config when I get home. Not sure if it’s what is on the default pb2 image, but it’s the standard reliable method.

I’ve posted my method here.

9

While I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment, isn’t that a given?

No, I don’t think it’s fair to require people to buy extra options
when a solution, albeit a little difficult, exists.
What I think we should do, is put some effort into ironing out the remaining kinks,
so that people who follow “your trail” will have a better experience.

To that end, I still encourage you to link some of the resources you referenced,
so that we might (re-)evaluate their usefulness and maybe amend the Docs.

10

Notes on PB2 documentation that is limited if IP assignment fails

https://docs.beagleboard.org/pocketbeagle-2.pdf

Pages 11, 12 forward - text about “Tethered Connection”, anything referring to “192.168.7.2” will not work if the connection fails.

On my i5 PC I was able to connect to Ubuntu Live (running in memory) and get a console on PB2 - /ttyACM0 on the PC, device usb0 on the Pocketbeagle. I established the correct IP addresses manually and could access the 192.168.7.2 webpage from the PC. Attempts to access some of ports failed (Firefox?)

I did much the same on my MacBook Air w Monterey. Console, manual setup of IP, access to 192.168.7.2 webpage. I could load all of the sub-pages from the initial start page.

Re both of the above paragraphs-manual setup of routing is beyond me. Working on that …

Section 2.3.2 on Cape Connection could be expanded. Attached to that with a wifi dongle essentially solves the difficulty and once the correct IP address is known the user can move into the given examples.

Quick Start Guide — BeagleBoard Documentation

The section USB Connection assumes the IP address 192.168.7.2 is set with the attached PC at 192.168.7.1

Options for SSH and Visual Code Server will not work if the IP assignment failed. Neither will the script “pb2-internet.sh”

Connecting Up PocketBeagle — BeagleBoard Documentation

Good stuff but for the original PB. I do not believe the tethering is similar to PB2?

PocketBeagle 2 — Copter documentation

Links to an old boot image - have to try this one

It does assume tether / IP assignment works:

“Connect via SSH (ssh @192.168.7.2) and insert your password.”

I’ll continue visiting links I accessed and post here - -

11

Lots of good stuff we can sink our teeth into!

Thanks for taking the time to detail all of this stuff!

12

Just some side notes and back story..

For a long time, we used RNDIS as the default USB network interface.. in a Windows world it worked, WinXP → 10.. On Linux is also worked, this was our original 192.168.7.2. (We even got a signed RNDIS $ driver for awhile…)

The we started getting mac users, there was a custom RNDIS driver done by a third party that worked for awhile. We even shipped/supported the RNDIS driver development..

Apple eventually broke that driver again… Giving up we moved two a dual stack… RNDIS/NCM, now we could support both Windows and Apple (and Linux) with no driver installs eventually moved Apple to NCM… But now we had two ip address! 192.168.7.2 and 192.168.6.2 yay, all docs broken.. Go on for years like this explaining that Apple was a different ip block..

Windows 11 release..

Suddenly, Windows 11 supports NCM out of the box with no drivers!!! Yay!

So what do we do… we invert the usb ip domains… So now… Windows 11, Apple and LInux get NCM on 192.168.7.2 and those poor WinXP → Window 10 users on RNDIS get 192.168.6.2!

The Windows 11 NCM driver just works… I post a question for support: Signed NCM Driver for Windows 7, 8, and 10... · Issue #18 · microsoft/NCM-Driver-for-Windows · GitHub

I get the Support you expect from Windows…

Looking at our stack and Windows 10 EOL coming up October 14, 2025 i make my move… Debian Trixie (13.x) will no longer be dual network, stack.. It’s NCM only for me.

October 14, 2025 happens, my Debian Trixie (13.x) no longer support RNDIS… everything is NCM

Early 2026, Microsoft shoves Copilot down all our throats, all my Windows Machine no longer run Windows as of this reply.. i do have a couple windows 10 vm’s, but they run older software and a locked network..

In general… Linux and Apple, 192.168.7.2 works out of the box..

For Windows 11, enable ICS, and Enable USB DHCP in the flasher software: BeagleBoard Imager

Regards,

13

Robert - thank you for your candid response. I knew my issues were rooted in the support for three different OS.
As an aside I just asked ChatGPT what to do - “Switch to RNDIS” was it’s primary advice. Think I’ll hold off on that for now.
I had to add the USBNCM Host Adapter driver to my Win11 and it shows up now as a network adapter but doesn’t offer IP configuration? Stalled there.
My primary question now is why Ubuntu Live doesn’t work in full auto. Is there a missing driver, etc, or should I try a different distribution?

—-Cliff

1 Like
14

Interesting; you really shouldn’t have to install anything in Windows 11…
As for Ubuntu, what version are we talking about?

15

Re: Windows driver - When the IP assignment for the PB2 didn’t work I found this post:

https://forum.beagleboard.org/t/pocketbeagle-2-usb-network-access-from-windows-usb-ncm-driver/42001

As it describes I found a USB NCM device in “Other Devices” in Device Manager. I altered the driver to the one described and it now shows in “Network Adapters” but cannot be configured for IP in any network control panel.

Re:Ubuntu - It is the latest version.

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Let me try and install Windows 11 on a spare PC. I’m very curious as to whether I can reproduce.

What you’re referencing is for Windows 10 and that’s a done deal; no support any longer.

17

Well, I fixed the Windows 11 connection. IP assignment is working / still adjusting firewall settings but that’s unique to here.
The problem was I had inadvertently and unintentionally given the Pocketbeagle 2 the same hostname as the PC.

That doesn’t work.

With a new hostname the PB2 scripts work with the Windows 11 usbncm host driver to assign IP addresses correctly

1 Like
19

i have used the PB1 in the past and I tried to do the PB2. I had similar problems and decided not to mess with it anymore.

20

That’s a good one for an FAQ!

Glad you figured it out!

Added to our bb-imager-rs: [Bug] default [Set Hostname] default Can't be PC's [hostname] ¡ Issue #351 ¡ beagleboard/bb-imager-rs ¡ GitHub

Regards,

21

I’ll be sure to add this to the documentation!