Quickstart

NervesKeys must be provisioned before they're used. The NervesKey Quickstart firmware is the easiest way of doing this and it will prepare you for automating the provisioning steps in the future.

Prerequisites

To work through this tutorial, you'll need any Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone device. The NervesKey Quickstart firmware configures Raspberry Pi Zero, Zero W, 3 Model A+, and any BeagleBone-compatible device in what's called gadget mode. In gadget mode, the device uses a USB cable for power, serial console, and networking. We recommend using these devices if they're available. The other devices require a HDMI monitor and keyboard or a wired Ethernet connection.

Downloading the Firmware

Find the appropriate firmware or zip file here. If you're using fwup to write images to MicroSD cards, download the .fw extension and if you're using etcher, get the zip file. Releases are named by the boards they support:

• bbb - BeagleBone Black, BeagleBone Green, PocketBeagle, etc.

• rpi0 - Raspberry Pi Zero or Zero W

• rpi - The original Raspberry Pi Model B

• rpi2 Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

• rpi3 - Raspberry Pi 3 Model B and Model B+

• rpi3a - Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+

• rpi4 - Raspberry Pi 4 Model B

Once that's done, you're ready to burn the firmware to the MicroSD card.

Burning the Firmware

Navigate to the directory where you downloaded the firmware. We'll go through both fwup and etcher methods.

To be clear, this formats your SD card, and you will lose all data on the SD card. Make sure you're OK with that.

fwup

$ fwup nerves_key_quickstart_rpi0.fw
Use 15.84 GB memory card found at /dev/rdisk2? [y/N] y

Depending on your OS, you'll likely be asked to authenticate this action. Go ahead and do so.

|====================================| 100% (31.81 / 31.81) MB
Success!
Elapsed time: 3.595 s

It's quite fast. Now you have Nerves ready to run on your device. Skip ahead to the next section.

etcher

Start etcher, point it to the zip file, and follow the prompts:

etcher

Testing the Firmware

Eject the SD card and insert it into the device that you're using. Power up and connect the device with a USB cable. In the case of the rpi0, the micro USB does both.

Once the device boots, you can now connect to it.